“Visitors to the ‘Skolkovo consultant’ section of the BFM.ru website most frequently ask how to become a Skolkovo resident. How would you answer them?”
“It’s all fairly simple from our point of view. First, it must definitely be a Russian legal entity. Even if it’s a foreign company, it must still register a Russian subsidiary. Second, the company’s articles of association must say that it is exclusively engaged in research, as stipulated by the federal law on the Skolkovo Innovation Center. That is, it must be working in at least one of the five areas for which we have created clusters: energy efficiency, space technology, biomedicine, nuclear technologies and IT. And to return to the question of the company’s articles of association, they must include the possibility of engaging in some other kind of activity apart from research, in the five areas listed. These are the basic demands that we make of our participants. Naturally, the company must present its innovative project to us.”
“Does the scale of the capital and the time that the company has existed play a role?”
“There are no requirements in that respect. We are geared towards both big business and start-ups which don’t have a lot of history or capital. The capital and growth of the company are not the criteria that we assess. That is, the company could have been set up yesterday and submit documents to Skolkovo today.”
“What’s the time taken to examine applications? If the company is rejected, what is the basis of the decision?”
“The average time taken to examine an application, as of the beginning of August, is 32 days. In our view that’s fast enough, especially if you compare it with other similar centres or development institutions. They take nearly twice as long to consider applications. All our applications are submitted via our electronic portal, which is located on our website. The documents that we accept for consideration go through two expert assessments. The first is formal, to check whether everything has been formulated correctly. The second is about the substance, which is when the experts are involved. Then a decision is taken – either to award the status of Skolkovo participant or to give a reasoned rejection. We try to be as flexible as possible. And if the rejection happens, for example, because of non-compliance of a clause in the articles of association, we help the applicant to rectify the cause and submit new documents.”
“What does the status of Skolkovo resident provide?”
“Our residents, participants in the project, receive a benefit related to their payment of profit tax, income tax and social security contributions. And a system of customs benefits operates here when our participants have to import equipment necessary for their research work.”
“Who is included in the team of Skolkovo experts?”
“Each cluster has its own pool of experts. These are scientists with a worldwide reputation, both Russians and foreigners. Our scientific council includes Russian and foreign participants in a 50:50 ratio.”
“How are experts selected for a specific project?”
“Randomly, but if it’s the energy efficiency cluster, then only from the experts in that cluster.”
“How many experts assess each project?”
“An expert panel of 10 independent experts is put together to decide whether the project goes ahead, and the matter is considered decided if more than 50% have taken part in the vote. They examine projects according to three criteria: the degree of innovation, its relevance to the cluster’s subject area, and the involvement of a foreign specialist. And the project is considered accepted if it gets more than 50% on each of these criteria.”
“How important is the project’s commercial attractiveness? If it’s not entirely clear what this project might yield on the financial level, will it be approved?”
“It all depends on the expert who assesses the project in question. We trust our experts, including their assessments of the project’s commercialisation potential and its degree of innovation. Its degree of innovation already implies the project has a certain amount of commercial attractiveness in Russia and also in other countries, and therefore we have a large number of foreign experts.”
“How is the limit for financing the project decided?”
“If the project is assessed at $10 billion, we’re not willing to take part. According to our investment policy, the grants committee’s competence includes projects with financing from 1.5 million to 300 million roubles. In practice there have been cases where the planners have been allocated more substantial sums. Our maximum sum was about 600 million roubles. As of the beginning of August a total of more than 4 billion roubles had been approved.
“This money is allocated in parts, according to the stage of implementation of the project. After a stage has been implemented an interview takes place with the same grants committee that originally took the decision. At that point a decision is made on whether the goals have been achieved. If they have, the financing continues.”
“And if it turns out that the declared aim at this specific stage has not been achieved, what will the resident have to do then? Repay the money that has already been provided?”
“They must return only that part of the grant that they have not used. They can be deprived of further financing, but the Foundation does not require that the money that they have already spent on the declared aims be returned.”
“On what terms is a grant provided?”
“There are several levels. Projects of up to 1.5 million roubles can have funding disbursed directly by decision of the clusters according to their internal procedures without the need for submission to the project grants committee, ie, according to a simplified procedure. If it’s more than 1.5 million roubles, we require co-financing by an investor brought in by the participant. This must operate on a 3:1 basis – for every 3 roubles of ours the co-investor provides 1 rouble. When it’s a matter of sums from 30 million to 150 million roubles, financing takes places on a 50:50 basis. And if it’s from 150 to 300 million roubles, the co-investor puts in three roubles for every one of ours.”
“One of the criteria for the project to be approved is the involvement of a foreign specialist. A great number of questions arise in relation to this among visitors to the ‘Skolkovo consultant’ section. For example, I’ve developed a big project: why do I need to find a foreign co-author? If someone has developed the know-how, why do they need someone else?”
“The author of the question has probably not fully understood. Of course, post-factum co-authorship by a foreigner is not required. And you don’t need to share your know-how with them. The point is that a foreign specialist should be involved in the project from the very beginning, someone who will be able to help develop the project in question, make it competitive in foreign markets and simply work as part of the project team.”
“The company can simply hire some foreign specialist?”
“Exactly.”
“Doesn’t the involvement of a foreigner carry the risk that after becoming part of the project they might take all its innovative ideas abroad for themselves?”
“The Skolkovo Foundation has set up an Intellectual Property Rights Protection Centre, which directly serves the interests of our applicants in terms of protection of their author’s rights and intellectual property rights. We take a very serious view of this issue.”
“And who will own the intellectual property with regard to developments made as part of the project?”
“The participants, exclusively. The Foundation doesn’t receive anything. We don’t ask for a share, we don’t ask anything of the project.”
“Bearing in mind that you have more than 100 residents, is there a limit to the number of participants, or are you prepared to accept an unlimited number?”
“We don’t have any officially established limit to the number of participants, because we didn’t know what volume of applications would actually come in. At first there weren’t many, but then there was a sharp rise, an explosion of applications. In time the number of our participants may well be limited by the physical infrastructure alone, which is currently at the planning stage. When we start to create this infrastructure, we’ll have a clearer understanding of how many residents we can accommodate at any one time in the innovation centre.”