Prioritizing and substantiating of innovative development of an industrial region

The relevance of the problem is related to the necessity of solving a contradiction between the increasing of investment into formation innovative infrastructure and the achievable results of the activity. Low level of competitive ability of the major part of Russian goods does not allow them to compete not only on the foreign markets, and within the domestic one as well. The research aims at developing approaches to choosing priorities of innovative development with regard to regional economy, and special attention is paid to the fact that for sustainable regional development it is necessary to “complicate” economy and improve its diversification. Statistical methods of study, methods of optimization, and production functions were used in this work. Results: models were developed for which priorities of innovative development were calculated for the Chelyabinsk Region. Key conclusions: for successful development of innovative activities in industrial regions it is necessary to create a regional register of industrial technologies; and when choosing priorities of innovative development, it is reasonable to proceed from the criterion on economical complexity of a region.