Bridging S&T and innovation in Russia: A historical perspective

This paper analyzes the numerous governments' attempts to build a bridge between science and innovation, starting from the times of the Russian Empire up to the present day. We argue that throughout the whole history of Russian science, the government, being the main driver of scientific development, has largely failed to organize knowledge transfers and incentivize companies to innovate. The empirical evidence shows that nowadays only a very small share of Russian manufacturing enterprises considers R&D cooperation with knowledge producers important and only this small minority benefits from the government's science, technology and innovation (STI) policies. The reasons behind this remain an underdeveloped institutional setting and a lack of market competition. •Russian science was introduced and developed mainly as a ‘state science’.•Throughout the history the government has tried to bridge science and innovation.•Only 3.7% of manufacturing firms appreciate R&D cooperation with knowledge providers.•Major barriers remain underdeveloped institutions and lack of market competition.