DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL CLUSTER INNOVATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE

Innovative development of regional economic systems involves clustering of the economy, creation of points of growth within separate territorial units, and formation of innovative infrastructure elements. Today many countries witness a substantial gap in the chain of creation and commercialization of innovations. On the one hand, the research and development sector being low-oriented to the economic needs suffers production and financial constraints hindering independent implementation of innovations and bringing them to the market. On the other hand, the manufacturing industry is in possession of unutilized production capacities, however, it demonstrates reluctance to invest in such innovations that have not been commercially proven in the market. As a result, there is still a certain gap between potential members of an innovative cluster. Insufficient cooperation among R&D organizations or institutes and enterprises in terms of development of innovations, as well as lack of experience in the hi-tech commercialization are the stones of stumbling on the way to establishment of innovative clusters. This is precisely why forming of an innovative infrastructure in the region is a significant issue preventing competitive clusters from growth. As a way to seek a solution, this paper covers a study of theoretical and methodological aspects of formation and development of innovative infrastructure within a regional cluster. Overarching challenges are highlighted, general properties and basic features of innovative infrastructure are defined, possible methods of evaluation of infrastructure development are reviewed. Furthermore, a new approach to working out a structure of cluster is offered, which is based on identification of external and internal elements of the cluster's infrastructure. Appropriateness of value added index application is substantiated from the point of view of evaluation of the regional cluster innovative development efficiency, inclusive of all members of the cluster. It is demonstrated that intensification of innovative activities is a key factor to catalyze a value added increase at the enterprises making part of the infrastructure along with strengthening a competitive ability of the regional cluster.