The problem of assessing the innovative potential of the regions is the focus of domestic and foreign scientific research. This topic becomes especially relevant for the so-called resource-type regions, where the dependence of the economy on the industrial sector has traditionally been very high. Since there is no category "resource sector of the economy" in the Russian statistical register, data on the structure of gross value added of the region were used for its allocation. And according to the structure of value added 18 regions were included to the group of resource-type regions. A system of the indicators for the assessment of the innovation potential of the recourse-type regions is suggested in the paper. The integrated indicator over 2017 year has been calculated using the geometric mean and compared with the indicator over 2013 year. The results of the analysis let the authors divide the regions into three groups according to the value of integral indicator of assessing innovative potential and detect the most significant differences and gaps in each group.