UFuture Investment Group announced plans to make Kharkov a new innovation point in Ukraine. The city is planning to build an innovation park similar to UNIT.City and LvivTech.City. Thus, Kharkov will become the third city in which an Innovation district may appear.

The editors of bit.ua asked CEO and Managing Partner of UNIT.City Max Yakover explain what innovation parks are and why they are needed.

Is the Innovation Park something like Silicon Valley?

Yes. On the one hand, this is the place where you work, study, live and relax. On the other hand, there is a large concentration of talent, startups, technologies and events. Together, this creates an environment in which what is inside grows faster than what is outside.This is a territory of the future, or a city of innovation, which is also called an innovation park.

What then about technology parks and academic campuses? Is there a difference or are they all the same?

Yes, I have. The idea of creating a high concentration of companies, ideas and talents in one place remains, but there are still fundamental differences:

Science parks were initially built on the periphery of the city or even beyond its boundaries. Innovative parks are built in the city, often on the principle of revitalization: old objects take on new life.
Science parks tend to focus on specific disciplines. In innovation districts there is a wider field for creative industries.

Concept of an innovation park in Miami

Wasn't what the science parks had to offer enough?

A new generation has emerged with completely different requirements. First of all, to a creative atmosphere, work-life balance, a community of people around you. Flexibility and intimacy are also important- V in the future we will work close to where we live.

And who came up with all this? Surely the work of daring startupers.

Innovation parks really emerged during the startup boom. Young millennials have turned into drivers of the new era. They, like a magnet, began to attract infrastructure and acquire ecosystems.

Does this place really have an ecosystem?

Yes. The innovation ecosystem is the cornerstone of the whole story. It appears at the intersection of companies within the park, beautiful infrastructure and a network of contacts. The presence and balance of these elements creates synergy between people and companies. It's impossible to build an iPhone or a Tesla alone while in the woods. It is thanks to well-designed magic that new ideas and projects are born, startups get a good boost, and large companies get the opportunity to test their work.

Innovation ecosystem

Large companies?! I thought only green hipsters with smoothies hung out there. Who else can “move in” to the park?

Anyone who can be classified as a member of the creative industries, who wants to develop globally and who has technology “under the hood”. The basis, of course, consists of startups of various directions. But much attention is also paid to education: IT schools, accelerators, incubators - all this is an integral component of the ecosystem. In addition, various laboratories and R&D centers of large companies can operate on the territory of the innovation park. Add here a bunch of locations with events, coworking spaces, cultural and recreational places, housing, simple schools and kindergartens - and you get a real city within a city.

There are about 40 such “innovative cocktails” in the world.

Today, technology parks are gaining popularity in Russia: there are now about 160 of them, and in the next 10 years the number of technology parks and technopolises may double.

In Moscow alone there are about 35 technology parks and technopolises (data from the investment portal). The most famous of them is. The editors of Vesti.Real Estate worked together with the managing partner of the company “Financial and Organizational Consulting” (FOK) Moisei Furshchik to understand what a technology park is and what it is needed for.

Where did technology parks originate?

The history of technology parks itself begins in the USA at Stanford University. After World War II, the university had difficulties with financing, which rent helped solve. The university owned a large plot of land, but could not sell it. Then the dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Professor Frederick Terman, suggested that the management lease the land for a long term as an office park. Moreover, only high-tech companies could act as tenants of the park. Thus, the university began to generate income, and its graduates could find employment in the park.

Later, Professor Terman's idea became the beginning of Silicon Valley (The Father of Silicon Valley). Today, Silicon Valley residents include global giant companies such as Apple, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, Google and many others.

Technoparks and technopolises are specialized property and land complexes in the city that have the appropriate official status and provide favorable conditions for conducting research, production and innovation activities for their residents. Residents of technology parks can rent premises at attractive prices, receive tax benefits, gain access to equipment and services, as well as consulting assistance. Each technology park has an industry specialization: microelectronics, IT, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology and others, according to the Moscow investment portal.

In the 70s, technology parks began to appear in Europe. Here, in addition to the then usual technology parks, the function of a technology business incubator was added (production premises in which innovative companies could locate their production). The first technology parks in Russia appeared in the 90s. As a rule, these were university departments or academic campuses. Tomsk Science and Technology Park can be called the first technology park in Russia.

Uniting innovative business

In Russia, the concept of “technopark” is somewhat vague. The regulations contain three different definitions, not counting the terms “industrial technology park” and “high-tech technology park,” says the managing partner of the company “Financial and Organizational Consulting” (FOC).

But to generalize, we can say that a technology park is a collection of real estate objects created for running small and medium-sized businesses in the field of high technologies, which is managed by a single management company and may include land plots, office buildings, laboratory and production facilities, engineering facilities, transport and social infrastructure.

The key function of the technology park is the concentration of small innovative companies in a single real estate complex. In such a situation, synergy can be achieved through the placement of shared equipment, certification centers, engineering, prototyping, export support and other elements of interest to various residents. In addition, an important factor is the very atmosphere of the technology park, the active communication of its residents, even those who do not have direct cooperative ties with each other.

