Who will populate technopoleis?

The government quota in Ukrainian higher educational institutions is going to be reduced by 42 percent this year. Undoubtedly, the state will save some funds thereby. But let us look contrariwise at this. Our gray-haired (in both literal and figurative meanings) academia will stay deprived of a fresh supply of young and modern-educated specialists, and there will be nobody to fill the research schools that every doctor of sciences is supposed to create. In this connection, Serhii Kvit, President of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, recently told Deutsche Welle about the situation that had resulted from the government quota cutback. The academic was outraged that the university had its engineering program quota reduced by 20 percent. “It is beyond my comprehension why the government quota for programmer training should be reduced in the present day,” Kvit said. Incidentally, the president [of Ukraine. – Ed.] said in a recent speech that Ukraine needed more programmers. All the more so Kyiv Mohyla Academy is considered Ukraine’s best place to train this kind of specialists. These are the highest ranking and the most popular majors. If the state is cutting its quota, this means it does not need high-quality specialists. So, from the angle of national interest, this policy is beneath all criticism.”

Losing a year is an irreparable loss for science.

Scientific and technological breakthroughs occur almost every day in today’s world. And although far from all of them are of benefit for humankind and stir up a technological revolution (advanced countries are now braced for the seventh one), all the surrounding things change beyond recognition in the lifetime of one generation. For example, transistor radios, cassette and video recorders seem to have appeared very recently. And what do we have now? Have you heard of a material called graphane (“grandson” of the common graphite)? Created almost three years ago, it has put the world on the threshold of a new revolution – not only in electric engineering and electronics but also in power generation. A few years more, and the world will be saved from the energy crisis. Humankind will drop hydrocarbons and switch over to the dream fuel of hydrogen.

But this is the mainstream. Envying their foreign counterparts, Ukrainian scientists can only watch it in the Internet and draw graphs. This immediately shows who is catching up with or overtaking who today, or will be doing so tomorrow. In one of these drawings, the first curve goes down, the second gradually rises, and, finally, the third skyrockets. This is how it works in the so-called technopoleis [Naukogrady. – Ed.] or research parks in the US, Europe, and China, where discoveries of this kind are being made today. There is no Ukrainian (as well as Russian, for that matter) curve on this chart, and even if there was one, it would look like a dash line that crawls somewhere at the zero level. Further proof to this is the title of a roundtable – “Technopoleis: World Experience and Ukrainian Opportunities” – held recently by the State Agency for Science, Innovations, and Informatization of Ukraine and the German Bureau of International Cooperation. The organizers described their goal modestly enough: to discuss the problems of establishing innovative facilities and infrastructure in Ukraine with due account of foreign and national experience, and to find the ways and possibilities of establishing technopoleis in Ukraine.

The German Bureau representative Anton Wirt recalled that the former communist USSR had gathered considerable experience of scientific research in prison-style townships (known as Beria’s “sharashki”) and noted that technopoleis, this time of an open Western type, had become quite a popular subject in Ukraine over the past year. Wirt explained that in his country this kind of parks are considered as not only research bases but, above all, as sprouts of growth which are important for the local government as a source of economic progress and the creation of new jobs. In his words, technopoleis in Germany flourish, pay substantial revenues to the local budget, and enjoy high living standards. In the expert’s view, in Ukraine science should also bear responsibility for the development of a number of technopoleis. Wirt invited municipal authorities to mull over turning science into a city brand. He also said that only five Donetsk oblast cities are now addressing this problem in order to make research more cost-effective.

Viktor Shovkaliuk, a department deputy director at the abovementioned agency, believes there should be a proper legislation to set up technopoleis in this country. Incidentally, something is being done to this end. For example, the president of Ukraine approved a law in early July, which exempts self-financed research park projects from registration. As Viktor Yanukovych said to the National Academy of Sciences’ President Borys Paton, “research is to be a key element in the further modernization of our state and making it more competitive.” Well said!

Meanwhile, Shovkaliuk emphasized that Ukraine has today a very low competitiveness index – 89th place among 120 countries – and went on to speak of the role of the state in managing and funding research, increasing the level of innovative culture, and making laws for innovative processes. In his words, there is a relevant program in the country, “but nobody is going to fund it so far.” In 2007, Ukrainian parliamentarians held a hearing and adopted some recommendations. “But they remained just recommendations,” Shovkaliuk says in reproach. The concept developed by the agency was not adopted either. “The reality is,” the department deputy director continues, “that loan rates are very high today. So the state should exert influence on the financial sector in order to boost innovations. This year’s budget has eight billion hryvnias for supporting innovations by means of direct crediting and loan interest rates compensation. We are pressed for time, and I think these funds will remain behind in the budget until the next year.”

Yet the regional academia is not abandoning attempts to commercialize research, improve its links with business, and put innovations into practice by means of technopoleis. Inna Hahauz, director of the Kharkiv Technologies center, said in a commentary to The Day: “Ukraine does have the groundwork for technopoleis to be set up – a lot of areas, where research is concentrated. All we have to do is create comfortable living and working conditions there. I do not think we must fear that people will break away from the alma mater and begin launching their own business on the basis of the knowledge they acquired. This may apply to, say, the Kyiv Polytechnic [The National Technical University of Ukraine. – Ed.]. There is a housing estate, Piatykhatky, in Kharkiv, where the Kharkiv Physics Technology Institute is doing research. There also are many other entities, where a lot of people would like to pursue research in good conditions. These ‘townships’ work for the big industries and take part in international projects. This also includes aerospace and research at the Swiss CERN that built the Large Hadron Collider. It is still sad that the results usually go to the ‘foreign uncle,’ and Ukraine is left with very few things that could help develop the economy of technopoleis.”