The article discusses perspectives for the development of Russia's national innovative system in relation to the socio-economic dynamics of the country's population. The government proclaimed the development of the national innovative system within the framework of the global leadership, yet the strategy of global leadership is in itself not only a very complex task involving many barriers on the international competitive markets, but also requires considerable financial and human resources. With the low level of live of the majority of the country's population, this turns into a practically impossible task. Within this context the authors lay out a more realistic task: activization of the existing and potential chains and relations among the subjects of the national innovative system along the lines of the catching-up development.