Innovative Prospects for Russia - EU cooperation
The second day of the Russia - Europe Conference on "Innovative Policy for Economic Growth: Goals and Tools" , held at the SU-HSE focused on Russian and European Union innovative policy research results.
The Conference was organized by the SU-HSE and the French Embassy in cooperation with the European Commission. The forum was held as part of the French presidency of the EU.
In his opening speech the HSE First Deputy Rector Leonid Gohberg welcomed the participants. Representatives from the Russian State Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, the Russian State Ministry of Education, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks, the European Commission, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the French Embassy to Russia and several universities and research centres from Russia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway, France, Switzerland and other countries attended the meeting.
Philippe Lefaure, the French Ambassador Associate, stressed the importance of the conference topic. He reminded the participants about the meeting of the Russian President with the "EU three" leaders on November 12, 2008, and stressed that innovations today are vital not only to Russia but to all mankind. "As French experience shows, state government must support innovations, since large projects in such fields as Nuclear Energy and Space exploration are impossible without Government financing", Philippe Lefaure said. However, it is also a well-known fact that even small business can implement important innovations. Ph. Lefaur thanked the SU-HSE for the conference organization and promotion and for the use of their facilities.
Yaroslav Kouzhminov, the SU-HSE Rector, also welcomed the conference participants. He stressed that the current conference should not only be considered as a demonstration of cooperation between colleagues from Russia and Europe, but also the first event of this kind to gather experts at this time of global financial crisis. In the HSE Rector's opinion, the global economic crisis is " a 21st century economic crisis, that can be only overcome by implementing more effective innovations, by innovative technological and structural decisions, and not merely by the closing down ineffective businesses as practiced in the mid 20thth century".
The transition to innovative development was a matter for discussion not only with regard to the stable and intensified economic growth of Russia over the last decade. Today the economic growth of the Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese economies is slowing dramatically for one-two years period, that, clearly showing how closely integrated these countries are into the world economy where financial institution are forecasting 0-1% growth, depending on the region. Here experts are worried about the Russian economy potential and eager to know whether "we are ready to supplement the new advantages of the Russian economy for the old ones". The long term development concept and the long term forecasts, approved by the Russian state government in autumn, provided fresh evidence for discussion on the innovative background for Russian economic growth.
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| Yaroslav Kouzhminov |
In this situation, however, there could be some "idle talk", Y. Kuzminov said. Firstly, the total scale of innovation financing is very small in Russia. It concerns fundamental research, universities, and enterprises that can not purchase really new technologies and "can only afford one third of the necessary expenditure" This means that innovations can't be implemented and the productivity of labor does not grow. "When purchasing equipment, organizations try to cut expenses for employee training and intermediate procedures. It is an barrier to higher achievements. On the other hand, in comparison with leading competitors, native science and universities are "poorly financed" and it is clear enough that "to make investment expenses profitable we need at least five years of an intensive investment policy for fundamental research at universities".
Of course, innovative stages in the economy are not directly connected with the introduction of technological innovations. Structural innovations linked with innovations in marketing, economic relations, and consumption also make a significant contribution to economic progress. From this point, the situation in Russia can be considered as "more optimistic". The level of structural innovations in the Russian economy corresponds to that of the developed states. As the HSE rector reported, "We have to see some effect from mass structural innovations at the level of technology innovations implementation, at least. But so far the only effect from structural innovations has been the redistribution of revenue".
As deputy chief of the European Commission to Russia Paul Vanderson emphasized, the World Economy facing crisis innovative policy issues are of particular concern. The conference topic is relevant for current developments. In his opinion, EU-Russia cooperation in the technology and science spheres and education "can be called successful". The EU is an importer of the raw materials necessary for economic development. A highly educated population that is actively involved in all economic activities is the only exclusive EU resource. And so the EU doesn't intend to reject early approved standards in employment sphere. "And this is the only reason for us to seek stable economic development combining implementing business energy and innovative ideas of nations. And we support this as the main principle for our economy. That's why we invest heavily in education, scientific research, technological development and innovations", P. Vanderson said. All these are supported by the Lisbon records and Barcelona EU Summit points. And one of the main tasks is to finance it by a 3% share of the GNP by 2010.
Innovative research programmes aimed to support technological development and increase competitiveness are being implemented within the EU. Research mobility, policy coordination, reciprocal recognition of professional and scientific achievements and skills are among the EU's development priorities. At the same time innovative policy and research has become a global priority. Taking this into consideration, the European Commission proposed that the EU countries take mutual measures to strengthen cooperation with non-member states. In terms of innovations, legislative support for that sphere is vital, since "it is impossible to move forward without intellectual property rights protection in this field".
EU-Russia scientific and technical cooperation is of the high importance for EU policy and "covers a wide range of innovations, programs, and implementation tools". This is clearly demonstrated by the "roadmaps" developed by the EU in cooperation with Russia that have been successfully used in global enterprises undertaken by international organizations for example, the EVROSTAT. The EU representative specifically mentioned the European Scoreboard-EIS implementation in Russia and Ukraine, a method that recently has been adopted by the EU for comparing the effectiveness of innovations. "We are pleased to see Russian network organizations consortium that had attended Euronet for innovations competitiveness strengthening". This will be an exciting way of developing cooperation between Russian and European scientific and research organizations.
This is the reason for the EU to consider this conference as a perfect opportunity to gather more information on innovative policy and programs to intensify development and cooperation in further prospects, P. Vandoren underscored.
Nikolai Vukolov, the HSE NEWS Service