Role and place of industrial regions in technological development: current state and directions of technological transformation

Since Russia's technological development lags behind leading countries, the need for technological sovereignty in the face of external challenges, significant differentiation of regions in terms of technological development, and the need to develop new technologies require scientific research of a theoretical, methodological and applied nature. The authors of the article focused on the role of industrial regions in the development of the country, analyzed the current state and assessed the level of their technological development. This approach determined the structure and logic of the work. The paper aims to determine the role and place of industrial regions in the technological development of the economy, assessing the current state and directions of their further technological transformation. The study focuses on industrial regions of the Russian Federation. The research methods include thematic review of sources, statistical and structural analysis, integral method for assessing technological development, positioning of industrial regions by level of technological development. The hypothesis was the assumption that industrial regions are drivers of technological development in terms of their role in the development of the Russian economy and the level of technological development in the traditional and high-tech sectors of the regional economy. The results obtained are as follows. The paper shows the contribution of industrial regions to the gross regional product of the Russian Federation, demonstrates the share of industrial regions in the total volume of manufacturing industry and compares the dynamics of the growth rate of the manufacturing industry on average for a group of industrial regions and on average for the Russian Federation. The study presented the methodology and made the assessment of the technological development of the regions of the Russian Federation (85 subjects), including industrial regions (10 subjects) in relation to the traditional and high-tech sectors of the regional economy. The ranking of industrial regions was carried out based on an assessment of technological development. The study also identified the differentiation of regions by technological development and proposed directions for their further technological development.