OREANDA-NEWS. February 11, 2011. A regular meeting of the Working Group on implementing a multilateral Agreement on development institutions interaction in securing continuous financing of innovation projects was held at Vnesheconombank. The meeting was chaired by Management Board Member, Vnesheconombank Deputy Chairman Mikhail Kopeikin.

The Working Group’s meeting summed up the results of the Agreement’s implementation in 2010.

The meeting participants noted that a main source of creating a flow of projects at present was the Fund for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Research and Technological Field and this is to a great extent due to a specific form of support being used, that is, irrevocable (grant) financing.

For example, more than 20 projects of the Fund were supported by Rusnanotech and the Russian Venture Company. A total anticipated amount of investments in these projects exceeds 15 billion rubles.

In order to increase a flow of projects going through various stages of innovation lift and create a mechanism for their monitoring at all stages the meeting’s participants took a decision to set up an information base on all projects supported by development institutions.

In the near future, proposals are to be prepared on dealing with projects that were turned down because they failed to meet specific investment requirements of each development institution (for example, the absence of nanotechnology component and etc), among other things an opportunity of engaging private investors into implementing such projects is to be explored.

Representatives of the Foundation for the Development of the Center of Research and Commercializing of New Technologies in Skolkovo and the National Association of Business Angels were also among the speakers at the Working Group’s meeting. The Skolkovo Foundation as a development institution is scheduled to join the Agreement and become an integral part of innovation lift.

The Working Group’s members backed a proposal to hold a meeting of Coordinating Council comprised of the first persons of organizations which are parties to the Agreement in April of 2011. The meeting is to address key issues of setting up a consistent system of commercializing the results of research and technical activities and consolidate development institutions efforts to financially support the innovation sector of the economy.