[SatNews] A new research center will soon be ready to incubate new ideas and technologies...

Jean Botti, Chief Technical Officer of EADS, and Viktor Vekselberg, Executive President of the Skolkovo Foundation, have signed an Agreement Contract outlining further collaboration. The signature took place on Tuesday at Paris Airshow 2011. The Agreement is building on the partnership between EADS and Skolkovo which has been set up in March 2011. The agreement is defining the road map for the implementation of an EADS research centre in Skolkovo, which shall be operational in the second half of this year. The new EADS presence in Skolkovo will take the form of an R&D Centre. The Centre act as an incubator which will take technological and industrial challenges from EADS’s divisions, Airbus, Eurocopter, Cassidian and Astrium and, together with Russian partners, develop solutions through to industrialized results. Possible areas for collaboration are communication systems, UAVs, advanced engines and energy handling. EADS will also attract students and scientific bodies of the Skolkovo Institute of Technology to participate in the research activity conducted by EADS.

The EADS research centre at Skolkovo will be a branch of the Russian Technology Office (RTO) which was established in 2003 as a part of EADS Innovation Works to facilitate cooperation with the Russian research and development community. Since its opening, the RTO has already managed more than 100 cooperative research and technology programs between EADS and Russian institutions with a focus on advanced engineering tools. EADS’s experience in research and technology collaboration with Russian partners has been extremely positive. Russia is providing competitive, high quality cutting-edge technology. EADS Innovation Works is the corporate research network of EADS. It operates the corporate Research and Technology (R&T) laboratories that promote the Group’s technical innovation potential with a focus on long-term research. EADS Innovation Works have two main sites in Munich and Paris and employ more than 700 people, including doctorates and university interns. Proximity centres are maintained in Getafe, Spain and Newport, U.K, Toulouse, Nantes and Hamburg to support the knowledge transfer to business units in these locations. EADS Innovation Works also operates R&T centres in Moscow, Singapore and Bengaluru, India.