INT Dan Davidson MPEG 4

So Dan, could you tell us a little bit about the role of American Councils in EURECA?

American Councils is honored to be a part of the EURECA project and to have taken part

in some of the early discussions of the ways in which American institutions

and Russian institutions could cooperate long-term in the development of both

tech transfer capacity and the strengthening – maybe even the mutual strengthening

– of our innovation economies that are knowledge-based.

And because Russian university culture is historically so strong,

and American Councils has had a close relationship with Russian higher education

for really, almost 40 years, it was sort of a natural interest that we had to in some ways

raise the bar on the activities and the support of U.S.-Russia exchange that we do.

And EURECA presents an opportunity to do just that, to set a goal, if we can,

beyond projects that are focused on, let’s say, the development of books,

development of tests, development of programs, to capacity building in a larger way

that would be culturally informed. And at the same time draw on the knowledge

and the resources that the U.S. could bring to that. So we saw an interesting opportunity

here to build on what we already do reasonably well and to kind of raise that

to the next level in terms of engaging in a serious, bi-national capacity building

effort that really benefits both sides.

So you mentioned that there were lots of other projects that the organization

has been dealing with, and that they were a little bit different from this one,

that this is a new type. So what can you bring in from the experiences in other projects into this?

Sure. Well, on the one hand, I think that probably the single largest asset

that American Councils has is its relationship with leading universities around

the United States. Every university in some way is different,

and universities make decisions about engagement, about working with partners

– really as people do around the world – on the basis of trust. And I think

there is that basis of trust between our university partners and American Councils.

To know that if we recommend a project and invite a university partner to consider

being a participant, that it, number one, will be solid, it will be well managed,

and it will be academically significant. I think that that’s the value we add, in some sense,

to the relationship, is our ability to facilitate communications

and project development between the two sides. The other asset, I suppose,

is just our know-how developed over the last 30 years in the area

of bilateral project management. I can’t think of a better way to say that, but essentially,

bilateral collaborative projects. Those are very different things than sort of

just taking on a project ourselves and saying, “We will do it.” Right?

In some sense, taking it on yourself and saying you’ll do it is a lot easier than

having to work in collaboration. Let me give you an example of that.

It’s one thing for me to write an essay. It’s another thing for me to write an essay

with my colleague down the hall in the same corridor. Right away that same project

is going to look, feel, and- it’ll unfold in a different way.

Collaborating even with your neighbor or with your colleague in the next office is hard.

It takes longer. But one would like to think that the outcome of that collaboration

would be different, more interesting, more nuanced, would present

a broader perspective than any single author would necessarily do.

But it’s difficult to harmonize, it’s difficult to keep it in alignment, and it’s difficult

sometimes to even agree what it is we’re doing, what the goal is and why we’re doing it.

So I think there are two issues: the assets of American partner institutions,

and the knowledge of how Russian-American collaboration can work.

And our track record of successful collaboration over these many years

in the area of higher education means that we have a lot of contacts in Russia,

we know a lot of the models that will work and will be culturally acceptable

in Russian context and also be rational and reasonable to an American. And I think

that’s probably the set of assets that we bring to this. Our staff are multilingual,

bicultural, tricultural; they have the same deep experience you see

across the organization; we have a very talented group of people working

in our Moscow, our Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok offices.

So we are on the ground in Russia. We build our experience based not on some

recollection of how things used to be in Russia, but actually on how things are right now.

Sure. And what are the most obvious synergies between the Russian

and American universities that have been determined during those

two days that the universities spent together?

Well, you know, this is a really good question, because while we had done

capacity mapping and needs analysis of the Russian and American partners,

what was striking for all of us in the course of this conference was the extent to which

the universities identified very similar areas as important. That’s the first thing,

because you don’t begin with what necessarily is easy, you begin with what

would be important to accomplish. And I think that agreement across the ocean

and across institutional boundaries on what is likely to be a priority - for either side,

when you ask them this question – I thought that was pretty interesting, and we saw

that today in the multiple presentations that occurred of tentative project development

– call it modular project development – where there was quite a bit of coincidence

of arrangement of priorities. And one of the things that I guess jumped out at me

was the importance of developing and strengthening relationships

with industrial groups and business networks, and how you develop stakeholders

that are not in the university. And that’s just not what universities used to think about,

right? That maybe some of the most important stakeholders are not here,

they’re somewhere else. And that’s an odd thing for any institution to think about.

