Innovations to unite government and businesses in Russia
Published: 05 February, 2010, 19:50
Edited: 08 February, 2010, 18:42
Russia’s government says it has been generous to big businesses. Now it wants help and its contributions to be returned, with innovation projects in focus.










There are some great opportunities for confusion in all this, so I think we need be a little bit clearer. You can have research which is long term and strategic, but that does not mean you are innovative. The research is necessary to make Russia a cutting edge competitive technological country in the future, but it is not sufficient to ensure innovation. There is a confusion here that innovative returns are always long term and they need always central government backing. The big research and development programs do need strategic planning, but again this does not mean they are innovative. Innovative means doing something new,something different. The modern concept of innovation is to apply it to everything, the old idea was that innovation means tehnology. I have to train people out of this mode of thought continually. Innovation does not need to be about technology, and the returns can be very very quick. You can innovate in packaging, in business model in finance ..... the list goes on and on. The problem we have here is that government doesn't understand innovation, it only understands research and development. That's fine and needs to be done, so I want them to do a good job of it. But innovation needs to be a culture coming from the bottom with assistance from the top. It can't be centralised. It doesn't work to try to control innovation centrally. To get innovation, you must lead by example, give people freedom to try and protection in success. The smart ones will innovate to make the fastest cash in the shortest time. Indeed they sometimes will act in detrement to long term R&D and that's where government comes in, to help take the grunt out of the long term research, which would not happen without them. So now let's realise we need more fast innovation people who are shown by world examples how to do it. A culture needs to be created, yes this needs support functions and access to finance, but it is the total package that makes it happen.