The Innovative Industry strategy of EU reinforces the role of Public Private Partnerships to focus on key technologies and their implementation through federated projects. The European Commission has made large investments into Public Private Partnerships to enable a long-term, strategic approach to innovation, research and development, as well as to reduce uncertainties by allowing for long-term commitments. Taking into account the European experience, the article analyzes the feasibility, possibilities and directions of applying of public-private partnership for the development of resource regions of Russia. The paper shows that in the case of Russia the innovative development of resource regions based on the principles of smart specialization should be accompanied by a significant amount of investment. A large part of the Russian regions are enclave, which is a characteristic of the economic and infrastructure isolation of the region from macro-regional and Russian economic ties. This isolation takes place primarily due to the localization of mineral natural resources in hard-to-access areas with harsh natural, economic, geological and extraction characteristics. Such regions are not able to attract private investment to a considerable extent. In these conditions, the relevant task is to use the Public Private Partnerships principles.