Spatial development of socio-economic systems in VolRC RAS research

Russia, as the largest country in the world by area, has enormous, but unfortunately, currently insufficiently effectively used spatial potential, which, in the context of exacerbation of geopolitical and other challenges of the external and internal environment, can act as one of the key endogenous factors in the development of the country. This actualizes the need to develop and implement a scientifically sound state policy of spatial development at the federal, macro- and regional levels, aimed at revealing the potential of urbanized and non-urbanized territories, including on the basis of network forms of their interaction. The article considers the main stages of evolution and directions of research in Vologda Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the problems of spatial development of socio-economic systems of various levels of hierarchy, which has actually been end-to-end since its foundation in 1990. The paper shows that the range of issues studied, the methodology, as well as the tools used have been constantly evolving. In particular, in the studies of spatial development there was a transition from the regional (Vologda Region) to the macroregional (European North of Russia, Northwestern Federal District) and federal levels. The staff mastered new promising methods and tools for conducting research (GIS, methods of analyzing big data, spatial econometrics, etc.), the information base expanded: data aggregation services were actively used (Kontur.Fokus, List-Org, AVITO, CIAN, etc.), data from the Federal Tax Service, as well as data obtained from our requests to Rosstat, surveys of residents, heads of municipalities, business entities, big data from the social media VKontakte, etc. The key results obtained, their scientific and practical significance are presented, promising areas for further research in this problematic field are substantiated. The article allows assessing the contribution of Vologda scientists to the development of theory, methodology, as well as institutional and instrumental support for the spatial development of Russia and its regions in the context of exacerbating modern challenges