Financing and commercialization of scientific developments

Opinions of post-science experts on the problems of interaction between scientists and investors

In the "Point of View" format, Post-Science introduces readers to the opinions of our experts on current problems of society, education and science. In the new issue, we asked our authors to express their point of view about the problems scientists face when bringing their developments to market.

Viktor ZaichenkoDoctor of Technical Sciences, Head of the Department of Distributed Energy Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences

There is a very obvious problem that does not allow some technologies and developments to go beyond scientific laboratories. Scientists are creating something new, and in order to understand that these developments can be used in industrial production, they need to be put on resource testing for about a year or two. Now we are very far from a fairly high level of industrial production in 19881989. Then we had academic science, university science (the so-called higher school) and branch science. It was just industry science that carried out this "fine-tuning" to the industrial level. Now there is practically no such type of science. Of course, they are trying to return it, but such consequences cannot be experienced in such a short period of time.

At the moment, we have neither the strength nor the technology to bring developments to industrial implementation. This is largely because we have switched to the path of democratic development. Now it is believed that everyone should discuss such things as, for example, the need to launch spaceships. If a scientist wants to get money for some kind of scientific development, he must win a tender or a competition. And earlier, scientists knew exactly what they needed to do, and entrusted it to those people who, in their opinion, could do it well. Currently, if a researcher has come up with something, he must explain it to the commission and win a tender for his invention, and all people should understand what he has developed. But sometimes scientists come up with things that are not always clear to specialists.

Alexander ParfenovDoctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Leading Researcher at the State Research Center for Preventive Medicine, President of the AngioScan Company

On the one hand, I am a scientist (researcher at the State Research Center for Preventive Medicine), and on the other hand, an entrepreneur (president of the Angioscan company). When conducting a commercial project with the participation of an investor (public or private funds), as a rule, a number of problems arise in the further promotion of the product and its commercialization. When receiving state support, we are faced with a lack of coordination between various state structures. For example, there were situations when we successfully concluded contracts with the Department of Science and Industrial Policy (the customer), they paid for our research and development, and after the research was completed, it turned out that the Department of Health (the user), who in theory should continue to use this development, did not need it or was not interested. Although the state contract, which describes the investment procedure, clearly states that this development is intended for use by medical professionals.

If the investor is a private company, for her, of course, everything is focused on the final product and its commercialization. The problem here is that the companies that allocate funds for development, and believe that the creation of the final product is a sufficient condition for its successful entry into the market. But in fact, with the appearance of the product, the work is just beginning. After all, if this is an innovative development, nothing may be known about it to the general public, and potential users need to be prepared for its appearance. And often investors do not understand how important marketing and promotion of a product is for its further sale. For example, in Israel, the main financing occurs precisely after the development and creation of a product and is aimed at bringing it to the consumer. We consider it unimportant, which greatly slows down the process of entering the market.

Now the average consumer trusts products that come from the West much more. We need to organize advertising campaigns and convey to the user the benefits of developments, because if we don't do this, people will have the feeling that "our scientists have done something incomprehensible again." Now it comes to the point that companies that create devices and technologies in Russia are thinking about how to bring them to our market through some other country, because in this case the passage of the product is simplified and the user treats it with great confidence.

Alexander ZhdanovDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Chief Researcher of the Lebedev Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Faculty of Radio Engineering and Cybernetics of MIPT

Developments in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics, such as control systems for new machine tools, power plants, cars, satellites, robots, and so on, are created in order to increase labor productivity and ultimately increase profits by several percent. In the West, this is how it works: a lot of engineers are working to increase the quality of some device or material by 0.1%. Over the decades, these percentages, accumulating, lead to the creation of a high-quality final product and a significant increase in profits. This is how everyone's favorite highly reliable Mercedes and other Nokia cars turn out. The rate of profit in the world is measured in units of interest. In Russia, the situation is different now. The economy is organized in such a way that it is not profitable for any investor to invest money in something that will not bring him a profit of tens or hundreds of percent. And such opportunities for obtaining superprofits in our country have existed and still exist.

Artificial intelligence systems and robotics with its pathetic percentages cannot really interest investors. If you come to the director of one of our factories with such a development, he will look at you as a complete idiot. He will not spend his money on something that will not double or triple his profit. It is economically unprofitable for him to invest in intelligent systems. If you put organizational pressure on him, force him to make robots, then there are many opportunities to dodge. If you offer grants for the development of artificial intelligence, there will always be something to report. It turns out that we do not need robots, as long as there is a possibility of obtaining superprofits in another way. However, in addition to civilian, robots today are rapidly expanding their military purpose. And if the situation does not change and developments in the field of robotics are not supported in our country, then in a few years we will have nothing to fight off flying, running and crawling, very intelligent, but alien and hostile robots.

Zorigto NamsaraevCandidate of Biological Sciences, researcher at the Laboratory of Ecology and Geochemical Activity of Microorganisms of the S.N. Vinogradsky Institute of Microbiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Cell Bioenergetics of the NTC "Bioenergetics" of the NBICS Center of the SIC "Kurchatov Institute".

Of course, there are many problems. Firstly, these are different "languages" spoken by scientists and entrepreneurs. Scientists are poorly versed in legal subtleties and ownership schemes, it is difficult for entrepreneurs to assess the real value of the development. Especially considering that in Russia the number of scientists working in some field is very limited, and this may leave its mark on the results of an "independent" examination. By the way, if both sides speak "the same language" from the very beginning, then this may not be a very good sign. As they said about some comrades: "they are not very confident in discussing gas chromatography, but they are very confident in bargaining about the amount of royalties."

Secondly, the difference in the expected results. It is good if both sides have enough confidence in each other and can come to a common opinion about the ultimate goals of cooperation. It is much worse if both sides start actively playing against each other. Personally, it seems to me that small tactical gains in such a situation are much worse than strategic losses. After all, reputation is expensive, and the scientific and technological layer in Russia is very thin.

Thirdly, there is still a poorly developed high-tech industry. An atmosphere conducive to scientific and entrepreneurial activity has not yet been created. The situation when a professor and his students create a small startup and promote their scientific developments is more an exception than the rule in Russia. The incubation period of project development can last quite a long time in such conditions, and entering the project at the first stages of development will not necessarily give its results in the first year. Most likely, it will be a longer period, and many entrepreneurs may not be very interested in it. In such a situation, it is difficult to expect projects that bring maximum profit in the shortest possible time. We need a long planning horizon.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru09.12.2014