Accordingly, the key task of the management company is to create such a creative environment and fill the technology park with service functions. And then the object becomes really in demand from innovative business. This means that its space is being actively filled with targeted resident tenants, the expert notes.

At the same time, the activities of residents in the field of high technologies can be quite diverse, including scientific research, development and implementation of technologies into production. As a rule, the longer innovation chains are formed within a technology park, the more efficient its operation.

According to the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, a third of technology parks in Russia specialize in IT, a quarter in high-tech chemistry, 16% in nanotechnology, 5% in biohoney, 2% in the nuclear industry and space, 19% in other areas.

What should a technology park be like and how much does it cost?

Key requirements for the construction and location of technology parks are contained in the National Standard. In particular, we are talking about the size of the technology park: its total area must be at least 5 thousand square meters. Also, the technology park must have a separate territory of at least 3.5 hectares. This area may be less than 3.5 hectares if the building density of the technology park territory exceeds the minimum value established by the authorities of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation for technology parks. The technology park must have access points to all communications.

As for investments in such projects, their amount can vary quite widely. First of all, the volume of financial investments is determined by three factors: first, the scale of the technology park itself; second, a technology park is created from scratch (construction of new buildings) or existing facilities are used for it; third – equipment that will be placed on the territory of the park. The most typical range of required investments is 50–500 million rubles, the expert says.

Will this be in demand?

Last year in Russia, according to the Association of Clusters and Technology Parks, there were 157 technology parks, including 65 industrial technology parks, of which 49 were operating, 16 were being created.

At the same time, the vast majority of technology parks are concentrated in large cities, notes Moisei Furshchik. But small cities can successfully create such facilities. The key factor here is the presence of scientific and technical potential and/or demand for applied developments. Therefore, technology parks may well operate in science cities or in populated areas where large high-tech industries are located (including in single-industry towns). Another thing is that in such cases the scale of the technology park will most likely be noticeably smaller than in a large city, but its efficiency may be even higher.

The current popularity of technology parks is largely caused by state policy in this direction, explains Moisey Furshchik. The development of innovation is set among the benchmarks for governors; there is a whole range of instruments for federal support for the creation of technology parks, including subsidies from the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. The Russian Ministry of Education and Science also supports this topic.

“As a result, more than half of the created technology parks are state-owned, that is, they are managed by universities or companies controlled by regional authorities. Typically, in such technology parks, specialized residents have preferential rental rates,” says the managing partner of the FOC.

But there are also a significant number of private technology parks. Most often, they are created either by commercial real estate developers or large industrial enterprises with unused space. Typically, in such cases, potential residents are subject to less stringent requirements, but there may not be a preferential rental rate.

Then, for innovative companies, the advantages that come to the fore are the availability of specialized and small areas, convenient location, expanded opportunities for cooperation with other residents or with a large enterprise - the organizer of the technology park, as well as equipment for collective use and other additional services. Moreover, it is interesting that many state support measures also apply to non-state technology parks, which is often not fully known even to the management companies themselves.

In terms of benefits for city residents, these include additional highly skilled jobs and tax revenues, increased opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation, improved city image and retention of promising youth.

In the coming years, we can expect both the emergence of new technology parks and the expansion of existing ones.

“Over the horizon of 7-10 years, we can expect an approximately doubling of their number. This is facilitated by both increased government support and the ongoing restructuring of large industries (freeing up space through automation and outsourcing some functions),” the expert believes.

Also, the growth of technology parks will be facilitated by the growing awareness among small innovative companies of the fact that placement in specialized real estate complexes increases the efficiency of their work and attractiveness in the eyes of highly qualified employees.

“As a result, more than half of the created technology parks are state-owned, that is, they are managed by universities or companies controlled by regional authorities. Typically, in such technology parks, specialized residents have preferential rental rates,” says the managing partner of the FOC.

In the coming years, we can expect both the emergence of new technology parks and the expansion of existing ones. “On the horizon of 7-10 years, we can expect their number to approximately double. This is facilitated by both increased government support and the ongoing restructuring of large industries (freeing up space through automation and outsourcing some functions),” the expert believes.

An important force in the development of the Russian economy are technology parks, which allow the creation and promotion of scientific and technical businesses.

Innovative companies based on the sites of technology parks will help bring domestic industry to the level of advanced world economies and abolish Russia's technological dependence on developed Western countries.

What is a technology park?

Technopark is a scientific and technical complex of enterprises created to create a favorable environment for the development of innovative companies (residents).

The main tasks of technology parks in Russia:

Organization of continuous reproduction of innovative business companies;
Providing the most comfortable conditions;
Economic and financial support.

Parks help implement scientific and technical developments in industry and promote goods on the market.

Why is there a need for technology parks?

