Russians believe that the Skolkovo Centre will help young scientists make their ideas come true, will increase the level of proficiency of students at technical universities and lay the basis for the breakthrough in large-scale studies.

MOSCOW, April 13, 2011. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the results of research devoted to the attitudes of Russians toward the Skolkovo Centre.

The Skolkovo Innovation Centre is one of the most famous institutions of national innovation system: about 44% of Russians are informed about it to a certain degree.  In general, Russians have positive image of the centre: often respondents imagine the centre as a science city (10,6%), centre for the latest development (6,4%), city for scientists (3,8%), Silicon Valley`s analog (2,6%), centre for science development (2,5%) et cet.

The share of the "actual audience" (those who definitely know what the Skolkovo center is) is 32%. Other   12% are still potential audience (they say they know what the Skolkovo Center is but they hesitate to tell what they know exactly). The share of the hard-to-reach audience (those who do not know anything about the Skolkovo) is 56%.

The Skolkovo Centre is associated with country's first faces: D.Medvedev (6,9%) and V.Putin (5,7%).  Russians also mention A.Chubais (2,1%), Zh.Alferov (1,5%), M.Prokhorov (0,9%), V.Vekselberg (0,4%) and others.

The creation of the Skolkovo Centre is regarded to be one of the most important Russian projects of the XXI century, according to Russians (22%) after the 2014 Sochi Olympics (74%) and hosting the 2018 World Cup (42%).

In spite low level of awareness about the innovation centre, Russians positively perceive the idea.  Two-thirds of them believe that the Centre will help young scientists make their ideas come true (65%).  The interaction between the Skolkovo and technical universities help increase the proficiency level of staff (58%; the centre will lay the basis for the technological breakthrough in large-scale studies (51%). Besides, 40% are confident that technologies used in the innovation centre can be introduced in their regions; 41% think they will buy products produced by the Skolkovo centre in the future if the price meets quality. More than one-third of Russians think that the Skolkovo will soon be able to compete with the Silicon Valley in terms of scientific and technological development (35%).  At the same time, 53% are afraid that the idea will not be fully completed. Those who are skeptical about the project are in the minority (24%).

More than one-third of Russians would like to see someone from their circle to work in the Skolkovo (38%). Those who express positive attitudes are young (46%), highly-educated Russians (44%) and those with good financial income (49%). The preferred job positions are engineer (15%), and scientists/researcher (14%).

About one-third of Russians (30%) would like to be informed about the Skolkovo Centre not rarer than once per month. Those who are mostly interested in the information are Russians younger than 45 (34-36%), those with high level of education (36%) and with good financial income (39%).

The most popular source of information about the Skolkovo Centre is television: 58% of Russians. Less Russians get information from the Internet (13%) and blogs (9%), radio (9%) and other sources.

The initiative Russian opinion polls were conducted on 19-20 March, 2011. 1600 respondents were interviewed at 138 sampling points in 46 regions of Russia. The margin of error does not exceed 3.4%.

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!