Elsevier and Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation Sign Access Agreement

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today it has reached an agreement with Russia's Skolkovo Foundation, providing access to External link SciVerse Scopus and External link SciVal Funding. Skolkovo aims to strengthen the links between Russian and international science, technology, education, entrepreneurship and investment communities.

The External link Skolkovo Foundation manages direct investments in the Skolkovo Innovation Center, Russia's hub of intellectual capital, a city of high tech industries stimulating the development of break-through projects and technologies. The development of the Skolkovo Innovation Center was initiated in 2010 after President Medvedev announced his commitment to Russia's investments in R&D. It has since attracted leading global technology companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Boeing and Ericsson, integrating Russia's R&D program into the international innovation environment.

Skolkovo Innovation Center is also home to a major overarching innovation-technology university with direct involvement of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Russia's leading technology universities. Providing this university with secured access to SciVerse Scopus and SciVal Funding will further support Skolkovo's core mission: to foster Russia's technological innovations and bundle research activities to address critical issues at a national as well as global level.

Alexander Lupachev, Investment Director at the Skolkovo Foundation, said of the agreement, "At Skolkovo we aim to build a wired work environment, stimulating innovations in all fields of technology. For us it is important that both young university graduates as well as world-known scientists from any country will consider Skolkovo as an attractive place to pursue their scientific careers. Providing secured access to Elsevier's SciVerse Scopus and SciVal Funding enables us to give these researchers a unique opportunity to exploit the benefits of the digital economy and science in terms of expertise, collaboration, partnerships, virtualization, and resource sharing."

Igor Osipov, PhD, Elsevier Regional Director for Russia and Belarus added, "We are well aware that Russia has many talented scientists working on cutting-edge research. We believe that our research and funding tools will help the Skolkovo Foundation enhance the effectiveness of Russia's research and development cycle from research to commercialization by building an excellent platform for closer international collaboration. This agreement will serve the strategic purpose of Skolkovo to attract and retain the best talent by offering cutting-edge capabilities and information to pursue on-site innovative research with the fast developing knowledge economy."