The annual innovation forum
«Innovative Russia — 2020»
In the course of preliminary registration at the Forum you can apply for hotel reservation. Bank details for participation fee transfer will be sent to you later.
Please, note that you need to confirm your own registration before adding a delegation.
Forum administration will contact you about all organizational issues concerning participants registered from your personal area.
Tomsk Innovation Forum is the very first innovation forum in Russia. Its history dates from 1998. Looking at this history we can discover some key milestones and critical moments in the establishment of Russia’s innovation apparatus.
In 1998–1999, when the country was seeking new ways of developing and determining its strategic goals, the first forums in Tomsk were devoted to discussing the existing experience of using new inventions and taking stock of the built-up innovation potential of the territory.
From the beginning of the 21st century Russia’s main policy has been the transition of the national economy in favor of innovative development and the innovation strategy of Tomsk Region has been discussed at the Tomsk forum.
Since 2003 innovative development has been viewed in the context of Russia’s competitive ability on the global playing field. Work began on creating the innovation infrastructure and, in Tomsk, the country’s first student business incubator, commercialization offices and technology transfer centers are being discussed.
Since 2004 institutions for development have been rapidly established: state corporations, investment funds, venture capital companies, investment banks, etc. In Tomsk in 2005 we see the opening of the Special Economic Zone for Technology Development created to exploit the scientific, industrial, and human potential of Tomsk Region. This became one of the main topics of the Forum.
Related to this is the rapid reform of higher education: in 2006 we see the first federal universities; in 2009, research universities; and in 2006–2007, universities began to implement their own large-scale innovation programs. At the Tomsk Innovation Forum universities of the city discuss their experience of realizing innovative programs and the prospects for establishing consortiums as an alternative to federal universities.
The legal framework in which innovation activity takes place is also being reviewed. The adoption of Federal Law 217 is currently being discussed at the Tomsk forum, in accordance with which Tomsk universities have already founded more than 20 companies engaged in innovation.
Over the last 13 years the importance of this event has escalated from a ‘Siberian’ forum to one of the main meeting places for Russia’s innovation community. Its goals have changed too. ‘Innovation’ has ceased to be a call to arms. The creation of conditions for innovative development and support of innovation projects has become a never-ending task requiring constant regeneration.