The executive director of the nuclear technology cluster, Denis Kovalevich, told Denig correspondent Anatoly Loginov about the use of nuclear technologies outside the energy sector, the features of Russian startups and Skolkovo’s strategy.

Photo: Gleb Shchelkunov, Kommersant / buy photo

How did the idea of looking for startups in the nuclear industry come about?

— Even before the emergence of Skolkovo, the Presidential Commission on Modernization classified this topic as a technological priority. Then I worked at Rosatom, was responsible for the corporation's strategy, including innovative development. In the work of the presidential commission, I coordinated the thematic content of the group on nuclear technologies, headed by Sergei Kiriyenko. Even then, two blocks of projects were formed. On the one hand, what is directly related to nuclear energy. This is, for example, the creation of new types of nuclear power units and thermonuclear fusion. On the other hand, technologies that were born in the depths of the nuclear project and can now be used in other industries. The collective name for most of these developments is radiation technology.

What it is?

— This is work with radiation, the source of which can be accelerators, lasers, plasma sources. It is important that this radiation is used by different industries. When creating the cluster, we clearly defined: we will not deal with issues and projects directly related to nuclear energy.

Not an area where startups can emerge?

- Certainly. This is what Rosatom is doing. But in another area, startups can be born. In addition to radiation technologies, there are other areas, also spin-offs of the nuclear industry: new materials, superconductors, composites, etc.

What was this region like before Skolkovo appeared? Did any entrepreneurs show up?

— Historically, there are far fewer entrepreneurs around the nuclear industry than anywhere else. Even in biotechnologies, which are poorly developed in Russia, there are more of them. This is largely true in the world. But especially in Russia. In the US nuclear sector, for example, at the end of the nuclear fuel cycle (this is, for example, reprocessing of radioactive waste, decommissioning of nuclear facilities) there are several hundred small and medium-sized companies. We have only a few. In addition, radiation technology is not an independent industry, but a technology platform that can be used by a variety of industries. To the extent that these industries were represented in Russia, the corresponding types of radiation technologies also developed.

Could you please provide some examples?

— The topic of nuclear medicine, the use of radiation in the treatment of oncological diseases: accelerators, neutron and proton installations, radioisotope therapy, etc. is widely heard. In Russia, this area is poorly developed. Just like the industry. We have few modern nuclear medicine centers - several times less than in Europe and the USA. At the same time, very complex technologies were developed in the USSR. The Kurchatov Institute uses protons and neutrons to treat cancer. But this is experimental medicine. Twenty years ago, we were among the world leaders in the number of patients treated with proton therapy. Fantastic! But since this area became an industry in America and Japan, these countries have naturally moved forward. There are other examples. Radiation technologies are actively used in microelectronics. But what is the level of development of research and development in the field of microelectronics in Russia? We are not America, not Western Europe, and not Taiwan. We do not have companies on the scale of the Dutch ASML, which produces 80% of lithography machines in the world. One such machine costs up to €100 million, the company’s capitalization is about €30 billion. The drivers of the use of radiation technologies in microelectronics are not Russian companies, but foreign ones. And so it is in almost every sector. Security systems are the same story. There are Russian transport security systems. But these are one-off specimens. At the same time, global players produce hundreds or thousands of installations. Obviously, in our field, the key to success for any Russian startup is integration into international cooperation.

How?

— You can integrate into R&D chains, engineering or production. It depends on the strategy of a particular startup. In any case, if a company expects to develop capitalization, it will have to become an element of the global process. This defines the cluster strategy.

Let me give you a couple of examples. In the Belgian city of Leuven there is an institute called IMEC, which began working in microelectronics 25 years ago. Now it is the leader among independent centers in this area, they work a lot with radiation technologies. In addition, IMEC is not only electronics itself, it is also, for example, personalized medicine and developments in the field of energy efficiency. IMEC has 500 cooperators, large and small companies, the institute’s turnover is €300 million per year. What distinguishes such structures? They always have orders of magnitude more problems than they can solve on their own. In addition to hundreds of customers, they have hundreds of partners. If you find any format of interaction with the institute, you gain access to this network. So, we come to Leuven and ask them to formulate tasks that Russian specialists could perform for IMEC. We get an extensive list. We come with him, for example, to Troitsk and look at what we have, and begin to build communications.

Another example is collaboration with Varian Medical Systems, a world leader in nuclear medicine technology. First, at the Open Innovations forum, we held a joint conference of equipment suppliers, at which Varian representatives learned about the level of developments on this topic in Russia and became interested not only in individual companies, but also in further cooperation. This year we are taking the next step: on February 11 we launched a joint competition, the Varian Start-up Challenge. The winner will receive a cash prize and the opportunity to become one of the partners of the Varian global network. In both cases, we directly influence the emergence of new startups in priority areas for the cluster. In general, I think that the future of Skolkovo is a transition from supporting existing projects to active participation in the creation of new ones.

Who is joining the nuclear technology cluster now?

— We have three groups of projects coming to us. The first group is divisions of large companies, established technology entrepreneurs who want to engage in new technologies in Skolkovo. There is, for example, the Optosystems company, a Russian leader in the production of lasers for ophthalmology. Their spin-off, a project to create a new type of lasers, is participating in Skolkovo. Its task is to enter the global market.

The second group is engineers, less often scientists or researchers who are trying their hand at entrepreneurship for the first time. We fully support such self-determination. The key issue is business risks. There are two types of insurance. The first is the quality of our expertise. The second is our international partners, who are, in fact, the other side of the assessment. We always ask: in what global technological chain are you going to integrate your project, what will its commercialization be like? Until we achieve clarity through joint efforts, we will not move further.

Finally, the third type of participants are scientific groups that are very good at science or engineering, recognized on a global scale, but are not entrepreneurs. We do not directly support such projects. We are looking for partners for them who can take over the business. For example, among our institutional partners is the Rusnano system of nanocenters. More than half are located in the points where our projects come from. These are Troitsk, Dubna, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk and, of course, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Nanocenters take on entrepreneurial risks and management, and also contribute to the capital of startups.

Are there barriers in the Skolkovo structure that are stopping you?

— Any organization loses flexibility as it develops. This is a natural, albeit bleak process. Regulation of all processes ensures that we act transparently, do not refuse people without reason, support only those projects that have been checked 20 times, etc. The main thing is to maintain a balance between productive activities and compliance with quasi-bureaucratic procedures.

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“There are far fewer entrepreneurs around the nuclear industry than anywhere else”