Regional project office as an organizational innovation of public administration

The article presents the results of studying the evolution and modern practice of project management in public authorities. We have generalized system of views on the regional project offi ce as an organizational innovation of public administration. Regional project offi ces can be attributed to organizational innovations in the public sector, as they have novelty elements and change the functions and ways of functioning of public authorities. The article demonstrates Russian and foreign scientifi c approaches and practical experience in organizing project activities in the public sector, in particular the creation and development of project offi ces. Based on the contextual analysis of regulatory documents regulating the project activities of the subjects of the Northwestern Federal District, reports, ratings and open data on the Internet, we have investigated the work of regional project offi ces. As a result, we have substantiated the problems that require scientifi cally based solutions - methodological, organizational, informational, low-level application of participatory design. The main problem of the effective work of regional project offi ces is the mixing of project and ongoing activities. This is also evident in the part of the organization, as project offi ces at the level of Russia’s entities are essentially temporary working groups. At the regional level, functions related to the implementation of the project are carried out, but according to the methodology, these are no longer the functions of the project offi ce, but the operational activities of executive authorities. Project offi ces can accelerate the socio-economic development ofRussia’s entities when their structural and functional organization changes.