I have read, heard and even reported that resource-rich countries that dig a hole in the ground and seemingly pull out money are keen to transition their economies from exploiting natural resources to ones based on knowledge in science and technology.
It makes sense since no matter how you feel about the concept of “peak oil”, fossil fuels are a finite resource. So sooner or later that ATM in the ground will stop dispensing cash.
This reasoning has been partly behind Russia’s huge investments in making itself a player in the field of nanotechnology.
As an outsider I have marveled at the machinations this flood of cash into a Russian nanotechnology initiative has initiated. But I am merely looking in from the outside.
So I was intrigued to read an opinion piece over at Nanotech-Now written by Eugene Birger, Principal Analyst for what appears to be a news service on all things related to nanotechnology in Russia, NanoNewsNet.ru, to see what insights it would offer in Russia’s recent attempts to create a “Silicon Valley” just outside of Moscow.
First you see lots of money being announced, then you see a number of bureaucratic obstacles delaying the release of those funds, followed by high-profile agreements and memorandums of understanding that all lead to far less cash actually being spent than originally announced and MOUs that seem never to be turned into contracts.
Birger references a quote made by Russian politician Victor Chernomyrdin in 1993, which, according to Birger, has become a catch phrase in post-Soviet Russia, "We intended for something better, but it turned out just as it always does." Time will tell with this dim assessment is applicable to both the Skolkovo project and the Russian nanotechnology initiative, but in any event we know it won’t be easy for them to be succesful.Dexter Johnson is a contributing editor at IEEE Spectrum, with a focus on nanotechnology.