Abstract. The economic and innovative rise of the developing states stimulated a deep restructuring of the existing system of international relations in science and technology sphere. As the article points, one of the main manifestations of this trend can be seen in the transformation of global innovation strategies of transnational corporations. The world’s largest TNCs, mostly based in the industrial nations, have begun to transfer growing segments and parts of their R&D programs to the developing countries in order to take advantage of their increased research capacity. As a result, the nature of the projects being implemented there by the TNCs is changing. Historically, the TNCs’ local R&D activities were of adaptive nature. Namely, the stress was made on modification of the products and services offered by the TNCS globally to the specifics of local markets. Currently, a growing number of transnational corporations are implementing the large-scale programs in the developing countries aimed at designing new types of products, including those targeted at the low-income groups of consumers that make up the bulk of the population in developing countries.