The conference tour, which combined a tour of the Skolkovo innovation city with a discussion program, took place on September 19 and opened the World Conference of the International Association of Technoparks and Innovative Development Zones (IASP).
Many people are skeptical about the idea of creating the Skolkovo innovation center and consider it an ambitious show. Why create a city from scratch when the country has science cities with history, intellectual and technical, albeit outdated, infrastructure and personnel? It is much easier and more effective to give them a second chance: invest in modernization, allocate money for research, establish links with universities, build missing housing: houses, campuses, hotels. But Russia, like the rest of the world, has taken the path of creating from scratch “ideal” cities of the future, artificial urban formations that claim the high-profile status of a “city”, but are rarely such in essence due to narrow specialization, lack of permanent population and developed public life.
In a global economy, in order to attract the most promising residents, something more is needed than a simple provision of equipment and technology, and the comfort of living. It is necessary to create a dream city with an original idea, creative atmosphere and special drive.
Almost for the first time in Russia, dozens of experts, practitioners and theorists discussed all these problems at the “City as an Innovation” conference tour. They analyzed world experience and tried to find answers to the questions: "How to create an environment for innovation?", "How to turn a simple piece of land, built up with offices and housing, into a city where people are happy to work on the creation of new technologies?"
The conference consisted of three sessions: the first one presented six real projects of innovation centers (four - Russian, two - from France and the United Arab Emirates), the second was an exchange of views between leading experts in the field of urban studies, cultural programs and social projects, the third was a culturologist, sociologist and philosopher; but the general problematic went through a single continuous line through all the speeches, giving the audience an opportunity to better understand its origins, evaluate the methods already used and analyze the impact of cultural and environmental technologies on the development of innovations. According to Igor Drozdov, Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation, who opened the meeting, the purpose of creating Skolkovo was not the construction of a new city consisting of beautiful buildings. Everyone who is working on this project counts on the fact that there will be life in Skolkovo, and life is not ordinary, but consisting of communication between people who have decided to devote themselves to innovations. Communication between people at work and in their free time is an additional opportunity for the generation of new ideas, which will entail the emergence of new technologies.
It was natural to turn to our own history - the experience of building science cities in the USSR. Andrey Zorin, professor of British Oxford, as well as professor of the Russian Department of Humanities and Scientific Director of the Multidisciplinary Bachelor / Liberal Arts program at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, spoke about the study of the science city of Obninsk, aka Maloyaroslavets-8, which became the first city with a peaceful nuclear reactor … For physicists, most of whom came there, in fact, from dying villages, unique conditions were created there for life and work: Finnish cottages were built, courts were broken, unlimited funding for any experiments was opened.
The barbed wire that entangled the closed city was perceived by the inhabitants of Obninsk as the protection of a prosperous, creative life from the chaos and poverty of the surrounding reality."The absence of resource constraints, when all research was funded, carried a subjective experience of freedom." According to Andrei Zorin, an experiment took place there to create a powerful defense and a new layer of people - the scientific and technical intelligentsia. This layer was artificially produced and … "turned out to be the gravedigger of the one who gave birth to it in the 60s."
Dean of the Higher School of Urbanism. A. A. Vysokovsky National Research University Higher School of Economics Alexei Novikov stressed that the city cannot be narrowly specialized. One of the problems of the Soviet science cities was that the professors and academicians who lived there had children who did not want to study science, and, accordingly, to live there. And on this the whole concept of the science city broke down. Exactly because they organized science, not a city. Alexey Novikov believes that the concept of organizing a city can only be vague, very delicate, in dialogue with the community.
In the same way, the unfavorable emotional environment in Russian cities, according to Novikov, is influenced by a formal approach, which prioritizes the geometric shape of the plan, and not its expediency. Whereas the most successful cities, convenient for people, were built according to the projects not of architects and city planners, but, for example, engineers. So, Barcelona was designed by engineer Serta, who carefully calculated the ratio of pedestrian and carriageway, number of storeys, and everything in order to make people comfortable. Another example is Patrick Geddes, who developed plans for Tel Aviv and many Indian cities.
