Luis Sanz, Director General of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP), gave an interview to an Sk.ru correspondent after his speech at the visionary session of Startup Village.
The International Association of Science Parks with its European HQ in Malaga, Spain and its Asian HQ in Beijing is one of the most influential international technopark associations. According to IASP’s Director General, at the moment the association has 400 participants with a total of 150 thousand innovative environment development specialists working in 70 countries across the world. Luis Sanz will probably be best remembered by Startup Village guests for a simple formula that says that in an ordinary economy the more resources you expend, the fewer resources you have left while the opposite is true in a knowledge economy: the more resources you invest, the more resources (knowledge) you have available.
Knowledge economy potential and need for risk taking culture
‘I can’t say I’m much of a specialist on Russia,’ Luis Sanz said in the interview for Sk.ru, ‘even though I’ve probably read more books by Russian authors than any other foreigner. Just like many others around the world I believe that Russia has a great potential for the generation, synergetic development of a knowledge-based economy. During its difficult history Russia has managed to create a broad range of institutions that can empower a knowledge-based economy by giving it the necessary boost through providing the foundation, potential and drive that it needs,’ the head of IASP stressed.
Luis Sanz, photo IASP
‘However, as is obvious to many today, the problem now is how to transform this knowledge into market success, and specifically how to transform this knowledge into new companies and new jobs. You can’t just count on the state alone in this. The thing is that the state has very specific interests and very specific industries where it’s willing to get involved. For example, everything connected with state defense but in other sectors the state’s resources are rather limited so you can’t expect it to create new businesses there. This is not unique to Russia, it’s the same all over the world,’ stressed Luis Sanz.
Visionary session of Startup Village
‘And another thing: if you want to succeed you need a culture of entrepreneurial risk taking, a culture that encourages people to make entrepreneurial decisions. It’s obvious that Russia has people that have that culture. However, overall I get the impression that in Russia it is primarily large corporations that manage to achieve commercial success. A lot of them, apparently, were created a long time ago. This means they weren’t created as a result of someone taking the entrepreneurial risk but rather were simply inherited (created by the previous generation),‘ Luis Sanz said. ‘In order to create a risk-taking culture in society the efforts of an entire generation or even two generations may be needed, ‘ the Director General of IASP stressed.
Cooperation with Technopark Skolkovo
Luis Sanz believes that the Skolkovo Innovation Center has already succeeded at creating a global brand for itself and for its technopark and this brand is already working even though the technopark hasn’t been built yet ‘I came here to see with my own eyes what is going on here. A lot of people have heard about Skolkovo and they want me to tell them about this project once I get back. Another reason why I came to Skolkovo is because Technopark Skolkovo is participating in the international contest for the right to hold the next IASP World Congress. We are going to decide where our next conference will be held this October,‘ Luis Sanz said.
Note: participants of the IASP contest include a Russian consortium consisting of Technopark Skolkovo, the MSU Science Park and the Technopark Strogino, as well as the Istanbul Technopark and Germany’s Ultrecth Science Park.