THE PHENOMENON OF FLAGSHIP UNIVERSITIES OF REGIONAL ECONOMY IN MODERN RUSSIA
The paper focuses on the research of the establishment and development of flagship universities of the regional economy in the Russian Federation. The paper analyses the practice of establishment flagship universities on the initiative of the government of Russia using the program-target method. The paper deals with imperfection of the modern methods of determination of the purposes of flagship universities activities of the regional economy. The paper considers features of universities activity which focus on solving problems of the development of the regional economy; features of flagship universities activity of the regional economy in the context of the "Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation". The paper attempts to determine the status and goals of establishing flagship universities, to organize the planning of their activities, to structure and interact with other actors in the region. The authors mark out the following main functions the flagship universities perform: to prepare and to realize a wide range of educational programs for perspective economic system of the region; to do a wide range of initiative research in the sphere ofregional development, using spatial resources of the region, environmental protection, development regional and local societies which transform into subsequent actions and decisions ofregional and local authorities; together with regional authorities to create technological platforms which ensure the transformation of the results of educational and research activities into real innovative businesses in the process of experimental modeling of relevant business processes. The paper discusses the network interaction of technical, pedagogical and medical universities in order to accelerate the integrated innovative development of regions.