Methodological aspects of detecting macroregional structural shifts

Regulating inter-regional socioeconomic differentiation is one of the key tasks in strategic management of national spatial development. The paper explores the problem of the toolkit of regional diagnosis as one of the most important subsystems of strategic planning and forecasting. The study’s objective is to develop the methods for diagnosing the differences in the condition of macroregional systems. The theory of regional self-developing socioeconomic systems based on the principles of the system-synergetic paradigm constitutes the methodological basis of the research. The method of the study consists of three stages: general assessment of structural shifts; analysis of the structural dynamics; design of a multi-parameter model for structural diagnosis. The use of indicative properties of the multi-parameter model allowed revealing the emergent structural shifts in the macroregional system according to a range of the involved parameters. The research findings for Russia as of 2017 demonstrated an improvement in qualitative characteristics of the macroregional system. The system is gradually changing, part of the previous relations ceases to exist, however, positive trends can be noticed and differentiation level is declining in the majority of macroregions. The application of the approach is proved to be promising at the preliminary (diagnostic) stage of producing a regional component of the socioeconomic forecasts as well as for assessing the implementation results of the spatial development strategy.