RISKS OF INNOVATIVE PROJECTS AND METHODS OF THEIR ASSESSMENT

Successful implementation of innovative projects is impossible without consideration and minimization of potential risks. Risks assessment is necessary for their ranking according to their importance and management in order to reduce the riskiness of the project to the level acceptable by investor. This assessment should be performed with a glance of multiple risk factors within implementation of projects by stages of the innovation cycle. The article presents qualitative dynamics of changes in the value of the project, the level of the project risk of and the project cash flow generated by stages of basic and applied science, presowing and sowing stage, venture capital investment stage, and expansion stage of production. At each stage it is necessary to attract foreign experts or representatives of investors and business environment, because without their participation it is impossible to minimize the impact of risk factors. The author suggests methods for risk assessment of innovative projects in the cases of non-statistical and statistical uncertainty. The proposed method of assessing the quality of risk factors in the non-statistical uncertainty is appropriate to apply to the early stages of an innovative project. The level of risk for presowing and sowing stages can be measured by the presented method in terms of the statistical uncertainty. The author has developed a method for assessing the safety factor of the innovative project based on the key indicators of financial performance, and which can be successfully used in the later stages of the innovation process. The main quantitative criteria for evaluating the reliability of an innovative project are discounted rate of return of investment in the project; payback period with discounting; sensitivity of the project to any change of its settings.