Key features of the first phase of the national cluster program in Russia

Cluster policy is recognized as one of the pivotal elements of state-of-art innovation policy. State support for clusters helps to take into account regional peculiarities and engage the most innovative local actors into the process of innovation policy drafting and implementation. Cluster development stimulates trust building and enhances knowledge spillovers among different organizations in the region. Finally the cluster approach makes innovation policy more systemic by coordinating measures aimed to support different actors (large companies, SMEs, universities, venture funds) towards comprehensive efforts linking the most perspective localized industries (ecosystems). The development of clusters has been determined as one of the priorities of the Strategy of Innovative Development of the Russian Federation for the period to 2020 which was confirmed end 2010. In the framework of this Strategy the first national cluster program was launched in 2012. The paper is devoted to the detailed description of the background of the national cluster program in Russia and its first phase - the selection of the pilot innovative clusters - which was implemented last year. Special attention is given to the comparison of planned design of the Russian cluster program with such widely known cluster programs as the BioRegio, InnoRegio and Les pôles de compétitivité. The similarities and peculiarities of the Russian program have been defined that allowed to identify several most significant areas for improvement.