At the beginning of the 21st century, it became clear that Russia was lagging behind other countries in economic development. The five-year economic planning inherited from the Soviet Union does not allow Russian enterprises to develop - one can only dream of modernization in such conditions.

The equipment was outdated morally and physically. New technologies for production had to be purchased. Russia became completely dependent on more technologically developed countries.

Foreign experience has shown that small businesses, which are mobile and sensitive to change, play a big role in economic development: they are ready to rebuild and solve issues of new technologies. Some experience in establishing such enterprises already existed, but to promote small innovative businesses it was necessary to open budget funding.

History of the formation of technology parks in Russia

In Russia, the first technology parks appeared in the early 1990s. They were structural divisions of universities and were not active organizations claiming to be.

The first real technology park in Russia was the Tomsk Science and Technology Park (1990). Its history began long before perestroika.

Back in 1971, here, in the basements of TIRET (State University of Electronics), they created the first ticker for a department store on Lenin Square, and sharpened lenses for lasers. The created lasers turned out to be better than those brought to the exhibition from Germany (exhibition in the House of Scientists, 1973).

Three years later, in 1993, the Academy Park at Novosibirsk University opened, and in subsequent years, technology parks began to appear everywhere: at every institute or university. To resolve the situation, accreditation was carried out in 2000, which 30 existing technology parks passed.

The accreditation took into account the degree of student involvement in the work of the park, the number of inventions created and put into use, and the interest of the regional and national industry in the activities of the technology park. Such requirements made it possible to get rid of organizations created solely for making a profit and using budget funds.

Since 2006, the development of the state program for the construction of technology parks began. Money was allocated from the budget for specific priority parks. For 2017-2019 it is planned to spend 6.8 billion rubles from the state budget on the development of the infrastructure of 15 new technology parks in Russia. At the beginning of 2018, there were 115 parks in Russia.

Types and forms of ownership in a technology park

The first technology parks in Russia had a single founder in the person of a higher educational institution - the founder of the park. With the introduction of the state program for the creation of technology parks and the allocation of subsidies, parks are created as joint-stock companies, the authorized capital of which has up to 30 founders.

Initially, the capital of a joint stock company is invested by the state and local administration. As innovative companies develop, they begin to invest their own money and become shareholders: they purchase expensive equipment, build new buildings for laboratories and offices.

There is also the option of 100% private investment. Thus, a newly built park on greenfield land should pay for itself in 5 years (subject to 90-100% occupancy by residents).

Let us list the resources and organizations that allow technology parks to successfully exist and develop:

State direct subsidies under the development program;
Funds from the budget of the local city and/or regional administration (including transfer of land and infrastructure);
Educational institutions on the basis of which the park was created: supply personnel with ideas and projects;
Industrial enterprises opening branches on the site;
Companies developing on the basis of the park.

How the technopark works

The classic technology park includes:

Engineering infrastructure;
Technology centers, service structure;
Office, laboratory and production sites;
Business incubator.

Engineering infrastructure

At the first stage of construction of the technology park, it is determined which clusters are considered priority and what infrastructure is needed for each of them. The need for electricity, gas, water, utilities is calculated (what kind of warehouses, chemical storage facilities, experimental sites are needed).

For example, for development in the field of IT, you can get by with offices with a set of furniture, computers, powerful servers - this will not require special costs of electricity and technological services.

For an instrument-making cluster, it is necessary to provide for electricity consumption capacities and production sites for creating prototypes - prototypes of operating devices.

Nanotechnologies require electrical power, high-pressure gas pipelines, gas tanks, and chemical reagent storage facilities.

All this must be provided for at the stage of planning and construction of underground utilities.

Technology centers, service

Technology centers are production sites that allow developers to create prototypes, prototypes of devices, series of finished goods, and make amendments.

Before the advent of technology parks, it was impossible to make a part in one copy. Not a single enterprise, not a single plant took on such an order, since it required reconfiguring existing equipment and disrupted the deadlines for fulfilling government orders. It was impossible for the developer to make a prototype, a prototype, which could require thousands of individually manufactured parts.

Technology centers place orders for modern equipment in a short time. You can make as many design changes as you like, knowing that there will be no problems with manufacturing.

Finished samples need to be stored somewhere, packaged somehow; it is necessary to print drawings, passports for products, and move products around the territory. All this requires separate service departments.

Office, laboratory and production sites

Laboratory and production facilities are necessary for developers to conduct research and test prototypes. Typically, such sites are laboratories with complex, expensive equipment.

Production premises include:

Conference rooms;
Meeting rooms;
Employee break rooms;
Rooms for service personnel;
Auxiliary equipment rooms;
Canteens;
Offices of resident companies.

Business incubator

The business incubator is the heart of the technology park. The offices of startup companies that are just beginning their journey in business are located here. They can be located in different buildings of the corresponding clusters.

The period for the formation of an innovative company in a business incubator is 3 years.

Technopark operating principles

The purpose of technology parks in Russia is continuous production, the creation of favorable conditions for this, and assistance in promoting goods on the market.

