In September, the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technologies (SkTech), which was founded as part of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre in partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), created the Foundation of Target Capital (FTC). The president of the Foundation Skolkovo Victor Vekselberg made the announcement on Monday, during a conference, "Support of education, researches and innovations in Skolkovo: partnership with business, society and the state”, at the Moscow School of Management – Skolkovo by the Skolkovo Foundation and the newspaper "Vedomosti".
“Formally the university is not a state organization; it does not depend on the state, on the Ministry of Education and Science, with all that that entails <...> therefore there are great hopes in our program for formation of independent sources of finance for the university. One of those sources should become Foundation of Target Capital (FTC) », - said Vekselberg. According to him, today, all the necessary documents are prepared and in the nearest future the FTC of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technologies (SkTech) will be registered. The head of Skolkovo Foundation has be named the “University of the New Standard”, meaning specific and global challenges which should be solved by the new educational institution. “It should form a base, a basis for long-term prospects”, - noted V. Vekselberg.
Speaking about the current situation regarding attractive investments, the president of Skolkovo Foundation noted that the university’s main challenge is to attract 1 billion dollars of private investments during the next 5 years. That is literally10 times less than the corresponding investment parameter of Massachusetts University, thus, for some months the investments in SkTech have made 50 million dollars.
On another note, V. Vekselberg has continued onto the matter of investments from state corporations. Thus, according to him, many of them could become serious and reliable partners of SkTech in the future, but currently it is problematic due to the current legislation. ”We have prepared the offer to the government that state corporations could forward part of the funds for the development of the FTC SkTech”, - the head of the Skolkovo Foundation announced.
The possible amendment will concern not only the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technologies, but also other high schools across the country, he explained.
“In general, this experience (SkTech) will be necessary to develop and distribute a prototype or blueprint. There should be tens of such universities across Russia”, - argued V. Vekselberg. According to him, it is very important to involve not simply skilled teaching structure, but the “best of the best” and this objective of the Skolkovo Foundation should be achieved together with its partners as it is very ambitious and difficult..
During his speech, the chairman of the board of Rosnano, Anatoly Chubays, noted that, while the corporation headed by him is 100% state-owned, it has already started more than 100 working business projects, which can invest money in SkTech. The status of the company Rosnano does not allow it to do the same. During the conference, the President of SkTech, Professor Edward Krouli, lead the presentation of an educational institution and described its plans. So, as he said, in January 2012, the board of guardians of the university will be formed, and by summer 2012, SkTech’s research centres and educational programs will start operating. SkTech plans to establish partnerships with 15 leading research centres worldwide.
Also, it is planned that of SkTech’s first forty students, twenty will go for training to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in August 2012. “Then, within a year, they will work in different universities and only return to Skolkovo in the autumn of 2014”, - the professor explained.
“SkTech will be a space without barriers, an integrated community of 200 professors and 300 post-graduate students. Everyone is open to speak with anyone else, such is the environment that we will create,” explained the president of the high school, sharing his plans.
During the conference, "Support of education, researches and innovations in Skolkovo", public, private and commercial partners took part in round tables on themes such as ”Experience of the Russian and international high schools on creation and management of endowment-funds” and “Investments into education, researches and innovations in Skolkovo: possibilities for business”. At these round tables, leading Russian and foreign education experts met with representatives from Skolkovo Foundation, including Investment Director, Alexander Lupachev, and the Vice-President of Management and Development of SkTech, Alexey Sitnikov.
Reference information:
Official website of Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkTech): http://skolkovotech.ru/.
The Skolkovo Foundation
The Skolkovo Foundation has the mandate from the Russian Government to help accelerate the transformation of Russia from a resource-intensive to an innovation-based economy through strategic partnerships with leading scientists and corporations (currently numbering over 310 companies and start-ups.) The Foundation aims to strengthen the links between Russian and international science, technology, education, entrepreneurship and investment communities. To achieve this objective it is overseeing the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre composed of five R&D clusters, a Technopark, the Skolkovo Institute of Technology (a new graduate research University established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Skolkovo city, located near Moscow. Together these entities will establish a vibrant eco-system of technology innovation and entrepreneurship. The Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in May of 2010 by the Russian Government with a grant of USD 5 billion.
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