Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation has established the Leader of Open Innovation category within GenerationS

In cooperation with the GenerationS accelerator, the Ministry of Economic Development has invited state-owned companies to become partners of GenerationS and provide expert and information support to organizers and operators of the industrial tracks. The Ministry has also actively engaged participants of technology platforms and pilot innovative regional clusters in educational programs of GenerationS.

"GenerationS accelerator gives companies an opportunity to pioneer the use of the most advanced tools of Open Innovation - create corporate accelerators, embed them in internal corporate procedures, and form partner alliances with investors and other participants in the venture market," says Artem Shadrin, Director of the Department of Social Development and Innovation, the Ministry of Economic Development. "Participation in GenerationS will help corporations to become more open in interaction with small innovative businesses, and enable them to make a comfortable transition to the new tools, receiving expert support from RVC and members of the GenerationS partner network."

"To develop Open Innovation tools in Russia, RVC is integrating within GenerationS efforts of various institutions and market players," commented Gulnara Bikkulova, Director of the Innovative Market Department and member of the Management Board of RVC. "With the support of the Ministry of Economic Development, we will be able to bring additional attention of large Russian companies to the topic of cooperation with small innovative businesses and the opportunities and resources that GenerationS provides for implementation of innovative development programs in Russian corporations."

The Ministry has taken the initiative to establish a special category for GenerationS partner corporations - "Leader of Open Innovation." The nominee will be the company taking part in the partner program of the federal accelerator, the most open to cooperation with young innovative enterprises. Within this category, experts of RVC and the Ministry of Economic Development will evaluate the materials submitted by corporations willing to participate in the selection by the following criteria:

1. Efficiency of corporate programs and activities in the field of open innovation (including inter alia cooperative research and involvement of small and medium businesses to procurement of innovative products and services);
2. Level of satisfaction of the GenerationS participants with interaction with the representatives of corporations;
3. Number of signed agreements of intent/approvals of startups (participants in the Accelerators) with the Corporate Partner structures (pre-investment inspection / investment committee);
4. Number of the partner's experts and lecturers who have taken part in the project selection and mentoring at the stage of Pre-Accelerator and GenerationS Accelerator Program.

In 2015 GenerationS is implemented in close cooperation with the following corporations: RusHydro Group, Moscow Regional Electric Grid Company OJSC, KES Holding, Energy without Borders Fund (created with participation of Inter RAO), Mobile TeleSystems OJSC, Sberbank Technology CJSC, Android Technics CJSC, Saturn RPE, Salyut OJSC, MORTON GC, Tatneftekhiminvest Holding OJSC, Johnson&Johnson, Pharmcontract GC, Sibbiopharm PA. The corporations are directly involved in project selection and assessment, as well as in acceleration of startups participating in GenerationS, based on their needs in innovation. The format of the corporate accelerator will make it possible to the corporations, with the expert support by RVC and other market participants, to implement pilot projects on working with technology startups for implementation of innovative development programs, building a flexible innovation policy, business development, development of new products, and entering new markets.

GenerationS-2015 operates in seven acceleration tracks: Modern power generation technologies (Power & Energy), new technologies in the oil and gas sector (Oil&Gas), Smart City and technology for life (SmartCity), automation and robotics (Robotics), technology in telecommunications (Telecom), technology for the aerospace industry (Aerospace), and medicine and biotechnology (BiotechMed).

For the most promising startups that will get to the final investment session and reach the stage of evaluation by the investment committee, a corporate partner of the track can become a strategic investor or customer and the development may be included in the product line of the corporation.