On the Issue of Attitude to Scientific and Technological Relations and Assessment of its State in the Russian Economy

Moreva Evgeniya L'vovna ORCID: 0000-0001-6355-7808 PhD in Economics Deputy Director of the Institute for Financial and Industrial Policy, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation 125167, Russia, Moscow, Leningradsky Prospekt, 49 elmoreva@fa.ru Other publications by this author

Bekulova Suzanna Robertinovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1384-4694 Junior Scientific Associate, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation 125993, Russia, Moscow, Leningradskii Prospekt, 49 suzi.94@mail.ru Other publications by this author

IntroductionThe conditions of economic activity in Russia that changed at the beginning of 2022 in connection with the application of sanctions against it did not reduce, but rather increased the urgency of carrying out a serious modernization of the national economy, production and effective development of scientific knowledge, on this basis, the development and introduction of modern equipment and technologies into production.

These imperatives are reflected in the latest documents of the country's leadership, including the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation, the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, the Consolidated Strategy for the Development of the Manufacturing Industry of the Russian Federation, the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On measures to ensure the technological independence and security of critical information infrastructure of the Russian Federation", Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On National development Goals of the Russian Federation", etc.

They act as a logical continuation and development of the previously proclaimed tasks of achieving breakthrough development of the Russian Federation, improving the welfare of the country and achieving high growth rates and qualitative development of national production.

The effective solution of these tasks requires, first of all, taking into account the current state of domestic production from the standpoint of the application of scientific knowledge, the creation and introduction of new technologies and techniques, which are usually formulated in terms of scientific and technical potential. To analyze and evaluate its effectiveness, to formulate proposals for its development and effective application in practice is the subject of this article.

Problems of defining the concept of scientific and technical potentialThe relevance of this problem reflects the increasingly widespread appeal of Russian researchers to the concept of scientific and technological potential (NTPOTENTS).

However, at the same time, its clear definitions are absent or are actually identified with the concept of scientific and technical potential (NTECHNOLP).

The analysis of the available approaches provides a basis for distinguishing the two above-mentioned concepts and concluding that it is appropriate to use them in determining the possibilities of using the achievements of domestic science, technology and technology in order to ensure effective economic development.

The study of the available definitions of scientific and technical potential allows us to distinguish three main approaches to its interpretation. Some authors focus on the allocation of resource components necessary for the implementation of mainly scientific or scientific and technical activities, others focus on taking into account the results of such activities in the form of new knowledge and the application of this knowledge in practice, others pay special attention to the process of formation of scientific and technical potential, while taking into account both scientific and technical resources and results their applications.

A typical example of the first approach is the position of A.N. Avdulov and A.M. Kulkin, who refer to the scientific and technical potential of the personnel, material, financial and information resources of the national scientific and technical sphere, as well as organizational and managerial structures that ensure its functioning ^[1]. At the same time, however, the question remains open about the insufficiency of the given list of resources for evaluating the work of this area. In this regard, the position of E.G. Vasilevsky, V.A. Zhamin and some other researchers who also consider educational potential to be resource areas of scientific and technical potential looks logical ^[2].

Such an expansion of the number of components, however, does not solve the problem of the sufficiency of their allocation for the assessment of scientific and technical potential and requires taking into account its other characteristics.

Among the latter is the special quality of resources highlighted by M.A. Bendikov and E.Y. Khrustalev - their balanced, or "integrated" nature. Referring to it, the authors define scientific and technical potential as an organized set of interrelated (our italics, - E.M., S.B.) conditions and resources that ensure the reproduction of proven knowledge and the possibility of obtaining new, as well as organizational and managerial conditions available for this, allowing for a normative period of time to develop technical innovations ^[3].

Rightly focusing on such a systemic nature of resources sufficient for the reproduction of knowledge and their use in order to create technical innovations, the researchers, however, do not disclose how this process occurs. Thus, while increasingly clarifying the definition of scientific and technical potential (in comparison with the first of the above-mentioned groups of authors), they, nevertheless, do not disclose an important substantive aspect of the concept explaining the expediency of its allocation.

Attempts to solve the issue of the sufficiency of resources and conditions for the development of science, technology, technology and their effective use in production are made by another group of authors, focusing on the links between science, technology and economics.

