Innovation activity issues in the regions and the possible directions of state innovation policy aimed to solve them

Countries that are leaders in innovation development have been implementing initiatives to develop their own technological base and efforts to strengthen international relations to enable advanced international developments and practices; this has become a most important trend of recent decades. One of the key points of international cooperation in the sphere of innovations is sharing experience, which confirms the need to develop cooperation at the regional level, because each region has its own specific need for the generation and transfer of different resources and innovation results. In this regard, the adoption of balanced management decisions requires the presence of adequate information about the current state of affairs. It is necessary to analyze the development of innovation activity, which helps get an overview of region’s innovative potential and their potential for the development of international innovation cooperation. A factor in the development of international innovation cooperation that is a focus of many scientific works is the geographical position of the territories; and by the number of countries leading in innovation development the first place in the world belongs to Europe. From this point of view, the most favorable situation in the Russian Federation is observed in regions of the Northwestern Federal District. The research conducted by the author earlier has determined that these regions belong to one and the same group according to prerequisites for the development of international innovation cooperation (they not only import but also export technology, carry out commercialization of the results of innovation activity in foreign markets, attract financial resources in innovation activity from abroad). In this regard, the paper presents the results of a research on innovation activity in regions of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation. The author defines the role of development of international innovation cooperation as an area of state management of innovation activities. The article highlights the specifics of innovation activity and international cooperation that should be taken into consideration when improving the state innovative policy measures, including those at the regional level.