The article outlines the main provisions of the Methodological Workshop in the Center of  Sociology of Management and of Social Technologies within the Sociology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was dedicated to the research within the framework of the RAS Presidium Program “Forecast of Russia’s Technological Development in View of Innovated World Processes of Integration: Technical, Economic and Institutional Aspects”. The above mentioned study was aimed at the elaboration and testing of sociological tools of remote control over the cluster policy. The authors conducted this work in three stages: 1. The development of analysis methodology and methods of remote collection of primary data (2012). 2. Analysis of the source database in 83 country regions and in oil and gas industry (2013). 3. Verification of data and findings based on the experts’ on‑line poll (2014). The article presents the main results of each stage and makes a conclusion about the possibility of this methodology use not only for scientific but also for practical purposes.

innovative modernization, cluster politics, cluster typology, remote analysis, socio‑technical technology, basic variables, level of cluster development, barriers of cluster development, mapping of regions and industries