Putin abolishes state companies’ obligation to remit funds to Skoltech

Vladimir Putin has revoked an order of Dmitry Medvedev, which obliged state companies to pay funds to the endowment fund of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech). Vedomosti reported this today with reference to an employee of the federal department and a senior government official who noted that the order was marked as for official use only.

Skoltech, established by the Skolkovo Fund and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is part of the Skolkovo innovation cluster initiated by Medvedev in 2010. Skoltech is focused on education and applied research. The presidential commission on modernization decided in January 2012 that Skoltech would be financed through an endowment fund. Dmitry Medvedev instructed state companies to remit 0.5-3% of their previous year net profits to the fund for a three-year period.

According to the newspaper’s source, Skoltech will be completely dependent on budget funding available until 2015, and private orders. One of the ways to correct the situation was the creation of an endowment, which required at least 15B RUR to raise, while the state companies transferred a total of 4B RUR in 2012, and in 2013, as he said, no payments came.

Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov explained that state companies could fund Skolkovo voluntarily.