Anna Sakoyan: First Steps

On May 30, the first events took place as part of the Scientific American magazine editors summit, which this time takes place in Russia. The magazine was created in 1845 in the United States and gradually became an international publication. The Russian publication of this magazine is "in the world of science."

“Such a conference is held annually, the team of the authors of the magazine is gathering in different countries,” said the scientist and classic of Russian scientific journalism Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa, editor -in -chief of the Russian publication. - By the way, in the past, in 1985, there was such a meeting, and this aroused universal interest, and the editor-in-chief of the magazine later made a trip to the scientific centers of Russia, and this greatly contributes to our entry into world science. This is a problem that is now very acute in front of us. ”

The program was opened by a conference in Rusnano, designed to give guests an idea of ​​the activities of this organization, in particular about its place between science and business, its role in the development and implementation of innovations.

The conferences actually preceded a half-hour tour of the exposition of the work of the Mitka art group . The works, according to the authors, are designed to popularize nanotechnology in the broad masses through their artistic understanding. Therefore, each work consisted of two parts. They took, for example, a dendrimer scheme (“Molecules with a large number of end groups that can be charged in aqueous solutions” and hung a picture called “propagandist ” (multi-armed creature, in each hand on the head-mask) or stylizedschemes of St. Petersburg and Moscow metro (with the cost of one trip) as a household illustration) For super -vanned polymers. The repeating motive of the exposition wasthe horsing of a flea .

The editor of another international magazine participating in the summit - Nature - David Swinbanks, when he was asked what he was thinking about this exhibition, was at first confused, and then said that he is not very versed in this, but the popularization of science is needed, and if there are some benefits in this sense, then, probably, good.

About the popularization of science and the role of Scientific American, Sergey Kapitsa spoke out: “This is one of the elements of this business. No need to exaggerate the meaning of popular science magazines. This magazine, by the way, is not engaged in the popularization of science. He deals with the problem of science and society. What place is science to occupy in modern society. And from the fact that people will know some random scraps of scientific information, there will be nothing but noise. Even the exam in this sense is a vicious thing. These are scraps of information without a picture of the world. ”

About the activities of Rusnano, the head of the scientific and technical expertise of the company Sergey Kalyuzhny spoke. He said that the main task of the organization is to invest in nanoproduction, but in addition to this, it is engaged in the creation of infrastructure that contributes to the development of technology. This includes, in particular, the financing of educational institutions and scientific research, the examination of new projects, the organization of company management. He identified five priority areas that Rusnano is engaged in: medicine, energy, materials, electronics and physical, chemical and electrochemical methods.

This was followed by two presentations illustrating the transition from scientific research to business. Spended Vladislav Bugrov, one of the founders of the company “Optogan”, which was engaged in the production of LEDs, and Igor Yaminsky, who headed the group, which created a scanning probe microscope.

The central part of the conference program was the performance of the head of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais, who talked about what goals the company sets itself and what forecasts for the next 5 years. The most common and ambitious goal is that the Russian nanotechnology from the “Minor League” category, where they are now, have reached the “dominant” (dominant), which are now represented by the United States, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

“There is an erroneous opinion,” he said, “that President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin in different ways evaluate the importance of developing nanotechnology and the introduction of innovations. In fact, in this matter they completely agree with each other. ”

To demonstrate the scale of the project, he listed several sectors in which the work is underway. For example, thanks to the development of the company “Optogan”, the cost of LEDs by 2015 will decrease by seven times, and they can be used everywhere, in particular for household and street lighting. Further, it is planned to improve the RFID radio frequency identification, which is now used by stores so that customers do not carry unpaid goods, and soon, thanks to it, it will be possible to create smart stores without cash registers. The project of such a store, according to Chubais, will be demonstrated on the next nanoform in October 2011. Developments in the field of organic electronics will soon allow us to create electronic readers that are not inferior in quality to current but much cheaper. Such readers can eventually replace school textbooks.

Technologies are developing in the field of photovoltaic (converting solar energy into electricity using photosensitive elements), which is especially true taking into account recent events on Fukushima. Nanotechnologies in use to pharmaceuticals and medicine will purposefully treat only those organs that are necessary without poisoning the entire body by the side effect of drugs. It is expected that by 2015 dozens of new medications will be developed. The development of nanomaterials based on carbon open up great opportunities, because they are twice as lighter than aluminum; in thermal conductivity by 9 times, and in terms of electrical conductivity, 1000 times superior to copper; 20 times stronger steel, and also have unique optical properties. Behind all this activity is Rusnano, as one of the most important bridges connecting science and business.

After the speech of Chubais, the word was taken by the Bogumil Boise, the editor -in -chief of the Czech publication Scientific American. “I am very glad that we gathered here in Rusnano. Scientific American also from the very beginning represented science in the form of a region in which many inventions can be patented and subsequently sell. ” “Science is a way of converting money into knowledge,” answered Chubais, “and innovation is a way of transforming knowledge into money. Russia has long been able to transform money into knowledge, but the transformation of knowledge into money is clearly not our strength. This is a new challenge. And this is what we are doing here. ”

“It seems to me,” Kapitsa, in turn, said, turning to Chubais, “that this is one of the most revolutionary and promising events in modern science, and I was very impressed with what you said now. But there is one point that was not even mentioned in your presentation: who, in fact, will do it all? ” The fact is that the transformation of science into part of the modern economy implies the presence of science. And in Russia it is bad with science, because promising scientists in the mass order emigrated from the country, and we need to educate new ones. But here the problem is that the current education system and modern Russian institutions hardly contribute to this. When, after the Second World War, the Soviet Union faced the task of developing new technologies, three institutes were opened: MEPhI, MGIMO, in which new diplomats were brought up, and the Moscow Physics and Technical Institute. Graduates of these universities were engaged, on the one hand, fundamental scientific research, and on the other hand, combined this process with applied developments. It took about 30 years to create this team of scientists. Now new specialists and new institutions are needed, and where this should appear, is not very clear.

