Sk.ru has interviewed members of the Skolkovo Foundation Council in connection with it passing a resolution on changing its steering structure last Friday.
According to Deputy Minister of Finance Andrei Ivanov, he – along with the deputy heads of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Education and Science, - has now become a member of the Council. His work as part of the Council will enable the Ministry of Finance to take part in the discussion of the project priorities
We see the Skolkovo Foundation as a model platform for the innovation process development in this countryMr. Ivanov said.
State Secretary, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economic Development Oleg Fomichev believes that his admission to the Skolkovo Foundation Council will facilitate his ministry’s fruitful cooperation with Skolkovo.
We are a ministry that is responsible for coordinating investment activities and we therefore welcome this initiative. It will provide us with an excellent possibility of cooperation in adopting documents, in order to align what is being done at Skolkovo with the rest of the state policies. The Foundation itself will also benefit from this because it will mean greater and more active involvement of Skolkovo into the common infrastructure of innovation activities and closer collaboration with other innovation clusters in RussiaOleg Fomichev told sk.ru.
Alexander Povalko, Deputy Minister of Education and Science sees the primary objectives of his personal membership in the Skolkovo Foundation Council as the following:
«This is primarily coordination and harmonisation of the Ministry’s activities and that of the Foundation. Skolkovo is a state project, and it must to a certain extent reflect the image and concept of educational and scientific development of the country. The second objective has to do with Skolkovo’s role of a kind of test ground where selected organisational mechanisms can be tried and tested before being released into the “big world”. The most attractive of such grounds is Skoltech for it reflects the concept of a university structure that is alternative to the traditional; its core activity process and the steering structure may be different. Leading international scholars will be able to come and work here. If this works out, Skoltech will serve as an attractive example and a good model which will perhaps help others, even if not for direct implementation but for using some fragments of itsuch is the opinion of Alexander Povalko voiced in his interview to sk.ru.
«This is primarily coordination and harmonisation of the Ministry’s activities and that of the Foundation. Skolkovo is a state project, and it must to a certain extent reflect the image and concept of educational and scientific development of the country.
The second objective has to do with Skolkovo’s role of a kind of test ground where selected organisational mechanisms can be tried and tested before being released into the “big world”. The most attractive of such grounds is Skoltech for it reflects the concept of a university structure that is alternative to the traditional; its core activity process and the steering structure may be different. Leading international scholars will be able to come and work here. If this works out, Skoltech will serve as an attractive example and a good model which will perhaps help others, even if not for direct implementation but for using some fragments of itsuch is the opinion of Alexander Povalko voiced in his interview to sk.ru.
Viktor Vekselberg, co-chair of the Skolkovo Foundation Council, feels certain that Skolkovo’s prospects for the future are more than just promising:
The decision of the Russian government on including the Skolkovo project into the governmental programme “Economic development and innovation-based economy” came as a kind of vote of confidence in respect of the Foundation and a token of recognition of the success it has achieved in the past three years. For all that we are perfectly aware of how much the Foundation still has to do for the project intended to play a key role in Russia’s innovation-based development to be successfully accomplished.
Craig Barrett, co-chair of the Skolkovo Foundation Council, former chief executive of Intel Corporation, concurred with this opinion in his interview to sk.ru:
We have been following closely the Foundation’s operation over 3 years. The Skolkovo Foundation Council has duly noted the progress achieved by Skolkovo in its work over this period. We have found that the Russian government has reaffirmed its plan of financial sponsorship of the Foundation for the next 6 years, which is a very, very positive aspect. The Skolkovo Foundation Council has every reason to expect substantial advances in the foreseeable future.
Chair of the Skolkovo Foundation Executive Advisory Council, former Finnish prime minister, former Nokia executive vice president Esko Aho told sk.ru that attending the Skolkovo Foundation Council meeting has given him an extra boost of confidence in Skolkovo’s prosperous future.
Everything that I have heard and seen here, the resolutions made, all of these serve as a perfect basis for the Foundation’s further development in accordance with the initial plans. At the same time, this certainty of mine is based on the tangible achievements of the Foundation which prove beyond all doubt: this model works! State and private business investments are another testimony of the successful accomplishment of the goal of building a Foundation ecosystem, as is the number of project participants. We are now entering the second stage which is about the Foundation’s operation producing actual results. This is what always happens when an innovation infrastructure is being built: this always takes time and is a difficult task, plus the Russian context is not the most propitious when it comes to creating it. For all that I am an optimist and I believe that this is going to work. And what I have heard here, at the Skolkovo Foundation Council meeting, fills me with even greater optimism.