Skolkovo
Institute of Science
and Technology

206
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Created 
to create
2021 was a milestone 
year for Skoltech – 
the year of the 10th 
anniversary, celebrated 
with outstanding 
achievements of 
scholars and engineers, 
students and alumni, 
staff and partners.

207
CONTEXT

04
The unique educational 
model attracts thousands 
of applicants from more 
than 100 countries. 
Quality of PhD programs 
is recognized 
with EU accreditation. 
More than 1300 alumni 
are highly demanded 
in R&D sector, many 
graduates became 
successful entrepreneurs.
Being a research-
intensive institute, 
Skoltech established 
14 advanced Centers 
pushing the boundaries 
of Artificial Intelligence, 
Telecommunications, 
Life Sciences, Materials 
and Engineering, 
Energy Efficiency 
and ESG, Photonics, 
and Mathematics. 
01
03
Skoltech faculty and 
researchers established 
long lasting collaborations 
with academic peers from 
top world universities 
and research centers such 
as MIT, CNRS, Harvard 
University, University 
of Cambridge, University 
of Oxford and other top 
academic institutions 
across the globe.
02
Skoltech academic 
results are globally 
recognized: the best 
computer science 
university in Russia 
(Guide2Research), 
# 65 in Nature Index 
Young universities 
ranking, # 35 in Physical 
Sciences, also named 
a rapidly rising 
university (#21).
10 years that shaped one of the best 
young global universities

05
True to the  mission, 
Skoltech became 
a national think 
and act tank, hosting 
technology Centers 
in Artificial Intelligence 
and Communications, 
specializing in such areas 
as Next Generation of 
Wireless Technologies, 
Internet of Things, 
AI optimized decisions 
to reduce carbon footprint. 
3.5 bln Rub are invested 
in the Centers by the state 
and industry.
07
Skoltech generated 
17 bln Rub of impact 
to the national economy 
in 2021. As the Institute 
continues to grow, 
the cumulative impact 
will exceed 100 bln Rub 
in 2025. 
06
Skoltech is a pioneer 
of cutting-edge 
technologies: was the first 
to demonstrate operation 
of the autonomous 5G 
network using own 
software and made the 
first VoNR call in Russia. 
Also, deployed the line 
for production of cathode 
materials for lithium-ion 
batteries based on oxides 
of nickel, manganese and 
cobalt with high energy 
density, surpassing the 
best world analogues; 
these materials serve as 
the basis for advanced 
storage batteries for 
transport and industrial 
applications. Constructed 
and transferred to the 
national aerospace 
industry the unique 
complex for production 
of aluminum honeycomb 
packs.

08
09
10
Skoltech with international 
partners developed the 
world’s first ultrafast 
all-optical transistor 
that operates at a room 
temperature and has 
an unprecedented high 
gain. This is a big step 
towards creation of ultra-
fast optical logic circuits 
and brings appearance 
of real optical computers 
closer.
Supporting translational 
research, Skoltech has 
150 patents and more 
than 100 startups 
of faculty, students 
and alumni. Joint 
research in genome 
editing (CRISPR-
technologies) 
with Rutgers, MIT 
and Harvard led 
to cutting-edge results 
protected with three joint 
patents. The joint venture 
with Sber resulted 
in the ecosystem 
for development 
of AI in healthcare, 
providing hundreds of 
Russian hospitals with 
the access 
to a unique collection 
of well-structured 
medical data and 
cutting-edge data 
processing algorithms 
and tools.
Skoltech campus, 
internationally recognized 
with the first prize 
of the Prix Versailles, 
is a unique engineering 
and technical facility 
allowed to deploy state-
of-the-art labs, design 
modern and spacy 
teaching and learning 
areas and community 
building zones.

7
10–27	
About
	
Mission and vision	
	
Key data 2021
	
Five-year trends
	
Towards 2025
28–77	
Making impact
	
World level research
	
National ‘think tank’
	
Integrator of large-scale national programs
	
Cultivating entrepreneurial readiness and spirit
78–107	
Educating leaders
	
Teaching excellence
	
Fostering student success
	
Alumni community
108–131	
Сommunity engagement
	
Human capital
132–153	
Governance & management
	
Governing bodies
	
Executive management
	
Organizational chart
	
KPIs and benchmarking
154–163	
Financial performance
164–171	
Campus
Content

About

Skoltech was established in 2011 
in collaboration with MIT 
with the vision of being a world-
leading institute of science 
and technology and the mission 
to impact economy and society 
development by academic 
and technology excellence 
and entrepreneurial spirit. 
Skoltech became a home for talents 
who are working in promising areas 
of global science and technology 
agenda. The broad, but well-
structured portfolio divided among 
14 Centers covers Artificial 
Intelligence and Communications, 
Life Sciences and Health, Cutting-
edge Engineering and Advanced 
Materials, Energy Efficiency and ESG, 
Photonics, and Advanced Studies.
Skoltech research excellence is 
globally recognized: twice the Institute 
appeared among top-100 world’s 
leading young universities in the 
prestigious Nature Index ranking.
Rich and encouraging environment 
supports delivery of MSc and 
PhD programs which shape next 
generations of leaders in science, 
technology and business. Student-
centered experiences prioritize 
individual career paths and

13
aspirations towards outstanding 
results. More than 1300 talented and 
ambitious alumni are successfully 
employed in high-tech sector, continue 
for PhD, postdoc or faculty positions, 
founded own startups. 
Skoltech is a trusted partner for many  
industry players in Russia and beyond, 
also provides reliable expertise to 
governmental bodies on complex 
technology initiatives. The Project 
Centers specializing in Wireless 
Technologies and IoT, Artificial 
Intelligence, Agro Technology, 
Energy Transition and ESG, 
are driven to make the most of their 
potential to contribute to national 
technologies. Sponsored research 
reached the high levels securing 
2.5 bln Rub by faculty and 
researchers for 2021. 
Faculty, students and alumni founded 
more than 120 enterprises in Russia 
and abroad, 71 companies received 
Skolkovo residency.
Skoltech campus, marked with the 
prestigious Prix Versailles Award, 
cultivates strong and active interaction 
between research, teaching & 
learning, building community of 
faculty, students, and staff, which now 
exceeds 2200 people.

