The institutional principles of Ukrainian territorial communities’ innovative development are considered in the article, the theoretical innovative regional development basis and territorial communities’ development threats are analyzed. Taking into account the theory of autonomous poseism, the territorial community is defined as the basic institutional unit of self-reproduction of the peoples, that’s why at the level of the territorial community the demographic, resource and institutional reproduction is supplied. While regional innovations are implemented, the impact of the changes on to these indicators should be extrapolated. The results of the implemented programs within the reform of the administrative and territorial system in Ukraine are outlined. It is confirmed that the growth of budget revenues of the joint territorial communities, however, mainly is a result of budgetary subventions, rather than the introduction of innovative forms of own territorial communities’ socio-economic development. The paper outlines significant contradictions and inconsistencies in the legal framework, which complicate the effective implementation of administrative and territorial reform, and as a result, institutionalized “traps”, in particular concerning the incorrect translation of international legal acts, institutional uncertainty of ownership rights to municipal resources, the lack of territorial communities’ registers formation, etc. Accordingly, the uncertainty of the communal resources’ ownership, its inadequate accounting causes shadowing of a significant proportion of local communities socio-economic processes, and hence the limitation of the innovation development basis, reflected in the low efficiency of economic activity of territorial communities as management entities and their innovation development.
The ways of improvement of the institutional basis of Ukrainian territorial communities’ innovative development are proposed, first of all due to the registration of members of territorial communities, municipal resources, as well as the development of institutional supplement of territorial communities’ innovative development by improving institutional forms of economic activity, as well as improving the domestic normative and legal basis for their development at the state, regional and local levels.