Leading Russian and American research universities will soon partner with each other through a multiyear collaborative program designed to have American science researchers teach their Russian counterparts about U.S.-honed models for transferring technology and commercializing academic research. The Russians in turn will train academics at other Russian universities on how to best commercialize their technological inventions and build Russia’s high-tech capacity.
The program, which goes by the acronym Eureca – Enhancing University Research and Entrepreneurial Capacity – is supported by the U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (USRF). USRF plans to allocate $1.5 million to $2 million per year to the program and will work with a consortium of Russian and U.S. organizations to administer the projects.
"Our ambition is to make sure [Russian] universities are much more integrated into local and regional economic systems,” Andrey Kortunov, president of the Moscow-based New Eurasia Foundation, which is part of the consortium, told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "With all the positive things you can say about the Russian university system, it has been detached from labor market and regional needs,” he added.
Benefit to Modernization of the Russian Economy
The Eureca project is especially important in light of Russia’s plans to build up the nation’s research centers and high-tech industry, including the Skolkovo project. A new Russian federal law passed in 2009 gave Russian universities control over their intellectual property, thereby allowing for the creation of small companies on campuses to commercialize research. With the new skills and knowledge acquired from their American counterparts, Russian research universities can really take advantage of this law and use the best approaches for moving intellectual property to the tech industry.
"Over the past two years, Russia has undertaken several critical steps in making the transition to a knowledge economy," Dan Davidson, president of the American Councils, was quoted as saying. "The Eureca program launch marks a new era in U.S.-Russia relations by providing a new means for substantive collaboration to advance scientific, economic and social causes."
U.S. Involvement
In addition to the New Eurasia Foundation, two U.S.-based non-governmental organizations – the American Councils for International Education and the National Council for East European and Eurasian Research – are also part of the consortium helping to administer the two-year program.
The program launched this month with a delegation from Russia visiting the four American institutions that are taking part in Eureca, namely UCLA, Purdue University, the University of Washington, and the University of Maryland at College Park. On the Russian side, the two selected Eureca hubs are the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod and the St. Petersburg State University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics.
One of the main academics championing the program on the U.S. side is Kathryn Atchison, vice provost for intellectual property and industry relations at UCLA. As she recently explained to ModernRussia.com, “UCLA was motivated to participate in this program because it presents a unique opportunity to positively transfer our expertise in tech transfer to transform Russian universities into hubs for economic development. The new Russian law will also make scientific collaborations possible between our faculty and students.”
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the project presents the American institutions the opportunity to not only develop new scientific partnerships, but also have a foot in the door to the new investment funds the Russian government is putting behind its modernization efforts. Furthermore, the academic teams will collaborate on commercializing actual technological inventions from the Russian universities, most likely in the fields of nanotechnology and computer science.
The partnered U.S.-Russia universities are currently in the process of finalizing their specific proposals for the project and upon approval will begin collaboration in 2011.
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