14
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Mission 
and vision

15
Being an international 
university of a new type 
in Russia, Skoltech 
is the central element 
of the system of the institutes 
for development 
to re-create a foundation 
for national high-tech 
industry, leveraging 
the boost in research 
and entrepreneurship 
in science-intensive areas. 
In this paradigm, Skoltech 
fosters research in
the advanced areas of crucial
importance for Russia 
and the world, promotes 
entrepreneurship while 
training science, technology
and business leaders capable
of working in a rapidly 
changing research 
and technology landscape. 
Skoltech looks beyond 
a university 3.0, integrating 
research, education 
and innovation to achieve 
ground-breaking advances 
and transfer best practices 
to the economy.
Mission
Vision
ABOUT
Skoltech facilitates 
the economy and 
society development 
by academic 
and technology 
excellence and 
entrepreneurial 
spirit.

1 From total output (Scopus)  
2 Within 4 months after 
graduation.
Structure
Centers for Research,
Education and Innovation
10
Project 
Centers 
4
Target 
Domains
6
Global reputation
University in Computer science 
in Russia (Guide2Research)
#1
World young universities 
(Nature Index ranking)
#65
Physical Sciences
(Nature Index ranking)
#35
Publication output
In Nature Index
journals
147
In Q1 
journals1
63%
In international
collaborations
59%
Students
MSc and PhD 
students 
1063
Females 
33%
Internationals from 
48 countries 
21%
Alumni
Alumni 
total
1359
In Russia
77%
Employment
rate2
95%
Partnerships
Cotutelle
agreements
12
Industry 
partners
103
International 
agreements
54
Sponsored 
research
Bln Rub secured 
by Centers 
2.5
R&D
projects 
199
Grants
106
Entrepreneurship 
and innovation 
Startups 
in Skolkovo
71
IP 
cumulative
158
Mln Rub investments
in startups 
>250
Personnel
Faculty
144
Total
staff
1230
Researchers 
engineers
511
Key 
data 
2021

18
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Five-year trends 
Faculty by position 
2018
2017
706
977
1062
1068
1063
2019
2020
2021
Student cohort
Mid-career
Junior
Senior
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
56%
22%
22%
50%
23%
27%
51%
21%
28%
50%
20%
30%
48%
23%
29%

19
Faculty by contract type
The first class graduated in 2015
PhD
MSc
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
2015
2016
2018
2017
2019
2020
2021
Graduates (cumulative) 
ABOUT
Part-time
Full-time
0
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021

20
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Share of Skoltech authorship in Nature Index papers 
Sponsored research (mln Rub)
28.8
22.0
13.7
10.1
5.5
2019
2021
2020
2018
2017
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Grants
R&D

21
Patent activity 
IP (cumulative)
Applications
Skoltech associated startups (сumulative)
ABOUT
69
92
2021
74
158
2020
37
49
2019
37
23
2018
2017
18 17
Non-Sk residents
Sk residents
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
19
17
40
34
57
36
71
50
26
7

22
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Strategy 2021 – 2025, built 
around Targeting Excellence today to 
Impact Tomorrow, prioritizes Skoltech 
contribution to the national economy, 
building the reputation of the 1st choice 
university for the brightest talents, 
serving as a national think tank and act 
tank in technology areas demanded in 
Russia. In context of these aspirations, 
several high level priorities were 
defined and big steps towards these 
priorities have been taken.
Towards
2025

23
Strategic focus 
    
Maintaining the reputation of a world 
level research and educational center, 
a national think tank and act tank, 
requires a focused and well-structured 
research portfolio and a critical mass 
of competencies in the chosen areas. 
To address the relatively blurred focus 
of research and technology agenda 
and  “atomization” of the Centers, the 
institutional transformation was started 
to address fundamental questions: 
In what areas to invest capitalizing 
on existing strengths and capacities? 
How Skoltech will best organize itself 
to reach the goals of the Strategy and 
Centers’ strategic programs? 
The process built through the baseline 
“Target Domains – Centers – 
Organizational frameworks” ensured 
transparency and collegiality of 
milestone decisions, at the same time, 
allowed all faculty to participate 
in strategic planning. As a result of 
review of faculty proposals, strategic 
programs were approved by the 
Academic Council and the Board of 
Trustees, leading to a more systematic 
research and technology agenda (see 
the chart further).
Research and technology structure  
    
To support the strategic programs, 
structural developments were in place 
to adjust institutional organizational 
model, historically presented with 
one type of the unit – Center for 
Research, Education and Innovation 
(CREI). Considering different scale 
and scope of the strategic programs, 
a new type of the unit, Project Center, 
was established in addition to CREI. By 
design, Project Center drives problem-
based research to target technology 
solutions and economic impact 
from technologies implementation. 
Project Centers will also serve as the 
“frontends” for raising capacities of a 
national think and act tank.  
ABOUT

· Computational Intelligence
· Tensor Networks & Deep
Learning 
· Mobile Robotics 
· Computer Vision
· Natural Language Processing
· Computational Imaging
· Intelligent Signal and Image
Processing
· