Russia Cannot Breathe Without Intellectual Drive

12.03.2010 — Analysis

It is planned to organise the NanoTechCentre on the basis of the OJSC Urals Research and Development Technology Institute (UralRDTI). As well as UralRDTI the state owned higher education establishments in Ekaterinburg - the Classic and the Technical Universities, and the Institute of Metal Physics of the Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences will participate in the establishment of the Centre.

According to Alexei Fefelov, the Head of OJSC UralRDTI, there will be several subdivisions in the Centre in compliance with the ROSNANO requirements; these will include the property complex - building and equipment, the technology transfer centre and the organisational structure. The Expert council will be composed of the specialist from higher education establishments and independent members. It is planned that in accordance to their recommendation using the real estate and the equipment in possession of the institutes new technologies will be developed and prototypes of new materials created which will then be possible to make commercially available. The money in the sum of 900 million roubles which the State is promising to the winners of the call for proposals, the scientists are going to spend on additional equipment.

Initially the Centre was going to implement eight projects which have already been approved by experts. For instance the Institute of Metal Physics is suggesting the production of diamond-like films which can be used for finishing the metal surface to improve the qualities of cutting tools. Also materials with the memory of shape are being worked on for applications in medicine. According to Anatoliy Rinkevich, the Deputy Director of the Institute, the property of these materials to take various shapes in various temperature conditions can be used for the extraction of stones from the liver. Tests have already been done but so far there is no certainty that the technology will work without fail in all situations. The researchers have to deal with a lot of difficulties - the lack of equipment, specialists, working capital.

ROSNANO is pushing scientist to get the commercial result, the technology centre must attract investors which eventually will enable the centre to become self-sufficient. Mr Rinkevich points out, however, that there is no clarity at the moment, which of the products will be wanted by the market. It is obvious that the centre has to be founded on the break-through ideas which will create a new need in materials and technologies. But ideas like that are rare as diamonds. Most often the new developments cannot answer the question who and at what price will want to by the new product. A lot of money has to be invested into a project with a result unknown. This is why, the expert reckons, there is a risk that it will not be possible to find investors for some projects.

Vladimir Shur, the Director of the Joint Use Centre "Modern Nanotechnologies" at USU, however, claims that nowhere in the world technology centres are perceived as commercial enterprises. The unique scientific equipment is not designed for batch operations.

The upkeep of technology centres does pay for itself, be it not straight away and indirectly. For instance the "Modern Nanotechnologies" Centre has made 56.7 million roubles last year but this money went not only to the Joint Use Centre. According to Mr Shur having the state of the art equipment enabled the University to receive loads of grants and targeted funding from the State. Making money on selling services to industrial enterprises is much harder as there is the lack of solvent enterprises in the country and the long term investment is not something flourishing at the moment. Despite all this the Centre at USU has made 9 million roubles last year.

According to the expert, the two types of services are in demand: confirmation of the fact that there are nanotechnologies being developed in order to get the federal funding and solving given particular problems for enterprises. For instance OAO NPK Uralvagonzavod has recently completed the field tests of their carriage dolly whose mileage reached a million kilometres which the plant's specialist had difficulties achieving for some time. The problem has finally been solved with the use of nanostructuring (changing the metal's properties at the nano level).

Russians are also actively working on nanosafety. USU scientists jointly with medics at the moment are studying the consequences of the exposure of animals to nanoparticles. This problem is not very well researched but vitally important as nanoparticles can enter the body very easily which makes even the very well-studied materials dangerous. Experts are convinced that now any products should be viewed through the toxicity prism. This is a difficult job but it has to be done. The Urals scientists, Mr Shur claims, are in line with the global developments with this.

The key problem the expert predicts in the establishment of structures which would take these scientific ideas and turn them into a ready product. The majority of design institutes in Russia have been destroyed and there nobody out there who could implement the designs. The experience demonstrates that if you get together scientists, equipment, design organisations, and production facilities, you get results which are not bad at all. The country has quite a few products in demand based on nanotechnologies, these projects have, as a rule, been implemented by the Rosatom structures which have been demolished to a somewhat lesser degree than the rest of the Russian industry. The nuclear scientists' designs are quite competitive today. This gives experts some ground for optimism.

Nanotechnologies are in demand by the industry but the distance between the wishes and the real implementation of a design is very long. This is why, according to Mr Shur, the Centre has to be funded to the amount of 10 to 20% of the equipment cost. The money will be needed for running and making modifications to the equipment and to pay wages of specialists which must very mobile and well informed.

Ilyas Paderin, the Head of the Urals Centre for Technology Transfer, reckons that monitoring the market will be made easier within the NanoTechCentre. The existing global data banks, libraries and reviews will enable the scientists to find out very quickly what is wanted by the markets and what is really on offer in the world. The expert is convinced that pooling the efforts of researchers will enable them to work on a fundamentally new level then what we see in the institutes' technology transfer centres.

Russian scientists point out that the competition in the nanotechnology sector has not yet reached the level when, in Mr Rinkevich's words, you have to elbow your way in. The field is fairly vacant for the Russians to stake a firm hold there. The success will depend on how well the managers and authorities will resolve the organizational matters. There will be more and more problems to be solved with the development of the Centre: concessions will be needed for scientists, there will be conflicts between the authors of ideas and organisations they represent, the obstacles in the way of product certification will have to be overcome etc.

The Technology Centre will not be able to manage all these organizational matters on its own. This is why the fate of nanotechnologies in Russia will depend not even on the presence of original ideas as the experts say all is well here in that respect, but on whether the State is capable to establish the perception of a drive in the society, the understanding of a simple notion that science is prestigious, that science has future and can be turned into commercial success. It seems that the young generation already understands this; there were 11 applicants per one place in the Urals University to study nanotechnologies.

Vladimir Terletski