Аннотация:Arctic innovations are considered in a broad context – as a way of life in northern communities with omnipresent technological, economic and social implications. Consideration of innovations reveals a gap in modern research in the social sciences between the numerous works on innovation in large urban agglomerations and the almost complete absence of efforts to study innovation in the world periphery, including the Arctic. Major features of the human dimension of the innovation process in the Arctic are: (a) prominent position of the individual Schumpeterian-type entrepreneur-innovator, the creative destroyer, whose role and meaning is visible, tangible and concrete; (b) unprecedented role of local knowledge and competencies, which are based on the extremely specific natural and economic conditions of the Arctic; and (c) extreme unevenness in the concentration of talents in space and time that are explained by resource development cycles. As an outcome, six types of innovation systems (IS) are revealed in the global Arctic: (1) IS of multifunctional urban centers; (2) Network IS in the old-developed resource and coastal regions; (3) IS of base city-islands in old-developed resource regions; (4) IS of areas of modern pioneer development (frontier IS); (5) “Privileged” IS of island capitals; (6) West Siberian ISs as a network of resource urban centers. The fundamental specificity of the Arctic innovations stems from differences across developed regions in actors, networks and institutions.