On May 17, 2012 in Tel-Aviv, Skolkovo Vice-President Stanislav Naumov and the Head of the Israeli government agency MATIMOP Michael Hivert will sign a memorandum on enhancing bilateral cooperation in the development of high technology. They will further announce the beginning of a competition for the selection of innovative projects in the field of biomedical technologies, IT, energy efficiency and nuclear technologies.
The Russian-Israeli initiative is intended to support research and development (R&D) in both countries and will be implemented jointly by Russian and Israeli technology companies. Israel and Russia plan to promote joint activities aimed not only at the development of new technologies, but also for the research to lead to marketable products commercialised and sold on world markets. For this purpose, this competition will identify the most promising projects and winners will receive funding in the form of grants. Cooperation between Russian and Israeli companies in the development of high technologies will be open to third parties. In particular, some joint projects will be implemented through EUREKA - a pan-European R&D program.
These new measures to strengthen cooperation in the sphere of high technologies between Russia and Israel are based on the 9th meeting of the Joint Russian-Israeli committee on trade and economic cooperation, which was held December 8, 2011 in Moscow.
"We are now entering a phase of extensive collaboration in innovation,” said on the eve of the visit, Stanislav Naumov. “Both during the visit of the Skolkovo Foundation President Viktor Vekselberg to Israel in July last year and during the Zubkov-Lieberman commission meeting in December, both sides expressed determination to establish such cooperation. However, the innovation systems of Russia and Israel are very different from each other, and it was difficult to develop a general formula for the interaction. Now we have found this formula," continued the vice-president of the Foundation.
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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 400 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 technological innovation and entrepreneurship. The Foundation is a non-profit organisation founded in May 2010 by the Russian Government with a grant of $5 billion.
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