The classic development cycle of a new technological product includes the following stages:

Scientific research;
Drafting,
Project protection;
Experimental design developments;
Prototyping;
Manufacturing of prototypes;
Investments, marketing, promotion;
Making necessary changes and improvements.

The points are related; financing can be terminated at any stage if the investor considers further development futile.

Being under the roof of the technology park, startups - newborn companies - have full right to use the laboratories, production facilities of the technology center, and all service departments.

In such conditions, designing is easier: many organizational and technical issues disappear.

First steps to create an innovative enterprise

To attract new people to the technology park, summer schools and business incubators are being created.

To participate in the summer school, you only need to submit an application - applicants even with the craziest ideas are considered. There will be no refusals - the main thing is that the theme of the project corresponds to the technology park cluster, so that the author of the project is passionate about the idea and is eager to implement it. Of course, projects will go through several filters: their viability from a scientific point of view, degree of significance, need for the national economy will be assessed - only after successfully completing several stages of project defense will the authors of the idea receive resident status.

The technopark does not teach, but the managers of operating innovative companies created earlier in the technopark and experts share their accumulated experience and skills. How and where to start a business? How to create a new product from idea to prototype and serial release to the market? How to work with investors? Anyone who wants to start an innovative business, make a career, or earn money will receive answers to these questions.

How can a third party get into the technology park?

Third-party organizations that decide to use the technology park site and become a resident of the business incubator must go through the procedure of joining the technology park. Let's figure out how this happens.

An application is submitted. Attention! The application must be submitted to a cluster corresponding to the direction of the project, and the project itself must be somehow related to new technologies.
The documentation is submitted to the expert council, and a presentation is drawn up. The expert council will consider the application by specialists in the project profile, representatives of investment funds, individuals or interested companies, and representatives of consulting organizations.
The expert opinion is submitted to the Interdepartmental Commission. A positive result presupposes obtaining resident status, placement on the site of a technology park, benefits, and use of infrastructure.

Project protection

The applicant presents the project to a group of experts: heads of resident companies, representatives of organizations related to the topic of the project. The discussion involves individuals planning to invest funds and make a profit from it.

Various questions are asked: about the theoretical foundations of the project, its innovative component, the idea, differences from existing analogues, technical and economic indicators, scope of use, investment volumes and others, completely unexpected. The author of the project must approach the answers with full responsibility, because the acceptance of the project for consideration, as well as the allocation of funds if the decision is positive, depend on them.

Probability of project financing

When considering a project, the management company relies on the current state policy in the field of regulation of innovation processes. There are lists of priority areas for long-term and current development of innovative business for individual sectors of industrial production.

Try to make the project correspond to one of the points.

When agreeing on a project, the commission is guided by the following principles:

Compliance of the project with investment priorities;
Possible benefits from the invention;
Applicability, value of new products;
Forecasted market demand;
The need for material costs, investments;
Possibility of creating a product based on a technology park.

The likelihood of objectivity of such assessments is low, and the results are not very clear. When deciding on investments, the commission relies on the experience and results of research into market needs, constantly conducted by the management company. Depending on the decision of the commission, project financing may be approved immediately or placed in a queue.

TOP 12 technology parks in Russia

The Association of Clusters and Technology Parks, formed in 2011 (55 enterprises), evaluates technology parks in Russia on the basis of voluntarily submitted documentation on the business and economic activities of enterprises, after which a rating is compiled. In the latest published rating (November 2, 2017), the following organizations were included in the list of parks with the highest level of efficiency:

Nanotechnology Center "Technospark", Moscow;
Technopark "Strogino", Moscow;
Nanotechnology center "Sigma" Novosibirsk", Novosibirsk region;
Technopark "Caliber", Moscow;
AU "Technopark-Mordovia", Republic of Mordovia;
Science and Technology Park "Novosibirsk", Novosibirsk region;
Technopark "Sarov", Nizhny Novgorod region;
"Ulyanovsk Center", Ulyanovsk region;
Technopolis "Moscow", Moscow;
JSC "Technopark of Novosibirsk Akademgorodok" (Akadempark), Novosibirsk region;
Technopark in the field of high technologies “IT Park” (in Kazan and Naberezhnye Chelny), Republic of Tatarstan;
Technopark in the field of high technologies (Nizhny Novgorod), Nizhny Novgorod region.

We offer you to take advantage of the Company’s range of services:
- consulting and information support for participants in state competitions for seeking state support in the form of tax benefits, grants and subsidies, other types of support, support for the applicant’s project in competitions of the Republic of Tatarstan and Russia, for initiators (private and public) development projects, industrial and commercial real estate projects , including in the field of innovation and high technology
- development of a development concept (strategy), business plan, feasibility study (TES), memorandum, presentation, project passport for the creation and development of a technology park, preparation of a package of documentation for the project,
- conducting market research (marketing),
- attracting investments, partners in a project, business,
- assistance from a financier, economist, lawyer, marketer;
Contact us, we will help!

