Multifunctional role of industrially developed regions in the Russian economy

The Strategy for spatial development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025, which relies on the identification of effective specialisations, does not allow unambigu ously recognising industrial regions and forming approaches to assess their role in ensuring the national security. The paper focuses on the problem of identification of industrially devel oped regions in the context of spatial, scientific, technological and industrial development of the country. The research builds on a set of methodological approaches to the identification of industry-oriented regions, which enables the author to distinguish between two groups of classi fications: the ones based on the structural approach and the ones using industrial specialisation. The structural approach is one of the most widely applied for classifying regions and identify ing industrial-oriented regions among them. The author proposes a multi-criteria classification method, which also is based on the evaluation of the share of industry and manufacturing in GRP, as well as includes a number of additional classification criteria (GRP per capita, fixed capital investment per capita, the share of manufacturing and extractive industries in industry, etc.). Applying the multi-criteria classification, the author identifies the industrially developed regions of Russia and clarifies their role in ensuring the national security. The researcher as sesses the potential for new industrialisation in industrially developed regions on the basis of the high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries in GRP and the volume of domestic research and development expenditures. The theoretical and practical significance of the research lies in justification of the need for optimal choice of priorities for industrial development in the spatial context.