Chubais said that it is difficult to answer this in a nutshell, but he would try. “Of course, higher education in Russia needs serious transformations.” Here, however, he referred to the fact that modern economic schools had already appeared in the country. “Next,” he said, “it is now very fashionable to criticize the Ministry of Education and Science for ineffectiveness and misunderstanding of public needs. I categorically disagree with this. 90% of this criticism - the fruit of misunderstandings and 10% is expressed for political reasons. ” In fact, according to Chubais, the Ministry of Education and Science slowly but surely rebuilds the entire education system. Finally, the model of enrollment in universities adopted in advanced countries was introduced following the results of a single state exam. However, none of this cancels what Professor Kapitsa said: the steps are taken in the right direction, but this is far from enough. And the most promising innovation is an innovative school in Skolkovo, which focuses on international standards. In addition, Chubais noted, MFTI is now engaged in the creation of a very important specialty - technical entrepreneurs. Not engineers and not economists, but especially trained specialists who are not in other countries.

The next question came from the editor -in -chief of the American publication Scientific American Mariett Dikristina - she asked how much it has already been made from the intended and whether there are already technologies that would allow us to achieve the stated results. Chubais replied that in each of the mentioned categories there is already a company that is engaged in developments, and development, in turn, is at different stages. Some are close to the production of a commercial product (for example, “optogan” and Plastic logic).

Regarding the obstacles to the development of nanotechnology, Karsten Kenneker, the editor -in -chief of the German publication Scientific American, spoke out. In Germany, the problem is due to the fact that people are afraid of technical innovations, because they do not really know how it works and what kind of health consequences may have. "Are there such moments in Russia?" he asked. Chubais replied that doubts about new technologies are a logical stage in their development. In Russia, enthusiasm prevails so far, which can soon be replaced by disappointment and criticism, and this is completely natural.

After the conference, representatives of some publications shared their impressions of the beginning of the current meeting of Scientific American.

“For the first time in Russia, for the first time in Moscow,” said Mariett Dixristina. - This is a beautiful city. We arrived here on Sunday, in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful, I managed to take a little. I saw many beautiful works of architecture. ” Regarding the discussion between Kapitsa and Chubais, she said that education is, of course, an important basis for science and that the United States, like Russia, needs to reform the education system, which will allow them to more effectively develop business. As for the visit to Moscow, she expects to learn a lot of new things thanks to this.

“I was very impressed with this project [Rusnano],” said Anna Claudia Ferrari from the Brazilian publication Scientific American, “although I knew about it before. I was especially impressed by the numbers. There is a challenge in the project - and he has prospects. ”

“It was especially interesting for me to learn about ideas in the field of nanotechnology. Although some are afraid of these technologies, ”said Adan Hamui from Kuwait and looked intently at Kenneker Kenneker. “And the conference is well organized,” he added.

Kenneker noted the following Karesten: “I read a lot of recently (in the journal Nature) about strategic changes in relation to science in Russia. Today at the conference, I was convinced that the situation is quite fading into the picture that I had in advance - namely, that science, and, saying , technology, and, still , nanotechnology becomes more and more important in the Russian agenda. I see that many Russian scientists say that the situation of Russian science has worsened greatly after the collapse of the USSR, and now it has become better again. I don’t know if this is true, but such signals come. ”

Kenneker listened to the discussion of education in Russia with interest, but he has no opinion on this, since he does not know the Russian context and does not begin to judge. As for the entire event, he noted that this meeting of Scientific American is different from the usual: “As a rule, we just meet with our colleagues from the magazine and exchange opinions about our publications, sometimes we discuss new plans, and here we have a whole program of events - like what has just been - and meetings with people not directly related to Scientific american. So this is a special meeting ”(we remind you that this program includes a master class about publications in international magazines on June 1).

Mariett Dixristine on this occasion concisely noted that every country and, accordingly, each meeting has its own specifics, but the main subject is always a science, and against this background, national variations seem secondary.

David Swinbanks , the head of the East Asian representative office of Nature, said that he is pleased to see that Russia invests in science, even in applied. “We, in general, are rather interested in issues of fundamental science, and I hope that thanks to this meeting I find out how much it remains to be done to support fundamental science. Professor Kapitsa spoke about problems in this area: everyone is so focused on applied and do not pay much attention to fundamental research. ”

“This meeting is in Russia,” he continued, “is very interestingly organized. This is a great opportunity to learn a lot about what is happening here. I hope to get acquainted with many important people who influence Russian science. And I hope that after these few days I will get a more accurate idea of ​​what is happening here. My view of things has already changed a lot and continues to change - in a positive direction. Russia survived a very difficult period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many scientists left the country. Perhaps now the turning point has come when these people, seeing the change, want to return. ”