As economies around the world and especially in Europe, struggle to renew growth and employment, policy makers, educators, entrepreneurs and CEOs all speak incessantly about the need for continuing investment in innovation. In Russia and especially at the Skolkovo Foundation we share the conviction that innovation provides the way out of the world’s current economic (and debt) crisis, but more importantly it is the process by which we can transform our economies to create sustainable growth and ensure global competitiveness.
But what is innovation and why is it so important especially in this 21st century of global markets. Yearly, new products and services appear on the market, and as rapidly disappear (e.g. palm pilot, cassette) while other innovative products rapidly become digital commodities which can be outsourced to lower cost countries.
In this global market, we are all competitors, but it is through innovation that we can become each other’s suppliers and customers as well.
A culture of innovation combines excellence in education and research. It also closes the gap between the world of education and the world of work in order to prepare the next generation of innovators with needed skills and knowledge. This includes the teaching of entrepreneurial skills and international collaboration. In such a culture, smart people take smart ideas to do remarkable things that lead to the creation of new products, new services, new industries and new jobs. Who cannot be amazed by how rapid developments in the digital technologies, the enabling technology of our age, are helping to stimulate innovations around the world. Innovation is fuelling technological advances across the board whether in nanoelectronics, space exploration, satellite communications, nuclear technology or bio-medical research.
Innovation today differs from earlier advances by being best served by international collaboration. Our shrinking globe and our integrated economies have made cross-border collaboration an imperative when it comes to creation, especially as it relates to microprocessors, graphics accelerators, green energy, clean fuels, nuclear energy, Cloud computing, consumer electronics, information technology infrastructure.
Historically, Europe is well placed in the innovation game. From the invention of the steam engine to the birth of the worldwide web, Europe has proved its rich tradition of technological advances that have transformed both the global economy and our daily lives. Italy is very much a part of this tradition. We are all still amazed by the inventions and vision of Leonardo da Vinci, and we are all still relying on Guglielmo Marconi’s discovery and harnessing of long-distance radio waves. Russia too has it is share of innovation giants: it led the race to space with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and a half century earlier, Dmitri Mendeleev designed the first periodic table of elements that is still used by students and scientists around the world.
It is vital that we now all build on this world heritage.
Innovation will unleash the inventions, technologies products and services that will build our future. It is our experience that success will depend on environments and far-sighted companies and governments that create hubs of excellence in R&D, technological advancements, venture capital investments leveraged further through collaborations with universities and public/private partnerships. These hubs benefit not only the companies, academics, scientists and entrepreneurs involved directly in their activities, but the communities around them and the world at large as well.
It is no wonder that governments everywhere are striving to put in place mechanisms to promote home-grown innovation that can tap into the world market: the European Union’s 2020 strategy recognises innovation as the precondition for the creation of a knowledge-based, low-carbon economy; US President Barack Obama has launched the ‘Strategy for American Innovation’ and meanwhile China has its own “’Medium and Long-Term Programme for Science & Technology Development while Brazil has an ‘Innovation Law.’
Russia is no exception, and the Skolkovo Foundation and Innovation Centre are tools to help Russia achieve its transformation from a resource-based economy to an innovation economy. Today, the Foundation has invested a total of euro 120 million and by year end 2012, investments will reach euro 200 million. And we are not doing this alone. We are concluding partnerships from around the world, and recent agreements include those with Siemens R&D Center and with Quadriga, a German venture capital fund to finance the Vocal Technologies Centre.
Innovation drives wealth and creates job – it is the fuel for our future. At Skolkovo we are committed to harnessing innovation as the fuel for all our activities in order to achieve our vision of a better society.
Author: Seda Pumpyanskyaya, Vice President for International Relations and Public Affairs, Skolkovo Foundation, Russia
Source: Financial newspaper