A typical example of such efforts is the definition of the scientific and technical potential of L.S. Blyakhman, by which he understood the results of research and development, which were proposed to be evaluated by the amount of scientific and technical information (our italics, - E.M., S.B.) ^[4].  The reference to this indicator indicates the author's desire to bring together, summarize the results of various types of intellectual activity in order to evaluate them for use in economic operations. At the same time, the above approach does not reflect the conditions necessary and sufficient for the effective impact of an information signal on its recipients, which does not allow the proposed definition to be considered sufficiently complete.

The connection of science, technology and economics is more clearly presented in the definition of the scientific and technical potential of A.N. Folomiev. He interpreted it as a unity of resources related to the scientific and technical sphere and the effectiveness of their use (in production - E.M., S.B.) ^[5]. Thus, the author actually recognized the importance of such resources for the economy and the effective response to them on the part of its subjects.

These ideas were further developed in the definitions of K.A. Gulin, V.A. Ilyin, M.F. Sychev and a number of other authors. The researchers emphasized the importance of the complex of prerequisites necessary for the economic use of scientific and technical knowledge and developments, linking it with the development of economic space. By scientific and technical potential, they understood the totality of resources and results of scientific and technical activities implemented in certain organizational and managerial conditions for the long-term development of the territory and increasing its competitiveness ^[6].

At the same time, many other areas of the impact of science and technology on the economy remained out of the field of view of researchers. They were reflected in the definitions of scientific and technical potential of other authors.

P.A. Kulvets linked this category with the creation of new products, the intensification of economic management, changes in the conditions and nature of labor, increasing the efficiency of social production ^[7].

Detailing this connection, J. A. Petrovskoy and a number of other analysts identified a complex of functionally defined resources in the concept of scientific and technical potential. Among them are such as:

- resources for the implementation of R&D (fixed assets and other funds necessary for R&D, their information support and organizational management of their use);

- personnel capable of creating and implementing new scientific and technical ideas, finding new areas of application of scientific and technical results, performing scientific, pedagogical, organizational and informational activities;

- banks of scientific knowledge, patents, copyright certificates and other other results of scientific and technical activities (advanced technologies, etc.);

- research funding and management at micro-meso- and macro-levels;

- organizational and infrastructural support of scientific and technical activities, including research centers engaged in R&D and economic organizations applying the results obtained by these centers ^[8].

At the same time, however, it remained unclear how fully the specified set of resources is reflected in this approach, whether it exhausts the functionality of scientific and technical potential as a whole and whether it determines its main subject.

The search for answers to them is actively undertaken within the framework of the so-called resultant approach to the definition of scientific and technical potential, in which special attention is paid to its condition in enterprises. Proponents of this approach note that the ability to generate new scientific and technical ideas, carry out their technological and design study and implement them into economic practice determine the ability of enterprises to achieve many of their goals and increase competitiveness. Hence, special attention is paid to the definition of such opportunities for different economic entities belonging to different aggregate levels. Such a priority, however, pushed aside the definition of a set of indicators for assessing scientific and technical potential. Within the framework of the resulting approach, this question remained open ^[9].

At the same time, it seemed to solve it by referring to the previously mentioned interpretations of scientific and technical potential. Acting as the next stage of the scientific search for the definition of this category, he did not contradict them in fact, acting as their peculiar development. This allowed him to more fully incorporate previously made developments and develop on this basis, more and more fully reflecting the multidimensionality of the category under study.

At the same time, within the framework of this approach, an important stage of the transfer of scientific and technical knowledge into production, namely, the production and implementation of technologies, remained out of sight.

However, when researching scientific and technical potential, its presence was often implied. However, this component was not singled out as an independent object necessary for taking into account the assessment of production capabilities to master scientific and technical knowledge.

Meanwhile, being a separate functional area that ensures the transfer of knowledge into production, the development, transfer and development of technologies necessarily required their consideration when assessing the relevant production capabilities. It is natural, therefore, that ignoring this area in the definitions of scientific and technical potential did not allow the effective use of this category in assessing the readiness of the economy to master knowledge. This circumstance forced us to use the above concept with caution, analyze the reasons for refusing to take into account the technological component when considering it, evaluate them and, if necessary, turn to a broader concept that includes it.

Technologies and the concept of scientific and technological potential: qualitative aspectsAccording to the literature available to us, the restrained attitude towards technology in economic development is partly due to the origin of this term and stereotypes in its interpretation.

