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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues, we are gathered today to discuss a range of issues related to the establishment of a centre for research and scientific investigations and subsequent commercialisation of their results as part of the programme that I outlined in the Presidential Address [to the Federal Assembly]. Officially this is being described as a centre or a complex; in the final analysis it’s more of a settlement that will facilitate the development of these technologies in our country, a territorially autonomous location that will tackle a whole range of issues.

I don’t know whether we’ll end up creating Russia's Silicon Valley – and that’s probably not the right comparison anyway – but the idea is precisely to create a similar sort of independent, separate centre for research and subsequent commercialization of the results.

The Government Cabinet and the Presidential Executive Office carried out work on this issue as per my instruction. Today we have a short but important agenda. We must decide on the location of this centre, its housing arrangements, and what we should have there. Obviously we have to decide about the financing of all these things, the principles on which such financing will be arranged, and for how long the centre will need this funding.

And, finally, we need to think about what its actual functions will be, what sort of tasks will be addressed in this new Sun City, this new research centre, as we call it today. These are the important organisational tasks that we have to deal with.

Another thing that I would like to say about setting up this centre: I think it is very important that we start by inviting the most advanced professionals, the most famous academics, if they are willing to come, to work in this centre. Of course these must be our scientists, but it is equally important to invite foreign experts to exchange views and to ensure that research we are conducting on a particular issue falls within the mainstream.

We have not tackled tasks like that in our country, although other countries have created such developments and had some very good results. So, in my view this kind of research flexibility is also a critical factor in determining the success of new initiatives.

These are the tasks before us. I know that a presentation has been prepared concerning where we could create such a centre. Could you please give us your report on this?

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