Science spin-offs and cluster creation in a closed city of Russia (510)

Theme Track: Innovation and New Technologies - Knowledge and Educational Infrastructure

Authors:
Couderc, Marie Laure ; Orsenigo, Luigi

It is common knowledge that the industrialization of USSR consisted very often in the creation of large industrial structures, geographical isolated and to which the local environment was completely dedicated. The former closed cities completely dedicated to a single activity are one of the extreme examples. After 1992 the restructuring of closed cities has been strongly affected by the social constraint of protecting this isolated human communities even if, in the same time, they now have to function as capitalist entities, eventually profitable. To illustrate a particular mode of enlarged restructuring we will take the example of the Institute of Virology and Bacterioloy 'Vector' in Siberia, which is the heart of the former closed town of Koltsovo. This institute previously involved in the bacteriological war started its restructuring through the creation of a cluster hosting a myriad of small and medium entreprises, mostly in the pharmacy industry. Those firms manage to combine inherited assets around a new economic rationale. In order to secure their development, those SMEs tried to associate themselves under federative structures. At first this gave birth to the creation of a Naukograd (scientific town), which is a particular status of these former closed town, and then to a TechnoPark. We will analyse the modalities and logics of creation of this cluster and try to understand the different aspects of this successful model of regional development.

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