Initially, they designated craft art, including skills acquired in the profession and ideas about tools and labor operations ^[10]. This served as the basis for the formation of an attitude to technology as to the production procedures characteristic of the pre-manufacturing stage of production. Such interpretations of them did not correspond to the current stage of scientific and technological development and knowledge-based economic development, which made the use of the term NTPOTENTS seem untenable.

In addition, in a number of countries, including Russia, the concept of technology is often accompanied by the identification of its adjective "technological" with the term "technical" and their use as synonymous. This approach is also found today, for example, in domestic regulatory and other regulatory documents (Federal Law No. 127-FZ of 23.08.1996 (ed. of 02.07.2021) "On Science and State Scientific and Technical Policy" (with amendments and additions, intro. effective from 01.09.2021); Federal Law No. 172-FZ dated 28.06.2014 (as amended on 31.07.2020) "On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation" (Article 22. Forecast of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation); Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 01.12.2016 No. 642 (as amended on 15.03.2021) "On the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation Federation").

This, in turn, contributes to the identification of related concepts, including those related to the development potential and economic development of science, technology and technology.   

Meanwhile, the practice of modern production has brought to the fore the problem of choosing a way to convert resources into products from their many available options.

The consistency of the appeal to the category of technologies is also indicated by the variety of interpretations of this concept offered today. For example, modern analysts distinguish narrow and broad interpretations of technologies, in which technologies denote, respectively, either only ways of converting resources into products, or also knowledge about such methods ^[11-13]. In contrast to the first of these approaches, the expansive one acts as a kind of continuation and development of the concept of NTPOTENTS, testifies to an organic connection with it, which is important for taking into account not only in theory, but also in solving practical problems of economic development of knowledge.

At the same time, such an expansive interpretation of technologies veils the specifics of knowledge production, hides its functional purpose not only as a separate stage in the process of their economic use, but also as an independent type of activity.

The separation of these assignments and the emphasis on the special role of technologies in assessing the possibilities of applying knowledge in production determines the expediency of introducing the concept of scientific and technological potential (NTECHNOLP) into the circulation of scientific and economic activities. It is proposed to understand by it the totality of the results of activities in the fields of science, development and production of equipment and technologies obtained through the use of various resources for this purpose, which it is possible and appropriate to apply to successfully solve the problems of current and future development of economic entities, including in relation to their competitiveness, sustainable growth and other significant characteristics.

In turn, the importance of purposeful work with this potential, i.e. managing its implementation, requires, accordingly, its quantitative definition. Some approaches to solving this problem are contained in the NTPotent metrics contained in the specialized literature.

Determination of quantitative indicators of scientific and technological potentialToday, technology is associated with a significant part of the numerous, more or less complex sets of parameters and quantitative indicators taken into account in the assessment of NTPOTENTS.

Some of them relate to indicators of essential conditions "at the entrance" to the field of production and technology development, as well as factors influencing these first ones. These include, for example, the number of patent applications and patents granted for inventions and utility models, the number of personnel engaged in research and development (both indicators per 10,000 people), the share of internal research and development costs (as a percentage of GDP).

Another group of indicators are those that reflect the state of technology as such and allow us to judge the prospects for their further development and development. These include indicators of the diversity of technological knowledge and the national infrastructure that ensures their further development, the organizational abilities of firms as subjects of mastering these technologies, the flow of technological knowledge into and out of the country on product, capital, non-materialized and other media (e.g., foreign trade operations; foreign direct investment; cross-border movement of intellectual property, etc.) ^[14].

A typical historical example of a set of similar indicators of the second half of the XX century are the indicators of the Japanese "White Paper on Science and Technology". They formed two consolidated indicators reflecting the achieved level of scientific and technological development and the possibilities for its further improvement.

The first one is made up of indicators of the number of registered patents for inventions, the value volumes of foreign trade in licenses, exports of high-tech products and value added created in the manufacturing industry.

Their values for Japan were compared with similar values for other countries, calculating both as a percentage of the total value of this indicator for all analyzed countries. Then, for each country, the arithmetic mean of the four indicators calculated in this way was determined. According to the authors, it showed the level of scientific and technical development achieved by each state.

The possibilities of its further improvement were proposed to be determined through the arithmetic mean of the above and two more indicators: the effectiveness of R&D and the volume of resources attracted for the production of knowledge. The effectiveness of R&D is defined as the arithmetic mean of the volume of export licenses and the number of patents obtained abroad, calculated by the same method as in the first case. And the volume of resources attracted is obtained as a weighted average of R&D costs and the number of researchers ^[15].

