INNOVATIVE SUSCEPTIBILITY OF STUDENTS OF REGIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES: SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
The paper deals with the problem of assessing an innovative potential of students mastering engineering training programs and their willingness to introduce new changes in educational, technological or other areas of life. The choice of the study object is justified, i.e. third-year students of the STEM training programs of the Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin and Perm National Research Polytechnic University. The research scope embraces two industrial regions with a similar economic structure and high chances to form a high-tech industries cluster based on young people innovative potential. The choice of a methodology for analyzing the students' innovative susceptibility is substantiated. Based on the specific sociological studies data, the authors carry out a comparative analysis of the technological innovative potential of students and young workers in the regions. The students assessed the conditions and barriers for the innovative activity development at the university. The analysis of the student innovative activity structure over the past three years was performed. Researching student's confidence in innovation, a willingness of future engineers to use technological innovations in everyday life made it possible to establish the absence of a direct connection between innovative activity and the innovative rating of the territory and the university. The conclusion follows that the ‘technological optimism' of students in technical training programs in the regions concerned is so far weakly connected with the regional authorities' innovation policy, although stimulation of the innovative activity of students makes up a significant social base to support the state policy of science and technology development.