2020 Issue №1

While transiting to an innovation economy, cities are the most important centres of concentration of intellectual capital. However, their distribution around the territory of the country is not even. Various Russian cities also demonstrate significant differences between the systems of new scientific knowledge reproduction. The article focuses on the mesoscale study of spatial patterns in concentration of national centres of competence. The scientific cen­tres are classified according to their ability to produce scientific knowledge and their number in the Russian Federation regions is assessed. The most im­portant clusters of research centres in Russia have been identified.

The agricultural land dynamics is one of the central issues of land use in Europe and Russia. Each historical period is characterized by its own model of agricultural land use. The analysis of its dynamics in the North-West of Rus­sia and the Baltic countries was based on the following parameters: the area of cultivated agricultural land and the rate of change, the grain yield and its dy­namics. Database analysis from 1848—52 until 2015—18 allowed to identify the stages of the agricultural land management dynamics. The stages of ex­pansion and contraction, intensification and transition to extensive agricul­tural production are caused by combined influence of natural, socio-economic and political factors. The periods of decline in agricultural land use coincided with years of economic and political crises. The onset of periods of recovery matches a change in state policy, general economic growth and a rise in the technological level of agriculture, as well as changes in the domestic and for­eign markets. Over the past decade, there has been an increase in cultivated land area in the Baltic countries and the Kaliningrad region, and crop yields are growing throughout the region. Given the characteristic features of agri­cultural land management dynamics, subregions and the main trends in their development were determined.

The issues of employment have a certain importance while assessing the socio-economic situation throughout the country. The published statistical da­ta analysis presents a good background for comparing employment indicators of the Kaliningrad region with the national average as well as with the indica­tors of its closest neighbours among the Russian regions — the Pskov and the Smolensk regions. Despite the fact that economic and demographic situation in the Kaliningrad region is more favorable than in the majority of other Rus­sian regions, disparities between availability and quality of labor resources, and the needs of the region’s economy have been established. The authors also note that  one of the prerequisites to reduce disparity is the implementation of Human Capital Development Program, based on the use of the capabilities of the Geographic Information System, and created by «Netrika» company.