The given composition of indicators and the order of their calculations indicates that, according to the authors of the "White Paper on Science and Technology", the main idea of the NTPOTENTS is given by indicators of the technological stage of the process of introducing knowledge into economic life.

In fact, this position was shared by their critics. They expressed doubts about the correctness of using Western data sources and comparing the information obtained from them with Japanese ^[16]. The calculation of the arithmetic mean and the choice of one or another number of compared national subjects were also considered unreasonable, which influenced the results obtained. However, the initial indicators did not cause objections. It was only proposed to supplement them with data on the sector of scientific personnel training, as well as on the state of material, technical and information support for R&D ^[17].

These shortcomings were largely deprived of another set of indicators for the assessment of the national NTPOTENTS, developed since 1987 under the auspices of the US National Science Foundation at the Center for Technical Policy and Evaluation (Science and Engineering Indicators, SEI).

The initial version of the report consisted of four complex indicators: the so-called "national orientation" (characterizes cooperation between the public and private sectors, the risk factor of investments in the country's economy, expert assessment of national development strategies); socio-economic infrastructure (including the presence of dynamic capital markets, capital growth, the level of foreign investment, national investment in education); technological infrastructure (indicators of the activity of national academic science, the system of intellectual property rights protection, the relationship of science with industry, the ability of the economy to effectively use technical knowledge) and production potential (the current level of high-tech production, the quality and productivity of the workforce, the quality of production management, the annual production of electronic equipment) ^[18].

Statistical data and expert assessments were used in their calculation. Each component of them was translated into a scale of 0-100 (100 is the maximum values of the indicator for the most advanced country, 0 is the minimum), then the values obtained were added (their weights are considered the same) and the average was found, which formed the desired value. On this basis, the countries were ranked ^[17].

Since the 2020 edition, Science and Technology Indicators (SEIS) have been revised and redesigned to make them as useful and accessible to a wide audience as possible. It has evolved from a single voluminous report into a series of disaggregated and ordered reports on key indicators and key findings of the scientific and technological development of the United States, which are published on a regular basis ^[19].

Currently, the list of publications of the National Science Foundation includes thematic reports on the following areas: elementary and secondary mathematics and STEM education (STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics); higher education; STEM workforce; research and development: trends in the United States and international comparisons; publications: American and international trends; academic research and development; inventions, knowledge transfer and innovations; production and trade of knowledge-intensive goods; science and technology: public opinion, awareness and sources of information ^[19].

Claiming to have a comprehensive and balanced view of the state and possibilities of further economic development of not only science and technology, but also technologies, American SEIS, however, do not stop at the analysis of information and communication and/or digital technologies.

The concepts of "information technologies, IT" and "information and communication technologies, ICT" in the economic literature are often used as synonyms, since the transition to digital technologies occurs against the background and as a result of the development of IT.

IT, ICT is a general term for the entire spectrum of information processing technologies, including software, hardware, communication technologies and related services (Gartner Glossary). According to the methods of information conversion, IT is divided into analog and digital. Digital technologies are based on a discrete way of representing information in the form of numbers (usually using a binary number system).

Meanwhile, today the enormous economic potential contained in them, its rapid development and the ambiguous consequences of implementation require the development of indicators that allow us to see and evaluate various aspects of these technologies, including their impact on the economy and society, when assessing scientific and technological potential.

Certain groundwork for this is already available in the specialized literature.

Thus, to assess the state and prospects of ICT development in different countries of the world, the International Telecommunication Union has developed and proposed an Index of ICT Development in different countries of the world. It is formed by 11 indicators grouped into three subindexes – infrastructure and access (readiness for ICT), intensity (use of ICT), skills (ICT capabilities).  Of these, the following indicators can be attributed to the number of indicators characterizing NTPOTENTS: "the bandwidth of international Internet channels", "the proportion of households with a personal computer", "the weight of households with Internet access", "the literacy rate of the adult population", "the proportion of students of higher educational institutions in the total population".

Currently, the compilation of the ICT Development Index has been suspended. Since 2017, the International Telecommunication Union has been actively engaged in improving the measurement methodology and changing the composition of the index indicators. 

