State and Prospects of Development of Kazakhstan Innovative Infrastructure

Abstract

1. Introduction Knowledge, creativity and innovation take on great importance in the current context and become the core of the innovation-driven economy. Creation of national innovation systems (NIS) and development of innovative strategies and programs are considered as key priorities for many countries today, being one of the main areas of their economic growth. Shaping an efficient and fully functioning innovation system is of paramount importance in the context of establishment of a knowledge-based economy. Measures aimed at shaping and development of the national innovation system has been taken in Kazakhstan since the early 2000s. At the moment, the republic has an active policy of development and promotion of innovation, and the individual elements of the national innovation system are being created. However, the creation of infrastructure links of the Kazakhstan innovation system has not led to a significant growth in innovative activity. The Kazakhstan innovation system remains fragmented. It is described by poor development of individual divisions, a small number of created infrastructure facilities and a concentration of their larger part in Astana and Almaty. The existing Kazakhstan innovative infrastructure is not efficient as a system: its elements are isolated from each other and lack a required level of cooperation between each other--in particular, they lack synergy between science and industry. To date, the Kazakhstan innovative infrastructure is not a system of complex organizations that provide the entire range of services required during the operation and interaction between the members of the national innovation system (Al-Hakim & Chen, 2014). Inefficient functioning of innovative infrastructure does not allow Kazakhstan to move towards the creation of the innovation-driven economy. According to the Global Competitiveness Index for 2016-2017, Kazakhstan ranks 53rd out of 138 countries and is in the process of transition from the factor-driven economy to the efficiency-driven economy (WEF, 2016; UN, 2012). According to the Global Innovation Index, Kazakhstan was ranked 75th out of 128 countries in 2016 and 82nd out of 141 countries in 2015. As we can see, the Kazakhstan rank has grown, but the innovation efficiency ratio is very low in the country--it ranked 108th in 2016 and 124th in 2015 (WIPO, 2016). In the context of establishment of the knowledge-based economy in Kazakhstan and in the light of implementation of the Concept of Innovation Development of Kazakhstan till 2020 and the State Program of Industrial and Innovation Development of Kazakhstan for 2015-2019, the development of the existing innovative infrastructure becomes very important. The situational SWOT analysis is planned in order to determine the state of the priority areas of development of innovative infrastructure. 2. Literature Review 2.1. Theoretical aspects of the study of innovative infrastructure The concept of a national innovation system emerged in the second half of the 1980s (Lundvall, 2005). It is aimed at studying the relationship between technological development and institutional involvement of innovative companies (Kaiser and Prange, 2004). The essence of this concept lies in the fact that the technological differences coming from differences in national innovation systems can act as a model of technological specialization that expresses the country's competitiveness. As long as the NIS strengthening is equivalent to improvement in the innovation climate, the increase in the possibility of the emergence of innovation is the main source of economic growth (Arocena and Sutz, 2000). The central assumption of the concept is that the rate of technological change in any country and the performance of its firms in competitiveness with foreign countries in trade in goods and services do not only depend on the scale of R&D and other technical measures, but also on the way the available resources are managed and arranged at the enterprise and national level. …