4 new R&D centers In Skolkovo

A number of large companies will sign agreements with Skolkovo on accommodation of new research centers in Innograd in the near future. KamAZ, Microsoft, Alstom and Russian Technologies will open their R&D centers there, as Roman Romanovsky, managing director of the key partners department of the Skolkovo Fund told Izvestia.

According to Alexey Mogila, the head of the department of commercial real estate of the Penny Lane Company, the cost of the four R&D centers construction can cost at least $60 M, excluding equipment.

Thus, taking into account the four new investors, the total number of companies that have signed an agreement with Skolkovo on placing their centers there, is reaching 20 and it is half of the prospective investors pool.

We believe that there should be about 30 - 50 large companies in Innograd - Romanovsky says. Skolkovo is an ecosystem of a certain size. It cannot and should not be formed by ‘the whole world’. Romanovsky also noted that there will live about 30,000 people in the city for the normal operation of the system: it is either professors or students, or start-up companies or researchers from large companies or venture capitalists.