Special attention is paid to the conditions necessary for the development and development of ICT when calculating the "Readiness Index for the Future of Production" (Readiness for the Future of Production) World Economic Forum (first published in 2018)

His subindex "Human Capital" gives an idea of the degree of development of digital abilities of the entire population and its economically active part. The availability of ICT for business and the organizational conditions for their use are shown by the "Technology Platform" subindex. In addition to data on the availability of special business models for entrepreneurs that involve the use of numbers, it also identifies and allows assessing the state of cybersecurity of the national economy ^[20].

The ability of national economies to perceive and develop digital technologies is reflected in the Network Readiness Index (NRI). The index was developed under the auspices of the World Economic Forum and has been published annually since 2002. In 2019, the methodology for calculating the index was revised and since then it has been calculated at the Portulans Institute.

To assess the use of technologies in a particular country, its subindexes of access to network technologies are designed (they take into account mobile communication tariffs; prices for phones; the number of households with Internet access: the number of SMS sent by the population aged 15-69 years; the population using at least 3G networks; international Internet bandwidth; access Internet in schools); content (the number of registered domains on the Internet, the number of edits in Wikipedia, the number of developed mobile applications, the number of scientific publications on artificial intelligence) and prospects for the development of technologies - their "future", which include indicators of the introduction of new technologies, investments in new technologies, the density of robotics industry, the general the cost of software costs) ^[21].

To reflect the socio-economic effects of the development of a digit-based network economy, a special sub-index, "Impact", has been allocated. It is formed by indicators of the share of high- and medium-high-tech products in the total output and in the total volume of exports of the manufacturing industry; the number of patent applications filed under the PCT procedure (Patent Cooperation Treaty - international patent system); the scale of exports of ICT-related services, etc.

A number of other indicators allow us to assess the most important socio-economic results of the development of digital technologies. The "World Ranking of Digital Competitiveness" of the International Institute of Management and Development (IMD), for example, reveals the competitiveness of a country due to the use of ICT.

Among them, special attention is paid to the "Technology" factor (indicators of the level of development of Internet and communication technologies).

The results of the study assess the extent to which countries are mastering digital technologies that lead to the transformation of public policy, business models and society as a whole and contribute to the creation and maintenance of an environment in which a competitive business arises.

The impact of ICT on economic growth is reflected in the "Global Networking Index", which is compiled by Huawei. To do this, she identifies 40 indicators of 4 digital technologies (broadband, cloud, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence) ^[22]. According to the experts of the report, the digital transformation of industries contributes to an increase in productivity of a "higher order" to stimulate economic growth and increase competitiveness in the future ^[22].

Focusing on the socio-economic effects of ICT, researchers complement and develop the existing sets of parameters for evaluating these technologies. Thus, an important parameter of the impact of digital technologies on sustainable development today is digital inequality – differences in the level of ICT development ^[23] - between individual regions of the country and between countries.

According to the experts of the World Economic Forum, for example, such inequality is primarily due to uneven access to ICT, which must be taken into account when assessing the possible effects of the introduction of the figure ^[24]. The importance of taking into account the knowledge and skills of the population working with ICT is also pointed out by Russian specialists ^[25-26]. When analyzing the level of digital inequality of economic entities, experts compare such indicators as the number of subscribers of fixed broadband Internet access, the number of subscribers of mobile broadband Internet access, the proportion of households with a personal computer, access and Internet, the level of digital literacy, etc. ^[27].

The relevance of ICT for assessing the opportunities of socio-economic development caused by technology requires a thorough consideration of the former within the framework of a set of indicators of the potential of socio-economic development contained in science, technology and technology. Considering this, as well as the analysis of technological characteristics identified by modern researchers in determining scientific and technical potential, it seems appropriate to use them to identify quantitative indicators of scientific and technological potential (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1

List of indicators of scientific and technological potential and their sources

Source: compiled by the authors on the basis of the indicators of the International Indices analyzed in the work, characterizing certain aspects of scientific and technological potential.

The set of indicators of scientific and technological potential proposed in the scheme of Figure 1 is the author's abbreviated version of a possible set of indicators indicated in the international reports analyzed above, characterizing certain aspects of scientific and technical potential.

The set of indicators presented in Figure 1 can be expanded or detailed for a specific request.

The proposed indicators represent the initial stage of quantitative determination of scientific and technological potential, which does not take into account the relationship between the relevant parameters. Identification of the mechanisms of their interaction requires additional research, which the authors intend to carry out in the future.

