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Establishing Special Economic Zones

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Inspired by the success of the Silicon Valley, numerous states began to establish special economic zones, or scientific parks in pursue of economic growth in a region and diversification of the innovation potential. Considered to be a tool for attraction the small companies with high innovative orientation, such parks have become an international phenomenon. The variety of patterns of existing parks can be explained by the difference in social-economic formation of specific countries, their history, cultural legacy and mentality. Having come through difficult economic reforms of 80s-90s, Russia found itself in a situation of strong crude materials dependence and relative inability to compete successfully on the international and domestic markets. Recent trend in IT and innovation technologies suggested the need for the country to catch up with those who in the lead. Skolkovo is an example of how Russian officials adopt best foreign practices for domestic market in order to eliminate the problem of long-term lagging. However, Skolkovo, despite being protected by the government, is deemed to have a lot of problem inherited from Russian mentality and business ethics. The need for finding the solution of long standing problems justifies the purpose of this paper. Purpose of the paper is to investigate nature of science parks, in particular Skolkovo Project. We hypothesize that the model of Skolkovo’s development can be successful in the current Russian economic environment.

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