Secondly is the sort of sense that came out very strongly in a number of

the presentations that this is ultimately a cultural and educational issue

that developing a culture of entrepreneurship is not so much about setting up an office-

-and hiring a so-and-so, a patent specialist and a license officer; but is also about

creating a desire and an interest in entrepreneurship in the youngest cohort

in the university, so, the entering freshmen, the sophomores, the juniors,

these undergraduates – that they would want to be part of this, and that they may

in some ways be closest of all to the kind of mainstream of thinking of where

the innovation is going to resist. So the issue is, number one, don’t block it, right?

And number two, capture that and nurture it. And I think the third thing that comes out,

if I were- let’s see, if I put on my Russian hat, if I were a Russian attending this- it would be

to disabuse myself of the notion of predestination. That is, not that some nations

and some peoples are just naturally entrepreneurial and others are not, right?

What you can see is that Americans invest heavily in the education

of entrepreneurial instincts, entrepreneurial habits, right? In young people.

Purdue University brings in eighth graders and sixth graders and eleventh graders,

young kids from the local schools, and talks to them about Discovery Park,

and about inventions and about innovation, that this is not something where you just

sit back and wait for it to happen, or you order people to go out and do.

Rather this is something that’s nurtured from the very earliest stages,

and you keep doing it, and one of the things that struck me today was that a number

of our partners said that there is very much a kind of, if you will, a pedagogical,

youth-focused thing here, that entrepreneurship and tech transfer is not

just about high end business, that it’s actually about kids.

Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Are there any other organizations that are participating in the project?

There are some remarkable groups, and I may not be able to remember the exact name

of every one of them here, but in addition to our five Russian university partners

– two hubs and three resource centers, three in Moscow and two regional hubs

– we also have the four American universities that competed in the competition

to be designated – and they were four out of fourteen that competed.

And there is also a group of associations that are very very much a part

of the commercialization and entrepreneurship ecosystem in this country,

and we see the Association of Tech Managers as a critical professional group

that sets the standards and mines the professional qualifications and

collects the data – those are things that professional associations only can do.

In other words, there are certain things that universities do very well,

and there are certain other things that professional associations do,

and you need them both. And for that sense, we had them both in the project

from the very beginning. This was not an afterthought.

AUTM was actually one of the participating partners that came in on this project.

But through our connections with the Association of American University Research

Parks, with the incubator group, with the entrepreneur group,

with the venture capitalists – you just spoke with one here earlier today

– you see the way venture capital is distributed in this country in a

rather remarkable, layered, and highly sophisticated way: where the angels reside,

who deals with which level of risk, where the venture capitalists step in,

where the market finally steps in, and who pays for that first stage

when nobody’s around yet to do that. These are the kind of issues that

American universities wrestle with a lot. Some of our institutions,

like the University of Michigan, have actually set up their own venture funds

so that they don’t have to rely only on external funders - on donors

and venture capitalists - but can actually invest university money in a project

they believe is particularly promising before they sell it or hand it off

to the next level of financial supporter. So the universities get compensated, in other words

– they get compensated for the ones that do well and they lose money

on the ones that don’t. And that’s fair.

Sure. Is there any other organization that assists American Councils

in putting this idea together and making the project work in Russia?

Oh, yes, right, we have a principal partner, and to the extent that American Councils

works on the U.S. and the North American side, and in close connection

with the Russian partners, the principal Russian partner is our colleagues

at the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow, and Andrey Kortunov,

who is both a longtime friend and a valued colleague and associate.

And I think that this is probably exactly as it should be, that the balance

and the management of the Russian side of the EURECA project needs to be in Russia,

and needs to be in the hands of a Russian partner. I don’t think I could imagine

a project being done in any other way. We happen to have an office in Moscow,

and our office is represented there in some of the management decisions,

but fundamentally the Russian side is managed by the Russians

and the American side is managed by the Americans.

And I think that ultimately makes good sense both in terms of laws

and legislation and accounting systems, and communication.

And the funder is-?

The funder, U.S.-Russia Foundation, is a new foundation that has really, in my view,

come up with just a remarkable concept. In some sense it’s a concept

that builds on a lot of the earlier developmental initiatives that have been

undertaken by our governments – by the Russian government,

particularly by our government, by the World Bank. You see in some sense

in this level of investment and this sophisticated kind of project,

you see a really good example of how a donor can learn from all that’s gone before,

and take some of the best experience and take that on to the next level.

And I think American Councils is very honored to be part of that process.

And the vision of that foundation is very much a critical part of this, that willingness,

as a private organization, to take a bit of a chance on a project that is very complicated,

that is not guaranteed to produce any quick results, but is likely, over time, to change the landscape.

Thank you so much for your comments. I appreciate it.