The reasons for innovations inside and outside the education system have attracted much research interest over the past decades. However, there is still a lack of methodological tools to measure motives of actors coming from inside and outside the system to launch their innovative projects. The article describes approaches to measure the construct “motivation for innovative activity,” as well as the results of adaptation of the scale aimed at measuring motives for creation of innovative educational projects. The tool is based on the  scale, constructed in English, “Reasons to create business projects” (PSED). In this research the scale was translated into Russian, adapted for the group of innovators in education and validated within a classical framework of combining exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA, respectively). Additionally, the subscales were evaluated in terms of internal coherence. The Russian and the English version of the scale were compared, and each subscale was interpreted. Adaptation was performed on the sample of innovators in education, that is, the participants of Competition of Innovations in Education (N = 286). The final scale includes 16 statements and allows to evaluate the intensity of four motivational attitudes towards innovative activity: “Social significance,” “Innovations and creativity,” “Self-realization and achievement,” “Finance and autonomy.” The identified motives reflect certain endeavors and goals of innovators and determine the content and orientation of their educational projects. The instrument can be used for both research and practice purposes to explore motivation of proactive actors in education, as well as similar groups involved in the development of public social spheres. The full version of the scale is presented in the appendix and contains the instructions for respondents and scoring criteria for four subscales.