  This circumstance does not imply any mathematical operations with the selected parameters. Nevertheless, the appeal to them is sufficient for the initial assessment of the studied potential.

The laconic structure of the complex of selected parameters, based on the blocks of science, technology and technology, also speaks in favor of the latter. The latter, in turn, can be divided into digital and other.

Also, when forming a set of indicators, the authors took into account the requirements of accessibility and objectivity of the source data; simplicity of their calculations and clarity of presentation of the results ^[17]. This allows us to draw a conclusion about the viability of the development carried out and the expediency of its use in determining the national scientific and technological potential.

This task is especially acute for Russia, which is pursuing a course to modernize the economy in the face of external sanctions and other circumstances hindering further socio-economic development. The definition of the domestic scientific and technological potential makes it possible to identify opportunities for national development, and then take them into account when conducting an appropriate economic and political course.

Determination of the scientific and technological potential of RussiaBased on the analysis and the structure of the indicators presented in the diagram in Figure 1, the authors determined the state and dynamics of the scientific and technological potential of the Russian Federation.

The results are presented in table 1.

Table 1

Indicators of Russia's scientific and technological potential in international ratings

* WDCR - The World Digital Competitiveness Ranking is based on data from 63 countries. The table shows data on the country's rating by individual indicators.

GCI - Global Connectivity Index;

NRI - Network Readiness Index – covered 121 countries in 2019, 134 countries in 2020 and 130 countries in 2021. The table shows data on the country's rating by individual indicators.

** GCI - Global Connectivity Index provides the values of subindexes translated into variables according to the established methodology, the values of which range from 0 to 120 (for 4 specific digital technologies – the last 4 lines of the Technology block) or from 0 to 10 (for other technical and economic indicators).

Source: the table was compiled by the authors on the basis of data from the reports "World Ranking of Digital Competitiveness", "Global Network Interaction Index", "Network Readiness Index".

Table 1 is compiled on the basis of data from a number of international reports and indices characterizing certain aspects of Russia's scientific and technical potential.

Reports and indexes are primarily aimed at ranking countries by certain indicators, include a different number of countries and are based on different methodologies. The final reports that are freely available, as a rule, include only the final values – the country's place in the ranking of the index or its subindexes, without specifying the absolute values of the indicators by which the ranking was compiled. 

The presence of unfilled cells is due to the difference in the frequency and date of publication of the reports used in the work, as well as the constant improvement of their methodology and the composition of a set of indicators.

Thus, the analysis of the data in Table 1 weakly characterizes the dynamics of Russia's scientific and technological potential in aggregate, but allows us to assess the dynamics of the development of individual indicators of Russia's scientific and technological potential.

Thus, according to Table 1, Russia's scientific and technological potential is characterized by sufficiently high values of "input" indicators, as evidenced by the values and dynamics of indicators characterizing R&D expenditures, scientific publications, communications coverage, availability of home computers, etc.

However, the "output" data is characterized by values below the global average.

There is a divergence of trends in the field of publication and patent activity – with a high level of publication activity of domestic scientists, scientific knowledge is not used for the production of technologies. The dynamics of expenditures on computer software, indicators of the density of robots in the manufacturing industry (the number of robots per 10 thousand employed in the manufacturing industry) are characterized by instability.

An analysis of the development and quality of the use of most digital technologies indicates its insufficiency. Thus, according to the Global Network Interaction Index report, Russia has succeeded in deploying broadband networks. However, it lags behind the global level of development and application of cloud services, artificial intelligence technologies and the Internet of Things.  

The results of the analysis of these international indices indicate that there is a problem of economic development of the potential and resources of the Russian economy for its development. The above trends in the development of Russia's scientific and technological potential have persisted for several decades and have been reflected in a number of publications ^[28-30].

Similar conclusions about the high quality of "input" data and the low level of efficiency of their use to increase the level of scientific and technological development of the country are demonstrated by the analysis of domestic statistical materials.

The study of the scale of scientific publications of Russian authors and their citation as important characteristics of the field of science allows us to identify an upward upward trend (see Figure 2).

*The average citation of publications normalized by subject area relative to the global average.

** Highly cited publications are those that are included in the 1% of the most cited publications.

Figure 2. The main indicators of the citation of publications of Russian authors in scientific journals indexed in the Scopus database

Source: compiled by the authors on the basis of data from the statistical collections "Indicators of Science: 2019" ^[31] and "Indicators of Science: 2022" ^[32].