Technoparks in Russia (RA Expert)

Technoparks based on scientific organizations

In Russia, the formation of the first wave of technology parks began in the late 1980s - early 1990s. Most of them were organized in high schools. These technology parks did not have developed infrastructure, real estate, or trained management teams. They, as a rule, were created as a structural unit of the university and were not really operating organizations that initiate, create and support small innovative enterprises. In isolated cases, technology parks were formed in the form of closed joint stock companies, which makes it possible to exercise flexible management with relative independence from the base organization. Russian technology parks, with rare exceptions, do not perform the functions of an incubator, but serve primarily as a kind of “safety sites”2, protecting the enterprises located in them from the aggressive external environment. The length of stay of small firms in the technology park is not limited and today averages about 10 years (with the international standard of 2-3 years).

The first technology park in the Russian Federation was created in 1990 - “Tomsk Science and Technology Park”. Then their formation accelerated sharply: 1990 - 2 technology parks, 1991 - 8, 1992 - 24, 1993 - 43. To date, about 80 technology parks have been created, mainly at universities.

However, there are significantly fewer actually operating technology parks: for example, accreditation was carried out in 2000, which about 30 technology parks managed to pass. And only a little more than ten of them were recognized as meeting international standards3. The assessment of technology parks was carried out according to such criteria as the degree of connection between the technology park and the university, the level of student involvement, the number of technologies created and implemented at industrial enterprises, the degree of interest of the region, industry and population in the work of the technology park, and a number of others. The highest aggregate indicators were in 10 technology parks (see Table 4.1.1). One of the largest - the Moscow State University Science Park - was in eleventh place.

Such a small number of actually operating technology parks, identified as a result of accreditation, is explained by the fact that market approaches were not used when creating technology parks. Most of them were organized with the sole purpose of obtaining additional budget funds for the new structure. At the same time, the state did not pursue any initial selective policy according to the given criteria: in particular, no approximate calculation of the projects’ payback was made.

Table 4.1.1
The most effective technology parks in Russia (based on accreditation results in 2000)

	Technopark name	Aggregate indicator of points scored
	International scientific and technological park "Technopark in Moskvorechye" of the Moscow State Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow
	Science Park "MPEI" of the Moscow State Energy Institute, Moscow
	Scientific and technological park "Volga-Tekhnika" Saratov State Technical University, Saratov
	Technopark of St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University, St. Petersburg
	Scientific and technological park "Bashkortostan" of the Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Ufa
	Scientific and Technological Park of Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University, Nizhny Novgorod
	Zelenograd Science and Technology Park of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, Moscow, Zelenograd
	Obninsk Scientific and Technological Park "INTEGRO" of the Obninsk Institute of Nuclear Energy, Obninsk
	Ulyanovsk Technopark of Ulyanovsk State Technical University, Ulyanovsk
	Tomsk International Business Center "Technopark", Tomsk

It is characteristic that the accreditation did not change the situation. It was only a means that made it possible to identify the real level of development of innovation infrastructure, but did not entail any consequences - neither tax breaks, nor differentiated financing, depending on the results of the work of technology parks. Budget funds, if allocated, continued to be distributed evenly among all operating technology parks that are members of the Association of Technology Parks.

An interesting comparative analysis and features of the activities of technology parks, the work of which was recognized as successful based on the results of accreditation (see Table 4.1.2).

As follows from those presented in table. 4.1.2 data, managers of successful technology parks underwent special training, often abroad, and studied Western experience. In these technology parks, small firms are growing, work is being done with undergraduate and graduate students, and in general the connection with the base university is quite close. Moreover, often a university is not so much a donor as a recipient of a technology park.