Head of the Sophia-Antipolis Fund, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Russian Technological Fund, Frenchman Dominique Fache was the first to express an idea that all the participants in the event agreed with: the most important thing in any city is its special culture. A positive example is Israel, where a lot of money is spent on the spiritual development of its citizens.
Domenique Fache, from the height of his almost forty-five years of experience of participation in the implementation of an innovative project, gave those present some practical advice: the priority program for Russia is the development of the regions; old industrial districts should be used more effectively to create scientific incubators. The main thing is not the number of square meters, but the culture. So he once again supported the position already expressed: there is no need to build an information center from scratch, it is necessary to use the existing infrastructure. He also noted that innovation is a way out of a well-worn rut, so there is a contradiction between innovation and a government focused on the use of proven solutions, especially in our country.
Konstantin Aksenov, vice president for strategic development of Technopolis GS from the city of Gusev, Kaliningrad region, said that the next step after the development of a successful enterprise was to try to make residents themselves start creating art and social projects. It's tricky considering it's hard to rock an environment that isn't used to doing things for itself. But now Gusev can be safely called the center of international festivals, art and social initiatives.
Elena Zelentsova, Vice President of the Skolkovo Foundation, Director for Urban Environment Development, sees an obstacle to finding a solution to transform the city into a living, self-sufficient organism in the fact that the participants in the process are dominated by the industrial way of thinking - "conveyor, square-nested", with hierarchy and standard solutions, with fear of creative freedom.
It is necessary, in addition to economic and innovative technologies, to involve also creative ones: music, architecture, painting, performing arts. Elena Zelentsova believes that another cluster is needed in Skolkovo - a creative one that would develop new approaches. If a territory is capable of creating new formats of activity aimed at a breakthrough, then it has potential. Georgy Gogolev, Director of the Communications Department of RVC JSC, argued that the main factors in the development of innovations are the culture of trust, the density of communications and the business environment.
Vladimir Knyaginin, vice president of the Center for Strategic Research Foundation, also spoke about such an emotional rather than material side of business relations as tolerance - we must be tolerant of how the experiment goes, since the degree of uncertainty is great.
Sergei Kapkov, head of the Center for Research in Economics, Culture, Urban Development and Creative Industries at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, also spoke about trust in people: with open borders, scientists can choose where to create. And the basis of the creative environment should be a value system: greater freedom of decision-making; greater comfort of financing and accounting for the spending of this money; the responsibility of scientists, not administrators and officials.
It is significant that the topic of trust as the basis for a successful innovative business was raised by Daniel Gonzalez Botello, CEO of Andalucia Smart City (Spain). He also said that the main thing is trust. If people are sure that their ideas will not be stolen, but used to the maximum, that they will not be imposed with super-taxes, but, on the contrary, the authors will be helped to implement their projects, then this will greatly contribute to innovation. In addition, innovation should be relevant to all sectors of the economy, so that each area helps and adds something new to the overall context.
The intermediate result of the discussion was summed up by the moderator of the second session Sergey Zuev: it has not yet been possible to formulate an unambiguous recipe for a prosperous city.
Unfortunately, the critical assessment of the typology of innovative cities did not dissipate after all the speeches. None of the speakers could identify a universal recipe for a successful innovation city. Each case is individual and for each you need to look for their own solutions. This must be done quickly and as quickly as possible to move from declarations to the implementation of the planned. One of the most viable, relevant and effective projects presented was Technopolis GS, the success of which, according to Konstantin Aksyonov, lies in the fact that it is being developed by a private company. This means that decisions are made faster, the company is focused on results, and this attracts new innovators.
But there is a hope that everything will be safely resolved not so much with the help of urban technologies, but due to the human factor, those caring, creative people who participate in them, and strive to turn innovation centers, as Elena Zelentsova said in one interview: “not just into a place for the implementation of professional plans, and a place for life, as a point where it is interesting, exciting and useful just to come, relax, communicate, where there are very attractive and modern urban solutions. This is exactly what Skolkovo is planning to do. Already in 2017, it should be a self-sufficient, but open city, accessible to guests of the IC and participants in numerous cultural and scientific events.
