Innovative Railway Transport Ecosystem: Practices of Leading Companies

The railway industry is one of the key areas of transport activity for many countries, in particular for the Russian Federation. The innovative development of this industry and of its corporate actors is an important aspect of development of economy and infrastructure of the respective countries.
An innovative ecosystem creates an enabling environment necessary for such development.
The objective of this article is to analyze the components of the innovation ecosystem: the ways of organizing innovative activities, suggesting their classification into internal and external types of organizations. The study is based on a comparative analysis of the practices of the most competitive world railway companies.
The results show that railway companies using tools of both external and internal types are characterized by a high level of competitiveness and technological development. If the external type of organization of innovative activity has a positive effect on reducing costs, and also promotes active interaction with core external companies, then a one-sided orientation to it leads to an increase in dependence on third-party organizations.
Carrying out research and development within the framework of own innovative laboratories and R&D centers allows railway companies to significantly reduce this dependence, but leads to a high level of costs, increases the risk of obtaining results that do not correspond to the best world standards. The optimal and effective way to organize the innovation activity of a railway company is to implement a mixed type organization, which includes elements of independent research and development and active interaction with external organizations, companies and experts. This choice is confirmed by the activities of most of the analyzed companies. At the same time, it is important to choose the directions of technological development, within which it is possible and expedient to conduct independent research and development at the present time, as well as those requiring further development of competencies for independent research activities as well as for participating in innovative consortia.

innovation ecosystem, railway industry, research and development, hackathon event, startup, business incubator, business accelerator, venture capital fund, innovation stimulation

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