Science as a way to increase the innovation capacity of the economy: problems, risks and prospects

Abstract

The results of science are directly related to the development of technologies, the level of which depends on the timeliness, scope, and quality of research, the effectiveness of R&D, and its transfer to production. The effectiveness of such processes directly depends on an efficient state science and technology policy. Years of postponed systemic reforms of the organization of scientific activity in Ukraine and gradual reduction of funding for science to a critical level only increase the scale of problems and deepen the loss of the country’s innovation capacity. New shocking challenges have been added to the problems of science’s survival in the last pre-war years due to the consequences of the full-scale war unleashed by russia against Ukraine. The article analyzes the role of science as a way of forming and increasing the innovative capacity of economic and social development. The authors identify and characterize the state and peculiarities of the functioning of the scientific sphere in Ukraine in the context of the russian-Ukrainian war. The article summarizes the peculiarities of approaches to the prospects for the development of science as an effective component of the national innovation system and the directions of its contribution to the post-war reconstruction of the country. The article aims to summarize the peculiarities and analyze the general state of functioning of the scientific sphere of Ukraine during the war, to identify its systemic problems, and to set the tasks of development in the post-war period in terms of forming the innovative capacity for the restoration and modernization of the national economy. Systematic analysis of the proposals initiated by scientists, experts, and public authorities in the field of education and science has shown that the state will try to focus funding on research in the field of defense complex and several other applied fields. This requires the actualization of direct dialogue between enterprises and scientists with some support from the state. There is a need for another significant transformation of the science governance system and the creation of an effective state body capable of efficiently planning activities and allocating and controlling research expenditures.