Vekselberg and Dvorkovich will lead Skolkovo together

The permanent head of Skolkovo, Viktor Vekselberg, and Arkady Dvorkovich will become co-chairs of the Skolkovo Foundation, a source close to the businessman told The Bell and was confirmed by a person close to the Deputy Prime Minister. The decision has been made, it will be officially announced one of these days, one of the interlocutors clarified. Another source confirmed that Vekselberg is not leaving Skolkovo - despite personal US sanctions.

Details

• The Vedomosti newspaper reported on Thursday that Dvorkovich could head Skolkovo, citing its sources. According to her, the proposal came from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Prior to this, Dvorkovich’s name was not on the list of deputy prime ministers, which Medvedev announced after his reappointment as prime minister. For Dvorkovich, the resignation from the post of Deputy Prime Minister was “a complete surprise,” one of The Bell’s interlocutors said. A source close to him says that Skolkovo will not become Dvorkovich’s main place of work.
• Vekselberg was a co-chairman of the foundation's board and its president from the very beginning. The second co-chairman was former Intel President Craig Barrett. He left the fund around the end of last year - due to his advanced age, one of the interlocutors said. Dvorkovich will fill this vacant position, says another.
• Officially, representatives of Skolkovo, Dvorkovich and Vekselberg do not comment on this.
• Vedomosti wrote that Dvorkovich could head Skolkovo instead of Vekselberg, precisely because in April the businessman found himself under personal sanctions. Now he cannot negotiate directly with US citizens and companies.

What is Skolkovo

The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization created in 2010 on the initiative of Medvedev. The purpose of the project is to commercialize the results of research and development work in five areas: energy efficiency, computer, biomedical, nuclear and space technologies. When creating Skolkovo, they were guided by the example of MIT, which became a partner of the fund, receiving about $300 million for this.

• In the first five years, 75 billion rubles were spent on the fund from the budget. RBC wrote in detail about what happened to the project during this time.
• For the development of Skolkovo in the federal budget for 2018–2020. about 11 billion rubles have been pledged. in year. Last year, Vekselberg asked to maintain funding from the budget for the next three years and promised that by 2025 the fund would be able to reach self-sufficiency.

Svetlana Reiter, Irina Malkova