Less than a week after opening a branch in Vladivostok, Skolkovo wrapped up its Scientific Advisory Council meeting in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad on Friday, illustrating the foundation’s geographical reach domestically.
Just days after the Vladivostok office began operations, Nobel prize laureate Scientific Advisory Council co-chair Zhores Alferov was raising the curtain on the meeting, a quarterly checkup on the activities of the Skolkovo research clusters, at the Baltic Federal University, 7,400 kilometers west.
Kaliningrad. Photo: Flickr
“The interaction of academic science and our council here, in Kaliningrad, has huge significance,” said Alferov. “I believe it’s right to strengthen physics and mathematics education with the use of modern technology.”
The university, named after 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant, can be “a very significant” intermediary between the Kaliningrad region and Skolkovo, Alferov noted.
“I’m confident that the Baltic Federal University will be a great assistant,” he said.
American biochemist Roger Kornberg, also a Nobel Prize laureate and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Council, underlined that strengthening academic science in any region “helps to significantly strengthen its economy.”
The university’s rector, Artem Yurov, meanwhile, told RIA Novosti that the council examined research projects that could be undertaken jointly by BFU and Skolkovo.
“Over the last two years, at least ten leading young scientists and directors from BFU have undergone training at Skolkovo under various programs and are potential leaders and active commutators of progress in the field of innovation,” Yurov said.
One potential project is in fundamental and applied materials science: Developing a basis for the production of lenses for x-ray refractive optics, he said. Other areas of cooperation include photonics, cellular, molecular and genetic technology and synthetic biology, software, robotics and lasers.
BFU is currently supporting nine small innovative enterprises along with Skolkovo. The startups are seeking investment to go into production and enter the Russian and foreign markets, Yurov added.
On Thursday, the first day of the council, its members met with Kaliningrad region governor Nikolai Tsukanov. The main topic of discussion was how to use Kaliningrad’s geographical location as Russia’s western-most point to strengthen ties between the Russian and European science communities.
Day two of the council is devoted to plenary sessions.