Evolution of Approaches to Studying the Economy of Siberia: Reasons and Driving Forces

The article attempts to consider and analyze the main trends in the study of Siberia’s economy over the 300-year history of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). It is shown that the study of socioeconomic processes over a vast territory, both from the viewpoint of the subject matter and focus, was largely determined by such important circumstances as the role and place of the macroregion in solving the problems of the country’s development and the degree of state involvement in building a system of forms, measures, and steps to create favorable conditions for economic activity and residence of the population. A distinctive feature of the activity of the Academy of Sciences was consideration of the various conditions (natural, cultural, and historical) of the Siberia’s socioeconomic development. Based on combined extensive applied and field research with studies of a fundamental (systemwide) nature, approaches to the formation of long-term socioeconomic development trajectories were developed and proposed, which in a number of cases anticipated the paradigm of sustainable environmental–socioeconomic development. Among the main difficulties in implementing the solutions and approaches developed and proposed by RAS personal in the field of socioeconomics, we should note the dominance of the sectoral (formerly departmental, now corporate) principle. The practical denial of efficient forms of horizontal coordination at the regional (interregional) level of implementation of socioeconomic development projects was and remains the main reason for the weak (insufficient) use of the generalized conclusions and their proposals obtained by RAS personnel.