Vice president for external economic relations at Skolkovo Foundation, Conor Lenihan, gives his viewpoint on the rise of Russia's technoparks.
German statesman Otto von Bismarck once famously observed that the Russian cavalry were “slow to saddle up, but ride fast”.
Nowhere is this saying truer than in innovation, where Russia has climbed rapidly up the innovation rankings in the past five years. France’s Insead Business School recently placed Russia in 51st place in its innovation index, while a new Bloomberg ranking put the country as high as 14th worldwide in a measure that looked at research and development intensity, among other things.
The collapse of the Soviet Union dealt a tough blow to the prestige and standing of Russian science. The resulting human capital flight, through the emigration of talented Russian scientists, engineers and technologists, was dramatic. Just ask Cisco Systems, now a strong promoter of Skolkovo, Russia’s flagship innovation project: it has no fewer than 700 Russian émigrés among its staff in Silicon Valley alone.
Source: telegraph.co.uk