Clusters in Russia: the Example of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region Medical, Pharmaceutical and Radiation Technology Cluster Initiative and its Correspondence to the Triple Helix Model

A regional cluster is a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities (Porter, 2000). Nowadays, countries focus on regional clusters to improve industries’ innovativeness. Russia is not an exception: in 2012, 25 pilot cluster initiatives under the state’s cluster program started to operate on the Russian market to understand the potential of cluster development as a means to improve innovativeness within the context of an emerging, post-Soviet economy (Kutsenko, 2015), (Frank, Mashevskaya & Ermolina, 2016), (Uvarov & Perevodchikov, 2012), (McCarthy, Puffer, Graham & Satinsky, 2014), (Klochikhin, 2012). However, a detailed understanding of how these existing clusters in Russia work today internally and of the impact of cluster initiatives on innovating processes within these clusters is still missing. This thesis addresses this gap by referring to the Triple Helix model of innovation to explain relations among actors within the particular cluster as contributors to a cluster’s innovativeness (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). Empirically, the thesis draws on the case of a “medium working cluster” initiative in the face of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region medical, pharmaceutical and radiation technology cluster initiative operating on Russian pharmaceutical market. A case study is made on the base of a qualitative research to deeply understand the relations between members that affect innovation processes within the chosen cluster initiative. Drawing on interviews, document analysis and observations as methods of the qualitative research, it is concluded that the Saint-Petersburg pharmaceutical cluster is still imbalanced towards predominant government and industry roles and misses a cluster management that reaches all actors involved. In addition, the cluster initiative may possibly increase its innovative potential by further involving academia and international firms. Keywords: a regional cluster, a cluster initiative, an innovation, the Triple Helix model of innovation.