The international scientific and practical conference "Concept, Programmes and Projects for Sustainable Social and Economic Development of Territorial Systems" was held as part of the Year of Science and Technology at Penza State University on Wednesday, October 20.

The leading scientists from Russia, Great Britain, the USA, Portugal, Australia, Armenia, Belarus became its participants. The mixed format of the conference allowed experts from all over the world to get involved in a scientific dialogue.

The conference programme committee was chaired by Vladimir Ivanov, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy Chairman of the Research Coordinating Council for Forecasting and Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia). The presidium of the organizing committee also consisted of Doctors of Economic Sciences, Professors of PSU Sergei Vasin and Leila Gamidullaeva.

The status scientific forum, organized by PSU, has become a unique platform for theoretical understanding of the problems of sustainable development and devising practical recommendations for creating a territorial cluster corresponding to the strategic goals of economic, environmental and social development.

The plenary meeting was opened by the Chairman of the organizing committee, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation of PSU, Sergei Vasin. Professor Vasin emphisized the importance of the conference, which brought together a lot of researchers.

Oleg Yagov, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Penza Region, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, noted that the conference has not only deep theoretical, but also great practical importance, both for the Penza region and for the Russian Federation as a whole. “We are ready to contribute in every possible way to the development of topical issues that are being discussed today,” said Oleg Yagov and wished the participants productive work.

The plenary reports reflected the themes of the innovative basis for territorial development (Vladimir Ivanov, Doctor of Economic Sciences), the innovative development of individual territories (Aleksey Shmatko, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, Director of the Institute of the Problems of the Regional Economy, Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Russia).

In addition, the participants touched upon the aspects of economic diplomacy, innovative and investment development of agriculture in Russia, the development of a regional machine-tool cluster on the example of the enterprise "StankoMashStroi" and others.

Paulo Brito and Joaquim Mourato, professors from the School of Technology and Management from Portugal, gave a presentation titled “Biorefinery for efficient territorial decarbonization”, and Nicholas Wise from Tempe State University (Arizona, USA) focused on supporting the local community in rethinking the local economy.

Breakout sessions (there were five of them) reflected the following areas:
- Strategic priorities and synergy effect of territorial development;
- Spatial transformations in the management of the regional economy;
- Methods, models and technologies in managing socio-economic systems at the regional level;
- "Smart" strategy for business models of the digital economy;
- Macroeconomic stability and indicators of sustainable development of regions.

In total, more than 30 reports were presented at the session, more than 40 were announced in poster format.

13 scientific reports covering a wide range of issues were made by representatives of Penza State University. Economic scientists from PSU Viktor Volodin, Leila Gamidullaeva, Nadezhda Chernetsova, Lyubov Semerkova, Valentina Skvortsova, Aleksandr Ponukalin, Svetlana Soldatova, Svetlana Taktarova, Tatyana Kuznetsova, Andrei Tuskov, Denis Samygin, Natalia Utkina, Ekaterina Shchanina, Tatyana Kulikova, Liliya Rozhkova, Natalia Schastlivaya, Svetlana Ryndina, Lyubov Petrova and others took part in the breakout sessions as deputy chairmen, moderators and speakers.

The proceedings of the conference will be published in the form of a collective monograph in the book series of the leading world scientific publishing house "Springer Nature" (Germany) and indexed article by article in the leading databases (Q3/Q4 "Scopus", "Web of Science").