The Skolkovo Innovation Center near Moscow should become an open venue where talented scientists and engineers can develop new technology, a senior Kremlin aide said on Monday.
Skolkovo and leading Russian higher education establishments signed a memorandum of cooperation earlier in the day
"This agreement will demonstrate our major goal: the innovation center is not a closed territory where clever people invent things," Vladislav Surkov, who also heads the Skolkovo project working group, said at the signing ceremony.
He said the group's aim was to make the research hub an "open platform" where Russia's leading scientists could, along with "students, professors and engineers" work on the development of new technology.
Surkov added that the entire project was of great political significance.
President Dmitry Medvedev said at the recent Global Policy Forum in Yaroslavl that the capability of a government to provide and maintain a high level of technological development is one of the standards of democracy.
Skolkovo is being built from scratch 20 kilometers west of Moscow. The center will focus on research in five priority spheres: energy, information technologies, communication, biomedical research and nuclear technologies.
Medvedev has called on foreign companies to participate in the Skolkovo project.
In July, the German company Siemens signed a memorandum of mutual understanding with Skolkovo during the Russian-German St. Petersburg Dialogue forum in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
MOSCOW, September 20 (RIA Novosti)
