On February 27, the Skolkovo Foundation held roundtable discussions with the participation of the presidents of leading U.S. universities, the Association of American Universities (AAU), and the American Foundation for International Education. The topic of discussion was the development of cooperation between the Skolkovo Foundation and leading U.S. universities. Chiefs of technological clusters, the University and the Foundation’s Department for International Development participated in the work of the roundtable discussion from the Foundation.
Director of the American Foundation for International Education, Dan Davidson, presented the EURECA project, a joint Russian-American program on development of skills in the commercialization of technologies. The program is being realized with participation of several Russian and American universities and strives to help its members to obtain real experience in creating and promoting innovative solutions onto the market.
Participants of the discussion considered the first results of the development of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, cooperation between technological clusters of Skolkovo and leading U.S. universities within the lines of joint research in top-priority areas of economic development for Russia and the USA. Director of the Energy Efficiency Cluster, Ekaterina Dyachenko and Director for International Development, Alexei Sitnikov, gave their presentations. President of the Association of American Universities, Robert Burdal, noted the big interest expressed by U.S. research universities as regards to the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, and cooperation of leading international companies with research workers within the framework of governmental support. Professor Burdal pointed out the need for active cooperation between the technological university created within the Skolkovo project and leading American universities, research centers and laboratories. Professor Davidson commented on the brand new approach to creating a modern corporate management system in the Foundation and expressed his willingness to promote development of similar management system in the Skolkovo University.
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Foundation, director of the Institute for Global Politics Research at the University of Purdue, Professor Ardenn Bement emphasized the importance of active cooperation between the university created at the Skolkovo Center and the academic community both in Russia and abroad, and supported the idea of joint participation of Russian and American research workers in developing the scientific outline of the Skolkovo center, including with the support of a number of U.S. state universities.
Participants of the discussion decided to continue consideration of possible variants of cooperation and to continue searching for practical solutions in the field of development of scientific, educational and technological outlines of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. For these purposes, workgroups will be formed; in the nearest future they are going to bring in a number of programs and projects designed for joint implementation.