 The data in Figure 2 indicate that over the past two decades (2000-2020), the citation rates of scientific publications by Russian authors in journals indexed in the Scopus database have increased.  The share of publications by Russian authors in the global number of highly cited publications has increased by 3 times (from 0.60% in 2000 to 1.82% in 2022), the ratio of the average citation of publications by Russian authors to the global indicator has increased by 1.4 times.At the same time, the share of publications in scientific publications of the first quartile (Q1) in the total number of publications by Russian authors decreased from 23.7% in 2020 to 18.9% in 2022 ^[32].

A similar trend is observed in the part of publications accounted for in the Web of Science database, hereinafter, WoS (see Figure 3).

*Average citation of publications normalized by subject area relative to the global average.

** Highly cited publications include those that are in the 1% of the most cited publications.

*** Journals of the first quartile - journals included in the first 25% of the impact factor for a particular subject area.

Figure 3. Main indicators of citation of publications of Russian authors in scientific journals indexed in Web of Science

Source: compiled by the authors based on the data of statistical collections "Indicators of Science: 2019" ^[31] and "Indicators of Science: 2022" ^[32].

Figure 3 shows that the trends in the development of citation indicators of publications by Russian authors in scientific journals indexed by Web of Science according to the results of 2000-2020 are positive. Over the first decade of this century, a number of indicators have seriously declined, but then they began to show growth. However, by 2015, the indicators had almost returned to the values of 2000, and by 2020 they exceeded them.

Given the more or less favorable situation with the production of scientific knowledge, the situation of technology is more alarming. Thus, evaluated in terms of patent activity, technology development showed ambiguous trends (see table 2).

Table 2

Receipt of patent applications and issuance of patents for inventions

Source: compiled by the authors on the basis of Rosstat data ^[33-34].

The analysis of patent applications filed in Russia indicates the instability of the trends that have developed in this area over the past 20 years. After a continuous increase in the number of patents filed and granted in 2000-2015, in the period from 2015 to 2020, the number of applications filed in Russia decreased by 25%, the number of patents granted in the Russian Federation – by 17%.

The dynamics of the number of patents granted by the Russian Federation has been positive for longer and amounted to 35,774 in 2018, since 2019 there has been a negative trend – the number of patents granted for 2 years has decreased by 20% and amounted to 28,788 units. At the same time, during 2000-2018, in the context of the general upward dynamics of the number of patent applications filed and patents granted, the number of the former decreased, and the latter increased along with the increase in the number of active patents.

In the period 2000-2020, the structure of applications filed and patents granted increased significantly towards foreign applicants. Thus, in 2000, 81.5% of applications were submitted by domestic applicants, and 18.5% - by foreign ones. In 2020, the share of domestic applicants was 67.9%, foreign – 32.1%. The trend in the structure of issued patents is similar. The share of domestic applicants decreased from 82.1% in 2000 to 59.7% in 2020, and foreign, respectively, increased from 17.9% to 40.3%.

It is natural that the value of the self-sufficiency coefficient decreased in the period 2000-2020, and the coefficient of technological dependence was unstable (see Figure 4). As a result, the supply of Russian patented technologies decreased relative to foreign-made technologies.

Figure 4. Patent activity indicators

Source: compiled by the authors according to Rosstat data ^[33-34].

A comparison of the multidirectional trends in the field of patent activity of Russian developers with the general increase in the publication activity of domestic scientists shows that over time the scientific knowledge created by them was increasingly used for the production of Russian technologies ^[28].

Even more pronounced is the tendency to reduce the use of new technologies in production. It is demonstrated by their main consumers, represented by industrial enterprises, especially from the manufacturing sector and its high-tech industries.

In Russia, their share in the entire manufacturing industry of the past decade, although it fluctuated from year to year, remained generally insignificant (see Table 3).

Table 3

Structure of the Russian manufacturing industry

a* - the share of the sector's output in the total output of the manufacturing industry, %.

b** - the share of innovative products of the sector in the total volume of innovative products of the manufacturing industry, %.

Source: compiled by the authors on the basis of data from statistical collections "Science. Technologies. Innovations" 2019-2022 ^[35-38].