Table 4.1.2
Features of the structure of Russian technology parks

	Technopark MIET, Zelenograd	MSU Science Park	"Technopark in Moskvorechye" (MEPhI)	MPEI Science Park	Technopark based on the Kurchatov Institute
Year of creation
Scale of the technology park (number of small innovative enterprises)	Currently there are about 40 companies. Creation of ITC in 1998 (11 MIP)		22 small businesses
Communication with the university (host organization)	Tesnaya, SIEs have access to MIET’s own experimental base - the plant<Протон>	Tesnaya, MSU carries out R&D in the interests of companies located in the Science Park. Moscow State University owns 60% of the shares of the Scientific Park, which has the form of a closed joint stock company	Companies included in the ITC technopark are associated with university departments and finance their research	A number of companies work closely with MPEI, providing R&D
Origin of MIP	Independent high-tech companies in Zelenograd were created by university employees	29 SIEs were founded by employees, structural divisions/or graduates of Moscow State University, one by other shareholders of the Science Park.	Mainly spinoff MEPhI	There are companies of different origins - both those that originated at MPEI and those that came to the technology park from outside	The firms are external to the Institute, and the remaining quarter was created on the basis of the Institute’s developments. The share of external firms is constantly growing
SIE growth dynamics	More than 25 companies have become sustainable with high growth rates	Production averages 20 thousand dollars per employee per year. A number of firms have become medium-sized enterprises	In total, about 35 companies passed through the park, many of which are successfully developing	The average number of employees in innovative companies is growing	A number of companies are developing dynamically, but none have reached the stage of large-scale production
Range of tasks to be solved	Promoting the implementation of innovative projects at electronics enterprises in Zelenograd	Administrative and economic support for companies, free consulting service, assistance in establishing contacts and promoting projects. The Science Park also acts in a number of cases as a guarantor	Providing business services at preferential rates	Activities for the transfer of technology from the university to industry, participation in solving major national economic problems, development of international cooperation (China began direct investment in the technology park)	Creation of technical and social infrastructure, provision of financial, consulting, organizational and legal services, search and negotiations with potential investors
Sources of financing	Assistance Fund, RFTR, Ministry of Industry and Science, Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation	The construction stage of the technology park is budget financing. Funding also comes from the Assistance Fund. The share of extra-budgetary funding is about 2/3 (including from companies included in the Science Park).	The initial grant is from the Association of Higher Education Technology Parks. Then there was funding from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the Assistance Fund, a grant from the Eurasia Foundation, the ISTC	Ministry of Industry and Science, Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, Assistance Fund, RFTR	Assistance Fund, Ministry of Industry and Science, Moscow government, sometimes foreign investors
Qualifications of technology park managers	Studying international experience through participation in TACIS, EBRD, Fund programs<Евразия>, Fonda<Ноу-Хау>	The creation of the park was preceded by a detailed study of international experience. Advanced training also occurs at the expense of Western organizations (British Council)	The management team was trained with the help of colleagues from the University of Warwick Science Park, UK	Undertook training and retraining courses, including in cooperation with colleagues from the science park of the University of Warwick, UK	There was no special training
Personnel training	MIET students work in small firms and take part in real science-intensive projects.	1. Participation of students in expeditions on sea vessels, learning through research. 2. Internships for senior programmer students at Moscow State University in iMSU_Research_Lab (supported by INTEL). 3. Internship in the Science Park	There is a Student Incubator of New Technologies, where more than 40 people were trained, 12 business plans for youth projects were prepared and the implementation of 6 projects began	Students participate in the work of small firms. In some of them, the share of students is up to 40% of workers	Not maintained
The main problems - according to the management of the technology park	Lack of working capital and financing for the purchase of equipment	Lack of trained technology managers, lack of institutions (courses) for their training, high degree of distrust of scientists in support services for the commercialization of R&D results	Legislative problems that impede the development of innovation infrastructure (there are no concepts of technopark and innovation project)	Insufficient number of sources and mechanisms of financing, lack of space to accommodate small firms, underdeveloped legislation in the field of intellectual property	Uncertainty of ownership rights to the premises and territory of the technology park

A special case is the MIETMIET technology park, since on its basis all types of infrastructure that have developed in the country today were gradually formed. The growth of companies in the technology park and their subsequent entry into the “free economy,” especially in the mid-1990s, could lead to their significant weakening. Therefore, along with the technology park, in 1998, innovation and technology center (ITC), where growing companies moved. In 1999 it was formed innovation-industrial complex(IPK) MIET, which united participants in the university’s innovative activities with a number of promising knowledge-intensive companies in Zelenograd. Finally, to expand ties with regional industry, in 2002 the creation of Russia's first technological village began in Zelenograd. The technological village should occupy an area of about 18 thousand square meters. m, where about 60 high-tech companies in Zelenograd will be located. This will allow the launch of large-scale innovative projects in the field of electronics, microelectronics and information and communication technologies - areas of specialization of the Zelenograd industry. An integral element of a technological village is a network of centers for the collective use of equipment. It is assumed that the technological village will become the infrastructure that will unite the university environment, small knowledge-intensive businesses and industry into a single territorial-industrial cluster. On the one hand, this should increase the output of high-tech products at Zelenograd enterprises, and on the other, give impetus to the development of promising disciplines at MIET, new educational workshops and basic training courses for specialists in the field of electronics.

Already now, MIET has created joint educational and research centers with foreign companies - such as, for example, the Center for training specialists in the field of information processing together with Texas Instruments, the Center for training specialists u1074 in the field of development of CAD LSI software together with Motorola, the Center for Instrumentation -technological modeling of semiconductor structures together with ISE AG (Switzerland).

As for the main problems of technology parks, as follows from the data in Table. 4.2, they are often associated with property aspects and expansion opportunities for technology parks.

