INNOVATION AGENDA OF COHESION POLICY: CONTRADICTIONS IN IMPLEMENTATION AND THE WAYS TO RESOLVE THEM

Topicality. The aim of the Cohesion Policy, founded by the European Union (EU) in the 1980s, is to help peripheral regions lagging in terms of economic development to achieve higher growth rates than developed regions to establish economic balance. As specified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the key factor for economic growth in a globalized, competitive environment is the ability to innovate. The EU's Lisbon Agenda, announced in 2000 in response to the challenges of globalization, aims to increase social and economic cohesion by making Europe the world's most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy. Since then, the innovation component has become a key element of EU cohesion policy, strengthening its competitiveness in a globalized environment.The formation of a cohesive state in the social, humanitarian, economic, environmental, security, and spatial dimensions is the first strategic goal of the State Strategy for Regional Development of Ukraine for 2021-2027. According to it the formation of regional economic systems should be based on “cohesion”, “competitiveness” and building effective “multilevel governance” principles. Stimulation of innovation should become a key direction in building competitive regional economic systems.At the same time, the practice of implementing EU cohesion policy on an innovation basis has revealed some "tension between competitiveness and cohesion goals", increasing the competitiveness of more developed regions, which is conditioned by their ability to benefit more from innovation than peripheral regions.Aim and tasks. The article aims to investigate the innovation agenda of cohesion policy, the contradictions of its implementation, and to substantiate the ways to solve them in Ukrainian realities.Research results. The innovation component of EU cohesion policy has evolved from measures to stimulate the production and cooperation activities of firms, including the establishment and innovation (2000-2006 budget period), the formation of regional innovation systems (2007-2013), the elaboration of smart specialization strategies for research and innovation, which have become a prerequisite for receiving financial support from the European Structural and Investment Funds for each region (2014-2020 and 2021-2027).Ukrainian regions show significant differences in levels of innovation development compared to European regions, as well as compared with each other within Ukraine. The achievement of “cohesion” and “competitiveness” goals outlined in the State Strategy for Regional Development of Ukraine for 2021-2027, on our opinion, may become possible only by moving away from the linear models and methodology that are based on redistribution mechanisms of cohesion policy and substantiation of policy mechanisms grounded on interactive models, such as activation of interregional innovation cooperation and formation of regional innovation ecosystems.Instruments to ensure the cohesion of Ukrainian regions with EU regions are considered. Particular attention is paid to the smart specialization platform instrument with an emphasis on the interregional innovation cooperation mechanism.Conclusion. Today, the thematic area of innovation is a key priority of the Cohesion Plan. The implementation of the innovation agenda in cohesion policy is a crucial and at the same time quite difficult task. The conflict between the goals of cohesion and competitiveness can be resolved only based on abandoning linear redistributive mechanisms in favor of interactive tools, one of which is to stimulate interregional innovation cooperation. Joining the regions of Ukraine to the EU's Smart Specialization Platform can be one of the effective tools for cohesion with European regions on an innovative basis.