What is Skolkovo?
The Skolkovo Innovation Center (the Russian equivalent of Silicon Valley) is a newly created ultramodern science and technology complex near Moscow intended to further the development and commercialization of new technologies. The complex began its development history on December 14th 2010. The Skolkovo Innovation Center’s primary task lies in speeding up the realization of new ideas and products. Russia has a rich history of research centers, scientific institutes and laboratories. Skolkovo serves as an example for them all of how ideas and products can be commercialized and swiftly placed out onto the market.
The Skolkovo Innovation Center is slated to become Russians largest proving grounds for new economic policy. The specially setup territory will be used to create proper conditions for research and development, including the creation of power-oriented/power-efficient, nuclear, cosmic, biomedical and computer technologies.
Innovation Projects at Skolkovo
On June 15th 2010 the presiding members of the modernization committee along with its secretary, Russian president’s aide A.V. Dvorkovich, held a preliminary discussion regarding innovation projects for Skolkovo. The committee received a total of 50 submissions, four of which were discussed during the meeting. According to Mr. Dvorkovich, only one was approved. According to Victor Vekselberg, the following stage held on the 25th of April 2011 received 275 submissions, 40 of which were deemed fitting of receiving the status of members at the innovation center. 15 out of 40 participants received grants and financial support for the realization of their respective projects.
Both Russian and foreign companies are taking part in the development of the startup projects responsible for bringing the innovation center onto its feet. The projects in development are attached in a number of directions:
- Real estate power saving
- Power use efficiency for utilized technologies
- Innovative cosmic, nuclear and medical work methods
- Software and hardware based technologies
Development Stages
On April 25th 2011 at a meeting of the modernization committee, Victor Vekselberg explained the development strategy for the Skolkovo Innovation Center.
«When speaking of the Skolkovo project, we envision the creation of an environment for the formation of innovative knowledge capable of providing Russia with breakthrough development through the realization of the scientifically leading and commercially viable projects within the confines of harsh global competition. This task and these goals can only be achieved through total cooperation between our fund and the currently existing and functioning development institutions as well as proper ministries and agencies. We see the path to this task as comprising of four levels.
The first level entails the formation of a management team and the foundation of the Skolkovo fund itself. Three councils are currently formed: the fund council, the scientific/consultation council and the construction council. These councils do their jobs as per specific plans and programs along with a precise understanding of the tasks standing before us in the context of interacting with these – and I emphasize – international institutions managing the fund.
The second level of realizing this task is the construction of the ecosystem, the environment, necessary for the manifestation, creation and development of innovative knowledge and its following conversion into specific practical business projects. Realizing this will require the following ecosystem elements. Firstly, universities, secondly, interaction with major partners, thirdly, the creation of collective use centers so necessary for high quality scientific research, fourth, a center for intellectual property that will be focused on supporting and promoting innovative projects. And, lastly, the city itself; the city that we want to build, the city that acts as the sixth cluster for us, as a platform for implementing our first innovative solutions.
The third level lies in the real task of the aforementioned ecosystem, which must bring results, including, first and foremost, the appearance of a new – new in terms of quality – product of our university education system in the form of engineer-entrepreneurs or researcher-entrepreneurs. Therein lies the human resource potential that will serve as the basis for realizing all the tasks that lie before us.
The fourth level is ensuring a relentless flow of startups and the support of commercial projects at their various stages. The end product is the initiatives and the results that will be met in Skolkovo as a pilot project and dispersed throughout the Russian economy, affecting both the innovation sector’s achievements and investments as part of the nation’s gross product.»
The Cluster Principle
The fund’s structure is based on the cluster principle, with each cluster including the primary task of coordinating all activity in a certain direction. This coordination is connected to the university, to the interaction with large companies, and to the support for new initiatives and new startups. The cluster approach will remain key to realizing these projects in the foreseeable future.
General Financing
The Skolkovo Innovation Center project will be provided with 85 billion rubles from the government budget over the course of three years. This was relayed by the fund’s president Victor Vekselberg on October 15th 2010. The Ministry of Finance earlier planned to provide the Skolkovo project with 54 billion rubles for the 2011-2013 period. On October 11th 2010 Vekselberg announced that the project’s financing will require 180-200 billion rubles for three years. He also noted that the government budget need only finance half of the sum while the rest would be financed by private investments.
In April of 2011 RBC-Daily informed that the Skolkovo project had been provided with 76 billion rubles until 2014. On top of that, the Development and Commercialization Center plans on attracting funds from non-budget sources as well.
Skolkovo Residents
Resident status and a grant are the two primary forms of support Skolkovo is capable of providing. “There are companies that join specifically for the status of a participant, which provides tax benefits, and becoming part of the ecosystem, without providing any actual financing,” explained Turkot, director of the Skolkovo Innovation Center’s information technology cluster. The grants are intended for projects with bigger potential, which are obligated to becoming Skolkovo residents. Despite providing a company with financial support, Skolkovo doesn’t request the ownership of the company’s founding capital, nor the intellectual property, nor any place amongst the company’s managerial structure.