Continuous professional education as an instrument for development of industry employees' innovational competences within regional territorial-production cluster

Abstract

The modern postindustrial society is characterized by globalization trends and innovational orientation of knowledge-based economy. Contemporary industry needs engineers and managers who are open to innovations and ready to get into scientific and technological processes under the conditions of drastically changing technologies. Innovational activity aimed at creation and implementation of brand new product samples, new or improved technological procedures demands skilled practitioners with new professional and social qualities and properties, new competences, called innovational competences. Being more flexible in content and technologies, continuous professional education (advanced courses, training and retraining, etc.) makes it possible to suggest various programs aimed at solving contemporary issues, current tasks for rapidly developing industry and community as a whole. The given study considers development of innovational competences of Kama regional territorial-production cluster enterprises' engineering personnel by means of continuous professional education programs. Nowadays in Russia there is no unified approach for development of innovational competences of engineers. Competences necessary for innovative activity are partially developed in higher professional education or not developed at all. The goal of the study was to analyze the possibilities to develop innovational competences of engineering staff in the system of continuous education within the framework of regional cluster.