The first session of the Skolkovo-MIT Steering Committee took place on 10 April at the Skolkovo Foundation headquarters in Moscow. The Committee includes representatives of the Skolkovo Foundation, MIT and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkTech). The day before, the MIT members of the Steering Committee answered several questions
Q. When the Committee was created, why and what are its accomplishments so far?
Duane Boning, SkTech-MIT Initiative, Faculty Lead, Collaboration Lead
MIT Professor of electrical engineering and computer science:
- This is the very first meeting of the Steering Committee, which was created at the time when MIT and the Skolkovo Foundation created its collaborative effort, the SkTech-MIT Initiative. The purpose of the committee is to oversee this effort, trying to ensure that it’s achieving its purpose – creating the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology. Many things have already been accomplished by the Skolkovo foundation, SkTech and the MIT.
Claude Canizares, MIT Vice-President for Research, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee:
- Part of the purpose of the Steering Committee is to report on the activities of the participants of the collaboration, the new faculty and staff at SkTech, as well as the faculty and staff working at the MIT on the effort. We report to the steering committee on important achievements.
Could you name just some milestone achievements?
Duane Boning:
- There are two that are particularly important. One is the first stage in the development of the research centers, along with development of research center proposals. We have made a number of steps towards completing the first round centers. The first step was hosting the Research Centers Proposals Conference on 9-10 February at MIT. There were over 300 participants from around the world, coming to hear about the process and to network and thus foster collaborative proposals.
In mid- March, the short proposals or “white papers” were due. We had 129 proposals or pre-proposals from participants from 350 different institutions, collaborating to form ideas for research centers. Now we are evaluating those by international peer review, before inviting full proposals. Our hope is by mid or late June we will have the first three or four research center winners determined. This effort will help us establish what the first fifteen research centers will be. This process is very important and very fast moving – the first accomplishment of our collaboration.
The second is starting a pre-pilot (or very early stage interactions) to have the first small group of students for SkTech. This is challenge, and led by SkTech, we aim to have twenty students selected by May. Those students will also attend a boot camp in August, where we will host them along with 20 other students, to learn about innovation. These are the key milestones.
My perspective is that these are separate pieces that have to started to now come together to create a working whole. They facilitate further activities in early 2013 and especially support the full opening of the university in fall 2014. These first students will also be the first students to attend our pilot class in fall 2013, probably in information technology or energy.
MIT’s is famous for its eco-system of innovative companies, how will it work here, shouldn’t these companies come first?
There are a number of other pieces that need to be put in place including those, which involve the interaction with the overall Skolkovo eco-system. That eco-system includes companies, from major partners to small start-ups. Also, we are connected through the research centers, to the students involved in some of their research activities, from where we will recruit some of our students. That’s an important interaction, which needs to happen in research. In the meantime, we are starting to analyze, what good research topics and centers could be. I am not sure it is a clear step-by-step process; it is more several processes working in parallel.
Marc Kastner, MIT Dean of Science
I‘d say everything is going well. Everything I hear from the representatives of the Skolkovo Foundation about their residents and venture capital partners, leads me to be optimistic. There are many things, which still have to be done, but all the signs are positive.
You just visited the Moscow PhysTech institute - what was your impression?
Marc Kastner:
- Many of us know about PhysTech, there are so many renowned scientists, who started there. They now work around the world; we have some on our faculty at MIT and I think they educate some of the very best students. So we are very interested in seeing some of these new generations of students, after their initial education.
- We were impressed by the level of interest in collaboration from the PhysTech in research, innovation and entrepreneurship. They are one of the universities the MIT and other top world universities are eager to collaborate with. PhysTech shows all of the positive signs that they are ready also to cooperate with the Skolkovotech and other partners. I think it was a very encouraging meeting.
What inspires you in Russia, do you think that such a big natural resources exporter will turn into a manufacturer of hi-tech products?
Gregory Morgan, MIT Vice-President and General Counsel:
Firstly, I think we have a high degree of trust in the Skolkovo Foundation and our colleagues, SkTech.
Mark Kastner:
I think the country is so rich at natural resources, and so rich in highly educated people. So, I don’t see a dichotomy here, no contradiction between these two. The country has an opportunity to have an engine of growth at SkTech and more broadly – Skolkovo.
Claude Canizares:
Russia has both the natural capital, which provides a source of financing and investment, and human resources to achieve that transition. And what the Skolkovo Foundation is trying to do is to create conditions to take forward these advantages.
I would also say that we worked very closely to put all these pieces together and we are confident that Skolkovo is starting with the right steps. You have the support both from the industry and government to make this happen. Success will depend on constancy and long-term support of the effort.
This is not just a two to three year effort, but we believe the right steps are being taken to form the rest of the eco-system.
And I think it was very important to MIT’s decision to engage in this effort, that we saw the right conditions, and broadly we supported it. I also think that it depends not only on the effort of SkTech, as it will be a rather small and very specific institution. However, we hope that it will be creating new models, new examples, that spread throughout the country. That is when you will have the real economic impact. An institution of 200-300 professors can’t do it by itself.
The overall economy of MIT’s alumni is more than Russia’s GDP, that’s very impressive…
This is the impact of start-ups over the many years: it’s important to note that the MIT is 150 years old, while Skolkovo is only two years, and Skolkovo city hasn’t been built yet. There was no eco-system in the second year of MIT.
One of SkTech’s declared targets is to attract the best professors. What would inspire the best teachers to come to Russia?
For one, the opportunity to participate in research centers, where Russian scientists and engineers collaborate with their colleagues from around the world. Young people have the opportunity to be part of a world leading team. This is why we attract the greatest scientists and engineers to the MIT faculty and that is why we focused on these research centers, as the most important starting points, because that is what will attract a lot of good young people,
And the other thing is that the faculty will help to attract the best students. SkTech will attract outstanding students, and this, by itself, is a big draw.
How important is it for SkTech to have a big endowment?
The university is going to do really ambitious things and should not depend entirely on government and industry to provide the support for its research or its educational activities. The strength of the research universities in the United States comes from the variety of sources for their support. What you see in the United States is that even those state universities, which used to have no endowments, depending entirely from the support of the state, the government, or the tuition of the students, are now trying to raise these endowments to get a greater diversity of support. And I think that ambitious goals require this diversity.