First innovation and technology center was officially opened on March 18, 1996. It was created on the basis of Svetlana OJSC (one of the leading electronic instrument making enterprises of the former USSR). As part of the Agreement between the Ministry of Science of Russia and the administration of St. Petersburg, Svetlana OJSC transferred ownership of a production building with a total area of 7 thousand square meters to the Regional Fund for Scientific and Technical Development of St. Petersburg. m under ITC. The project of this ITC was considered as a model for subsequent replication. The idea was that ITCs would be opened on the basis of industrial enterprises in order to provide connections between small businesses and industry. Indeed, the model of this ITC later formed the basis of the “Interdepartmental Program for Enhancing Innovation Activities in the Scientific and Technical Sphere of Russia”, launched in 1997 by the joint efforts of the Russian Ministry of Science, the Russian Ministry of Education, the RFTR and the Fund for Assistance to the Development of Small Innovative Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere . It has been determined that ITCs are conglomerates of many small businesses housed under one roof. For their formation, significant financial resources4 were allocated, which were invested mainly in the repair and equipment of premises where small enterprises were to be located.

The main feature of the ITC is that it is essentially a support structure for established small innovative enterprises that have already passed the most difficult stage of creation, formation and survival in the initial period of their activity, when up to 90% of small innovative enterprises die 4 In 1997, from funds The state budget allocated about $50 million. firms This is the conceptual difference between the ITC and the technology park. Therefore, ideally, technology parks should have been created at universities and fulfilled the task of incubating small firms, and ITCs were designed to ensure more stable connections between small businesses and industry, and therefore be created at enterprises or research and production complexes.

However, in practice, about 45% of ITCs were created at universities, often on the basis of already operating technology parks, so these two types of infrastructure were largely intertwined and turned out to be somewhat duplicative. In some cases, conglomerates have formed that combine several types of infrastructure at once, as in the MIET complex already mentioned above. The MSU Science Park, on the contrary, was transformed from one form to another and became the ITC, and the name “MSU Science Park” became a proper name. Today there are 52 ITCs in Russia, employing more than 1,000 small firms. This is clearly not enough for the Russian scale, since, for example, in Germany there are over 300 structures similar in their functions to domestic ITCs.

ITCs provide a range of services to small businesses located in them: in addition to leasing premises, they provide technical, information and consulting support, as well as formal and informal guarantees when small businesses seek funds for their development.

List of services provided by innovation and technology centers (listed in decreasing order of frequency of their provision)

An analysis of ITC's activities conducted in 2001, commissioned by the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere, showed that ITC's sources of funding vary significantly and range from 100% government support to existence almost exclusively from collected rents. Thus, rental payments are the only source of funding for the MSU Science Park (along with small income from consulting services), the ITC Center for Photochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Innovation Business Center "New Technologies".

Averaged data for ITC give the following picture of the structure of funding sources: 15-55% - rental payments, 15-50% - revenues from budget sources, 10-40% - fees for the provision of consulting, information and other services.

In recent years, the process of creating ITC has slowed down, since the state has begun to invest less money for these purposes, and regional authorities consider the development of innovation activity as a priority, so far more at the level of declarations.

ITC’s activities were also assessed based on such indicators as the volume of additionally attracted funding, the number of intellectual property objects created and protected, the number of technology transfer transactions, and the number of jobs created. Less than a quarter of the total number of ITCs surveyed provided such data, making comparisons and generalizations impossible. However, the very fact of failure to provide such information is indicative and indicates that ITC management is not always aware of the work of the small firms located in them. It is also possible that small businesses do not involve ITC in resolving issues related to the distribution of IP rights and technology transfer, and do not inform ITC about such transactions. Thus, for now, ITCs are viewed by small businesses primarily as a source of profitable rent and established infrastructure, and not as an intermediary and consultant in the process of commercialization and expansion of production.

Currently, the number of small enterprises located in ITCs and technology parks remains virtually unchanged. Demand for high-tech products remains low within the country, and therefore there is no potential for "influx". Industrial enterprises interested in carrying out innovative activities prefer to buy new technologies abroad, where not only the new product is sold, but also its after-sales service is provided. Most domestic small firms are not able to offer similar services.

On the other hand, the growth of small enterprises within ITCs and technology parks and their transformation into medium-sized enterprises is also very slow. Small enterprises are content with the relatively comfortable conditions created for them in technology parks and ITCs, and do not strive to grow or leave the latter. Moreover, in an effort to encourage entrenched firms to exit the structure, a number of ITCs have set higher rental rates for such medium-sized firms, but, as a rule, firms agree to pay more but remain in the same place, since the infrastructure and services are located at ITC at a high level. This situation is typical for successful ITCs and technology parks. In less successful structures, there is often no 100% occupancy of space, and therefore firms are not pushed to exit there.

The development of innovation and technology centers reached a certain milestone in 2001: since it became obvious that not all firms included in them turned out to be effective, along with the problem of attracting small firms to the ITC, the problem of removing ineffective enterprises from the ITC arose. However, successful small firms within the ITC virtually compensated for the government's initial costs of creating infrastructure and financing through government funds. In addition, small firms in the ITC had, on average, higher economic performance than small innovative businesses in general. The volume of goods and services sold by ITC small enterprises per enterprise was more than three times higher than that of non-ITC small enterprises, and taxes paid by developing firms were offset within three years government investments in infrastructure creation.

