Improving the Quality of University Inventions to Accelerate Technological Development

The purpose of this study is to explore opportunities for improving the quality of the inventive process in Russian universities. The relevance of the research stems from the need to create advanced technologies based on inventive activity. The results were obtained through the analysis of data from Rospatent, academic publications, and a survey of experienced university inventors. The analysis and interpretation were carried out using literature review, expert evaluations, content analysis, and systems analysis. The study of indicators of inventive activity efficiency substantiates the necessity of supplementing them with a quality indicator. The influence of inventions of varying quality levels on industrial development was analyzed. The study identified specific features of university inventors’ activities and examined the complexity of the problems they address. It was found that most inventors focus on solving low- to medium-level problems. A comparison of methods used by university inventors with those of the Algorithm for Inventive Problem Solving (ARIZ) revealed methodological resources for improving the quality of university inventions. The paper presents a model for organizing university inventive activity aimed at enhancing invention quality. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the justification of an additional criterion for assessing the effectiveness of inventive activity and in the proposed model of university invention management, which can increase universities’ contribution to technological leadership.