The Board of Directors of the Skolkovo Foundation at a meeting held on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, approved the main parameters of the new Master Plan for the development of the Innovation Center and the new list of members of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.
As Victor Vekselberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Skolkovo Foundation, emphasized at the meeting, "this renewal of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation reflects the changes that have recently taken place in the Russian Government and demonstrates the consistently high attention of the country's leadership to the Skolkovo project."
Photo courtesy: Sk.ru.
The Board of Trustees of the Skolkovo Foundation now includes Maxut Shadayev, Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, Maksim Reshetnikov, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, and Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. In turn, Konstantin Noskov, Mikhail Kotyukov, Olga Vasilyeva, and Vladislav Surkov have left the Board.
Arkady Dvorkovich, Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation, noted that "the renewal of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation has been approved by the President of Russia." "Since its foundation, the Skolkovo Innovation Center has been successfully developing through the direct involvement of Dmitry Medvedev and this vector will continue. Much has already been done, but even more needs to be implemented in the future," said Mr. Dvorkovich.
One of the key agenda items of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Foundation was the approval of the main parameters of the new Master Plan for the development of the Innovation Center. Adopted in 2011, the Master Plan was based on the assumption that when the project is fully implemented, 31 thousand people will be engaged by the Skolkovo Innovation Center. However, during the development of the Innovation Center and with the establishment of the Moscow International Medical Cluster in the Center's territory, it became obvious that the prognosis was conservative. According to the new Master Plan, the estimated number of employees in the Innovation Center after the arrangement of its entire infrastructure will actually double to 57 thousand people.
At the same time, the updated Master Plan provides for a slight decrease in the number of people living right in the territory of the Innovation Center: when the Innovation Center reaches the peak of its activity, 17 thousand inhabitants will live in it (initially this number was supposed to be 21 thousand), including 6 thousand people by 2025. The remaining participants in the Skolkovo ecosystem will dwell in the so-called Large Skolkovo – the territories adjacent to the Innovation Center, where there is an active development of social and housing projects.
Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Skolkovo Foundation. Photo courtesy: Sk.ru.
The updated Master Plan provides for a significant increase in the area of new Innovation Center's facilities: it will reach the total of 3,700 thousand square meters instead of previously planned 2,485 thousand square meters.
Moreover, according to the new Master Plan, the number of guests of the Innovation Center will increase one and a half times – from 580 thousand people a year to 830 thousand people a year. A quarter of them will be visitors to the Moscow International Medical Cluster.
All this will require improving the transport accessibility of the Innovation Center. In addition to the already existing Skolkovo (Innovation Center) railway station, the Master Plan provides for the construction of a new Sberbank Technopark station with connections to the facilities of Sberbank and Moscow International Medical Cluster. Also, connections to the Skolkovo Innovation Center from the current Nemchinovka station will be built.
In the summer of this year, the Zhores Alferov Science Park with an area of over 3 hectares will open in Skolkovo. Photo courtesy: Sk.ru.
Large-scale construction does not change one of the main urban development principles that distinguish the Innovation Center: out of 400 hectares of the total territory of Skolkovo, 180 hectares will be occupied by green areas.
As it was decided at a meeting of the Board of Directors, one of the new Skolkovo parks will henceforth be named after Academician Zhores Alferov, a Nobel Laureate, who was at the origins of the project and headed the Skolkovo Scientific Advisory Board for the rest of his life.
March 15, 2020, on the day of the ninetieth anniversary of the outstanding scientist, members of the Scientific Advisory Board will gather in St. Petersburg to once again honor the memory of Academician Alferov.