From science to practice: despite and even despite
Startups are not for RussiaThe economic environment in Russia is not ready for the development of scientific innovative startups
Alexandra Borisova, "Newspaper.Ru»The economic environment in Russia is not ready for the development of scientific innovative startups.
Both scientists, accustomed to decades of government funding, and the legal environment, which makes any initiative too risky, are to blame. Small enterprises at laboratories today arise not "thanks to", but "in spite of".
Against the background of constant talk about building an innovative economy, the innovative path of Russia and the country's course to abandon the raw materials economy, it is not a bad idea to recall the tool, which is one of the most important steps towards introducing promising scientific development into industry. These are small enterprises, startups that are well known from the news from Silicon Valley (the one in California, not near Moscow), but are still poorly developed in Russian reality.
What are the firms organized by scientific laboratories? You don't have to go far for examples. Even news about interesting scientific developments often ends with a message about the beginning of their small-scale implementation.
Nobel Prize winner Konstantin Novoselov surprised Moscow journalists by saying that students in his laboratory have opened a company for the practical implementation of graphene, and the heads of the scientific group do not participate in it and do not require "deductions".
Abroad, the experience of creating small enterprises at scientific laboratories, especially in the field of small–scale experimental fields of science, is the most common thing. ChemBridge Medical and Chemical Corporation, which now has offices in several countries of the world (including the Moscow division), began with a laboratory "blank".
The best illustration of the smoothness of the startup organization process at the recognized world leader – Silicon Valley – will be an anecdote from the 90s, told to the Newspaper.Ru" by Andrey Goldberg, an employee of Microsoft Research – Silicon Valley.
"How to create a startup in Silicon Valley?
1. Go to Menlo Park (note: Menlo Park is a city in the north of Silicon Valley). Find the tree.
2. Shake the tree well. A venture capitalist will fall off him.
3. Before he comes to his senses, say the spell: "Internet! E-commerce! Java!"
4. A capitalist will give you five million dollars for a startup.
5. In a year and a half, sell your startup, pay the capitalist his share, put your own in the bank.
6. Go to Menlo Park and climb a tree."
One way or another, a favorable investment climate, tax incentives, the most transparent rules of the game and strict conditions for compliance with legislation are critically important for small businesses. They do not have the opportunity to compensate for losses in one area at the expense of another, as large companies can do. In addition, conditions are needed under which people would be calm for the money invested in a small business.
In order for the same scientist to decide to invest at least his own funds in his development, he needs confidence that at the stage of making a profit his company will not be raided or will not be strangled by taxes at the root.
The situation with attracting investments is even worse. The conditions of the Russian market are such that many people rightly consider the only reliable option to invest money in real estate. It is difficult for small businesses to attract investors' funds even in simpler and more understandable areas than the mythical "innovative technologies" – the introduction of new, unfamiliar developments.
There are laboratories in Russia that have managed to create small enterprises, but our country, according to experts, lags far behind in this indicator not only from Western countries, but also from its BRIC colleagues. In general, employees of successful small enterprises at scientific laboratories note that their firms are an exception to the rules, created not because of the conditions created in our country, but in spite of them. Many of these firms generally work mainly for foreign clients and in their activities they focus more on their market and rules.
The factor of traditional inertia of scientists engaged in fundamental science in Russia cannot be discounted. The USSR system did not presuppose the independent implementation of developments: there was applied science for this, KB. Now applied science (in the Soviet sense of the word) is almost destroyed, branch research institutes have been curtailed. Now Rusnano declares a course to search for promising projects and their implementation, but the examples brought to the stage of a working enterprise are few. And scientists working in institutes and universities are often limited (just financially) in choosing the subject of research, the methods of work used. As a result, the postscript "these materials/substances are promising in terms of physical properties /biological activity, etc." to the introduction of the article remains a postscript. The synthetic does not have the resources to check these properties, this activity. And people are not initially set up to implement their developments: it is risky and financially difficult. In addition (this is the reality), Russian scientists are not rich people at all. It is difficult to imagine that a professor would save up from his salary to launch a small company, and it is even more difficult to imagine that he would agree to spend the accumulated money in this way. It all comes down to the same problem of transparency and compliance with the law when doing business.
The system of functioning of science, coupled with the system of doing business in Russia, leaves no space for private entrepreneurship, the initiative of scientists. Under the influence of the sum of these factors, it is easier for a specialist working in the field of science to make a choice in the direction of fundamental research than in the direction of devoting himself to the risky work of an "innovator".
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru12.11.2010