Ideally, all ITCs should become a link between the small enterprises and scientific and educational structures located in them, on the one hand, and industry, on the other. It is no coincidence that the logic of their development led to the formation of the most powerful ITCs innovation-industrial complexes. IPCs are expected to boost the sales of small firms located in ITCs, and thus the difference between ITCs and IPCs lies in the scale of production. In the IPC, enterprises that were previously part of the ITC must produce products worth at least $10 million per year5. IPC is the next step in the development of innovation infrastructure, since the institutional association of organizations “responsible” for various stages of the innovation cycle should reduce the time required for the creation, industrial development and promotion of competitive products to the market.

The first four innovation-industrial complexes were created in 1999 on the basis of the most powerful ITCs (in Moscow, Zelenograd and St. Petersburg). At the first stage, funding was allocated from the Ministry of Industry and Science of the Russian Federation, the Russian Federation and the Assistance Fund.

Thus, the functioning of the created production and technological infrastructure has shown that with well-established work, ITCs and technology parks are profitable structures, and therefore it is possible to finance their formation through private and borrowed funds. However, at current real estate lending rates, the rent paid by companies that are tenants of ITC premises ensures the return of the initial investment and interest on it no earlier than in 8-10 years6, and this is too long.

At the same time, the dynamics of development of small firms within technology parks and ITCs is not very high. Cases of transition of enterprises from small to medium-sized ones have not become widespread. Once having taken their place and niche within a certain infrastructure, small firms continue to exist in it for a long time, even turning into medium-sized enterprises. There are no stay limits, which are usually established in Western technology parks. To improve the efficiency of infrastructure and support the environment for the emergence and development of small businesses, it is advisable to introduce a system of fixed-term contracts that would be concluded by the management of technology parks and ITCs with small firms. The terms of such contracts may stipulate the duration of the presence of firms in the ITC (technoparks) and the obligations of the parties.

Technoparks based on industrial enterprises

The experience of creating technology parks not at educational institutions, but at industrial enterprises has been more successful. In the process of restructuring production, large businesses create entire clusters of small and medium-sized companies that use the infrastructure of the main enterprise and coexist with it in a symbiosis, acting as suppliers and contractors. In addition, they begin to supply products to other enterprises. This creates sustainable industrial networks. The mechanical engineering industry (OMZ, Motovilikha Plants, KAMAZ, AvtoVAZ) has achieved the greatest success in clustering. At Uralmashplant (OMZ), the development of the technology park is carried out by the Territorial Company. When working with technology park enterprises, there are two principles: the “one-stop shop” principle and a flexible approach to determining the terms of the contract. The first means that enterprises in the Territorial Company can not only lease land, buildings and structures, but also agree to use the services of infrastructure companies: energy and water supply, security and landscaping of territories, and transport. Heat and electricity, drinking water and the use of sewerage are much cheaper for the inhabitants of the Uralmashevsky technology park than for many enterprises outside its borders.

Representatives of enterprises located on the territory of the technology park noted the low tariffs for energy supply, and also welcomed the flexible approach of the Territorial Company to determining the terms of the contract. The territorial company reduces rents for businesses investing in the renovation of rented buildings and structures. Today, the Uralmashevsky technology park houses 27 small and medium-sized enterprises that are not part of OMZ. These are mainly industrial enterprises engaged in the production, provision of machining services and repair of industrial equipment.

KAMAZ followed in the footsteps of OMZ. At the end of July, the official registration of Kama Industrial Park Master OJSC, created on the basis of the empty premises of the KAMAZ subsidiary Remdizel CJSC, was completed. The project should be finally launched by the beginning of 2005. The instrumentation will provide a platform for new jobs and cost-effective production of components for KAMAZ.

The production of small automotive components in a large enterprise is not always effective. Therefore, KAMAZ decided to move their production to its own industrial park. Instrumentation and control can also become a solution to the problems of the personnel policy of the enterprise itself. The Mastera property complex includes a production building with an area of 101.7 thousand square meters. meters and administrative and amenity premises (36.2 thousand square meters), the industrial zone of the industrial park can also cover the area of the spare parts plant, the Turbodiesel production building and the former KAMAZ delivery building. KAMAZ has committed itself to concluding framework agreements with the participants of the Master KIP for a period of at least 5 years. According to the General Director of KAMAZ OJSC Sergei Kogogin, the benefit for his company “is obvious and is expressed primarily in the constant support of flexible production processes, the possibility of concentrating investment resources on key products, testing technical solutions when developing new products, reducing the cost of the vehicle component base and control over the quality of components. And instrumentation participants will receive large long-term orders, equipped space, flexible rental and lending conditions, the opportunity to purchase equipment at a discounted price. In general, this will reduce the costs of production and sales of finished products."

Technology parks based on industrial enterprises have a greater impact on regional development, so we carried out further analysis of industrial technology parks on a regional basis (Chapter five, regional prospects for the development of technology parks).

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Technoparks in Russia (RA Expert). How it works: what is a technology park and why is it needed? Office, laboratory and production sites