The strategic importance of the regional economic system innovative potential

The purpose of this article is to substantiate regional innovative potential as one of the main conditions for the competitiveness growth in the future of any economic system. The paper studies the essence of “innovation” and “potential” concepts, which together form the concept of “innovative potential”. The authors analyze the structure of innovative potential and present it by three components: resources, internal sphere, production. The interaction of these components with each other determines the common essence of innovative potential. In order to determine a more complete description of the object under analysis, the authors identify the criteria for the classification of its types. The paper proves that the innovative potential of any economic system needs analysis and evaluation since it allows determining strategic directions of the economic system development, which ensures the future growth of its competitiveness. In the framework of the proposed assessment model the authors identify the main indicators that can be used to assess the economic system innovative potential. The suggested methodologyfor assessing the innovative potential of enterprises is aimed at a fuller use of resource and managerial components of this potential, as well as at comparing available resources and actual results of innovative activities. In order to increase the innovative activityof enterprises in the region the paper substantiates the need for the timelyadjustment of the regional economic policyin terms of encouraging and supporting business entities. The authors identify three main areas of monitoring which will allow assessing the general state of the regional innovative system and obtaining data on innovative processes in the region. They are the analysis of the knowledge generation subsystem, the analysis of the innovation production subsystem, the analysis of the innovation distribution subsystem.