The potential of Russian universities’ small innovative enterprises in an innovative economy

The aim of this paper is to identify the potential of Russian universities’ small innovative enterprises (SIEs) in developing an innovative economy and in intensifying the innovative activity of the regions. The authors analyze a set of indicators for the regions and federal districts of the country by the level of a region’sinnovative activity; the universities’ place in the ranking; the year of SIE’s appearance; its belonging to the university, to the federal district, to the region; type of activity; revenue; the complex indicator of SIE’s reliability and its risks. To find out how territorially different the SIE’s functioning is, the authors proposed the indicator «the number of SIE per 1 university, unit/university». The object of the study were 1950 SIEs from 422 universities of the country. The study is based on the data of the university ranking prepared with the support of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, the Information System for Accounting and Monitoring of SIE in the Scientific, Technical and Educational Spheres, the Federal State Statistics Service, the Portal for Checking Counterparties (Rusprofile.ru), as well as on the current strategies for the social and economic development of Russian regions. The results of the study indicate that today SIEs cannot fully manifest themselves as locomotives to develop knowledge-intensive, innovative business, a tool for increasing a region’sinnovative activity and the competitiveness of educational institutions. Neither can they form the supporting framework of an innovative economy. A possible way to solve this problem is to develop effective mechanisms for collecting, summarizing and replicating the best practices for organizing SIE’s activities within the universities, as well as for involving professors in innovative activities. The results of the study might be of interest to regional executive authorities, to university leaders and to those who manage small innovative enterprises in higher education institutions.