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Technological sovereignty: Approaches to understanding and measuring


TERRA ECONOMICUS, Vol. 24, No 3

Citation: Komarova I.P., Ermolaev S.A. (2026). Technological sovereignty: Approaches to understanding and measuring. Terra Economicus 24(3), 20–35. DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2026-24-3-20-35

Acknowledgment: This article was prepared within the framework of research project № FSSW-2026-0003 «Methodology for assessing the level of technological sovereignty and developing a concept for the dynamic stability of the Russian Economy», funded by a federal budget subsidy under the state assignment of The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
This article examines the concept of technological sovereignty as one of the key categories determining state development strategies in the face of geopolitical shocks and sanctions pressure. Based on a review of various theoretical approaches, the authors propose a decomposition of the concept into five components: possession of critical technologies, leadership in new general-purpose technologies, independence from imports, independence in supply chains, and dynamic stability. Each component is described using country examples (USA, China, EU, Russia) and existing approaches to quantitative assessment. The authors compose a two-tiered architecture of technological sovereignty: the minor contour, formed by possession of critical technologies, independence in supply chains, and dynamic stability, captures the necessary conditions for sovereignty; the major contour, complemented by independence from imports and leadership in general-purpose technologies, describes absolute technological sovereignty. For an integrated assessment, the authors propose to use the Leontief function for absolute complements, according to which the final value is determined by the minimum of the components. This leads to a practical conclusion for industrial policy: the development of critical technologies and domestic value chains should be the priority for state support, while broad import substitution and accelerated financing of domestic general-purpose technologies are not primary objectives.

Keywords: technological sovereignty; technological leadership; critical technologies; general-purpose technologies; global value chains; Venn diagram; Leontief function
JEL codes: F63, O11, O32


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Publisher: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606













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