As first bell rings out for the final year of the inaugural intake of students at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, provost Raj Rajagopalan tells sk.ru that in some ways they have already passed with flying colors.
Skoltech, a university partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Science and Technology in Boston, is the educational arm of the Skolkovo project – an effort by the Russian government to wean the economy off oil and gas and create more startup businesses.
Skoltech provost Raj Rajagopalan
Asked to evaluate the success of Skoltech at this early stage - the institute is only entering its third academic year – provost Rajagopalan pointed to a key performance metric.
“Based on what I hear, the students have done very well. Over 40 percent are already entrepreneurs,” said Rajagopalan, who until recently directed Middle East collaborations for the National University of Singapore.
Innovation is the backbone of Skoltech: Its entire curriculum is geared toward the application of knowledge created in the research process.
At a very sensitive time in Skoltech’s development, the success of the first cohort of 22 post-graduates is critical in advertising the institute to the wider world, Rajagopalan said.
“And they have had a very positive experience here as well at the institutions where they spent some time. While they really enjoyed this experience, they also wanted to return to Russia. So that’s a very positive indicator,” he added.
“They are going to be our ambassadors. And they have to do very well. How well they do is going to make a difference. What we do to help them with their careers, where they go, what they do, these are going to be very important,” said Rajagopalan, who was also the founding chair of the joint research and education program on Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering between NUS and MIT under the Singapore-MIT Alliance.
The institute has doubled its intake in each of the last two years, with 176 PhD and Masters students from 19 countries currently under its wing.
The renowned American engineer and scientist Arden L. Bement, who is on the Skoltech board of trustees, told sk.ru in an interview last month that "students are clearly outstanding" and would "compete well in almost any university in the world."
Skoltech as it is projected to look when construction is complete
Skoltech may already be churning out the next generation of innovators, but as a facility it doesn’t physically exist yet: The futuristic campus on Moscow's fringes is due to open its doors – at least partly - in September 2015. For now, the students are sharing facilities of other institutes in the Russian capital. The goal is to have 1,200 students guided by 200 professors by the year 2020.
Russia celebrates the start of the academic year on September 1 as Knowledge Day.
More information on Skoltech and the courses it offers can be found here.