Oct 25 2010
Anatoly Chubais, CEO of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO), established in 2007 to enable Government policy in the field of Nanotechnology, gave a keynote address at the annual meeting of the American-Russian Business Council, which opened in San Francisco on October 21, 2010. Mr. Chubais told the group, “Russia is faced with creating an economy based on innovative growth. The country does not have another option. The choice is innovation or degradation. There is no other path.”
Describing the work that RUSNANO carries out, Mr. Chubais lingered for a time on the corporation’s international projects. He told the group that more than 160 applicants from abroad have made requests to RUSNANO for project cofinancing. Sixty of these have come from the United States, the largest contributor of international requests.
The Supervisory Council of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies has already approved three projects from the United States—one each in nanomaterials, microelectronics, and medicine. Aggregate budgets for these projects are one billion dollars of which RUSNANO will cofinance $270 million.
Collaboration with the United States in innovation has fostered contact with leading U.S. venture funds, including two visits, in May and October 2010, to Russia from leaders of US top venture capital funds. RUSNANO participated in organizing those visits during which the parties held meetings that laid groundwork for 11 potential joint projects in clean energy, electronics, and biotechnology. They have aggregate budgets of $1.2 billion of which $400 million is in a joint venture capital fund.