Russian Technology Transfer Network opens doors to Russia’s innovation heartland

Since its founding in 2002, the Russian Technology Transfer Network (RTTN) has worked with the global business and research community to tap into the scientific and technological advances made in R&D centers and universities across Russia.  Based in Obninsk in the Kaluga Region, RTTN is an association of over 70 Russian innovation centers from more than 30 regions of Russia and the CIS that aggregates information on R&D offerings in Russia and neighboring states and serves as an entry point for potential industry partners and investors.  Given Russia’s vast territory, its potential language barriers and information gaps between Russian regional and foreign entities, RTTN’s work is a critical element to developing the country’s national innovation infrastructure.

RTTN has two main objectives:

- To facilitate technology transfer between Russia’s science and technology sector and various industry players through information dissemination.  This is achieved through the organization’s online database of technology offers and requests, which includes information coming from the local databases of RTTN members across Russia and the CIS.

- To help its members, which are mostly Russian SMEs and R&D organizations based outside of Moscow, build the capacity needed to identify and pursue international partners and cooperation opportunities.  This is done through various networking opportunities and capacity-building initiatives, including conferences and workshops for RTTN members, partners and clients.

Institutional collaboration with the EU

Rather than being created by government initiative, RTTN was developed from the ground up, and its growth has been reinforced by the will of its members.  The network was initiated by the Obninsk Center for Science and Technology, a leading Russian R&D center located in the Kaluga Region, in partnership with the Koltsovo Innovation Center, which is located in the Novosibirsk Region.  To build the network’s capacity, the centers sought cross-border collaboration opportunities through various EU entrepreneurship programs, including the Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) program, which is currently integrated with EuropeAid.  Since 2008, RTTN has also been a member of the Enterprise Europe Network, a group of more than 580 regional business support organizations from 47 countries, including chambers of commerce, technology centers and research institutes that provide integrated business and innovation support services for SMEs.

U.S. involvement in Russian technology transfer

Although RTTN’s work focuses mainly on cooperation with the European Union, there are similar initiatives taking place between Russia and the U.S.  As reported previously on Modern Russia, Russian and American research universities have launched a multiyear collaborative program known as the Enhancing University Research and Entrepreneurial Capacity (EURECA) program through which American science researchers teach their Russian counterparts at universities in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod about U.S.-honed models for transferring technology and commercializing academic research.

Programs like RTTN and EURECA put the spotlight on Russia’s innovation heartland and show what it has to offer in terms of R&D – but this potential is not always easily accessible for industry players, especially foreign ones.  Ultimately, international collaboration efforts like these can help develop Russia’s technology transfer know-how to allow foreign investors to tap into the best of Russia’s technology offering.