 The data in Table 3 indicate that the structure of the domestic industrial sector is dominated not by high-, but by medium- and low-tech sectors. In terms of the average for the period, for high- and medium-tech sectors of high level versus medium-tech sectors of low level and low-tech, their ratio was approximately 40% versus 60% for total manufacturing output and 30% versus 70% for innovative products. This shows that among the subjects of the manufacturing industry, those who "by definition" were less interested in new knowledge and technologies than others prevailed.At the same time, the dynamics of the latter also indicated the instability of their demand for new knowledge and technologies.

During the period under review, the share of innovative products of the high-tech sector in its total volume in the manufacturing industry remained unstable and from 2016 to 2017 it completely halved and amounted to 3.8%, but by the results of 2020 it increased to 9.4%.

Conclusions:

The identified gaps in the science – technology – innovative production chain indicate the danger of the occurrence of adverse reverse effects caused by this and further aggravation of the existing problems of low efficiency of the use of domestic scientific and technological potential.

In the current conditions , it is relevant:

- coordinated work on collecting information at all stages of innovation formation and technology implementation;

- search for weak elements/stages in the chain of development, development and commercialization of technologies;

- increasing the level of cooperation of scientists, developers, specialists in organizing production and bringing products to market; increasing inter-industry interaction;

- development of information and communication infrastructure ^[28-30].

ConclusionThe analysis of theoretical approaches to the definition of scientific and technical potential carried out in the work allows us to distinguish three main approaches to its interpretation.

Some authors focus on the allocation of resource components necessary for the implementation of scientific and technical activities; the second - on taking into account the results of such activities in the form of new knowledge and the application of this knowledge in practice; the third - on the process of forming scientific and technical potential (scientific and technical resources and the results of their application).

The study of the above approaches to the assessment of scientific and technical potential gives grounds to say that an important stage of the transfer of scientific and technical knowledge to production, namely, the production and implementation of technologies, remains out of the field of view of experts. Its presence was often implied, but it was not singled out as an independent object necessary for taking into account the assessment of production capabilities to master scientific and technical knowledge.

Insufficient attention to the stage of production and technology implementation contributes to the identification and related concepts in the economic literature, regulatory legal acts and strategic documents, where the terms "technical" and "technological", "scientific and technical" and "scientific and technological", "scientific and technical potential" and "scientific and technological potential" and so on.  

Based on the analysis of theoretical approaches to the definition of scientific and technical potential and modern international methods of its measurement, the authors identified and differentiated the terms "scientific and technical potential" and "scientific and technological potential".

The authors propose a set of indicators of scientific and technological potential, developed by analyzing the technological characteristics identified by modern researchers and international organizations in determining scientific and technical potential.

 The application of this complex to the Russian economy allows us to conclude that there is a problem of economic development of the potential and resources of the Russian economy, including in terms of advanced digital technologies. This threatens the sustainability of the Russian economy, as the level of digitalization of the real sector of the economy directly affects the competitiveness of products, the country's place in the world high-tech markets and creates prerequisites for socio-economic development.

Gaps in the work with the development of scientific and technological potential are fraught with failure to fulfill the goals of numerous strategic documents (the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation, the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, the Consolidated Strategy for the Development of the Manufacturing Industry of the Russian Federation, the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On measures to ensure the technological independence and security of critical information infrastructure of the Russian Federation Of the Russian Federation", the decree of the President of the Russian Federation "On National development Goals of the Russian Federation", etc.), the implementation of which involves solving the tasks of ensuring technological independence and competitiveness of Russia, transferring the Russian economy to a new technological basis and neutralizing threats to national security.

Research prospectsFurther research could fruitfully continue to consider not only the problem of assessing scientific and technological potential, but also the problem of its development.

Studies of the correlation of scientific and technological potential, its institutional support and the results of socio-economic development seem promising.

In addition, in the conditions of the modern era of post-industrial transition, indicators of scientific and technological potential are constantly being improved and supplemented with new ones. Typical examples of this are the evolution of the European Innovation Scoreboard and the elimination of the World Bank Knowledge Index, which until recently were referred to by many researchers. The latter, by the way, has ceased to be compiled at all due to the emergence and spread of other systematic studies and indices showing the use of scientific and technical potential of countries and international regions. In this connection, the work on the creation and improvement of indicators characterizing scientific and technological and scientific and technical potentials is relevant.

Also of interest are studies on taking into account the nature of the links between technologies, science, technology, as well as between them, the conditions for their development and the results obtained from their combination.