Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology

At the centre of the Skolkovo innovation ecosystem, the Skolkovo Foundation is launching the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skolkovo Tech), a novel university that will educate coming generations of Russian technology entrepreneurs in a unique curriculum that integrates academic excellence, ground-breaking research, and entrepreneurial science. The mission of the Skolkovo Tech is to educate students, advance knowledge, and foster technological innovation to address critical challenges and gaps facing Russia and the world.

On 26 October 2011, the Skolkovo Foundation, Skolkovo Tech, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed a definitive collaboration agreement to develop Skolkovo Tech as a world-class research university. According to the terms of the agreement, MIT will provide expertise and assistance in organizing and integrating Skolkovo Tech academic programs, multidisciplinary research centres, and entrepreneurship components.

Academic and research programs at Skolkovo Tech will cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and address contemporary scientific and technological challenges in Skolkovo’s five priority areas: information science, energy science, biomedical science, aerospace science, and nuclear (civilian) science.

Recognizing that the world’s leading research universities are not merely national but global, Skolkovo Tech will establish its15 Research Centres as collaborative and multi-university research partnerships. Each Centre will have Skolkovo Tech faculty as the lead, and will involve at least one Russian and one non-Russian institutional partner, thereby opening new avenues of knowledge exchange between Russian institutions and universities worldwide. Funding for the Centres will initially flow from Skolkovo Tech, and will be at levels comparable to those at world-leading research universities. The Research Centres will be developed through a competitive proposal process involving workshops, white papers, requests for proposals, peer review, and selection.

To integrate Skolkovo Tech research and education components with its emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, the university will establish a Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI). Integrating the three pillars for entrepreneurship and innovation—education, research, and commercialization—the CEI will develop mechanisms that help Skolkovo Tech students, professors, alumni, and researchers to take their scientific and technology discoveries from the level of abstract ideas to successful products and processes in the commercial marketplace.

Skolkovo Tech is incorporated as a private, not-for-profit graduate research university, governed by an independent and international board of trustees. Construction of the Skolkovo Tech campus has already begun, and the first full class of MA and Ph.D. students will matriculate in the autumn of 2014. When scaled up to its planned capacity, Skolkovo Tech will have 1,200 masters and doctoral students, and 200 faculty members. By 2020, it is expected that Skolkovo Tech will join the ranks of internationally recognized research universities.

Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology website: skolkovotech.ru