Russia’s experience of research of the regional development potential

The paper is devoted to the problems of the methodology and methods of research into regional potentials. In terms of some domestic works, the content of this category and the basic research directions are reviewed: the studying of separate potentials as regional development factors and as an aggregate of resources of a certain potential value and the search for an integral potential index as an aggregate of development resources and possibilities. It is noted that in the works of recent years the concept of potential appears and develops already in the context of regional development, and beyond the tasks of forecast and analysis of this development this category loses its sense. However, neither from the positions of only the geosystem approach nor by means of new for domestic research regional economic concepts (reproduction approach and new concepts of the region), researchers succeeded to create a logical system of views regarding the socioeconomic forecasting problem through the estimation of the regional development potential. The constructability of the geosystem approach for the analysis of the spatial dynamics of regional development factors is shown, and the concept of the “functional potential of a territory” is offered. The urgency of the evolutionary approach is proved through studying the cyclical regularities in the development of complex systems, emphasizing the evolution of targets and the tasks of regional policy at the development stages and under the conditions of different technological modes.