Main directions of innovative and investment development of the Volga regions

Introduction: issues of innovative and investment development of Russia's economy gain greater significance, as determined by the modern policy of import substitution. In the WTO, domestic enterprises and goods have to openly compete with producers from the developed countries, whose competitiveness and efficiency are higher not only because of the close integration of science and production, but also because of the availability of investment resources. At the same time, it can be argued that despite the high frequency of coverage of this issue in the scientific literature, the prospects of innovative and investment development of the country's economy are not fully defined. Materials and Methods: when preparing the article, the author used materials from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, scientific works by Russian scientists on the considered topic. The following research methods were used: statistical and economic, monographic, abstract and logical, calculation and structural ones. Results: the study analyzes the current state of the innovative sphere of the Volga regions. The structure of incoming patent applications and that of the issued titles of protection of intellectual property were considered, as well as the amounts of development and use of the advanced production technologies. The share of organizations carrying out different types of innovation and innovative goods, works, services in the total volume of goods delivered was identified. The dynamics of internal costs and the number of personnel employed in the field of scientific research and development was shown. Investments in fixed capital in the whole country and in the Volga regions were analyzed. The growth of most indicators of innovative development of the Volga regions was identified, which may indicate the success of the measures to achieve import substitution in the sphere of high technology. Discussion and Conclusions: the conducted study of the practical experience of innovative organizations in the Volga regions made it possible to identify the prospects of development and main problems of the inventive activity. The organizational and economic mechanism of innovative and investment development was elaborated, the implementation of which will allow to increase the investment attractiveness of the sphere of development and volume of production of innovative products.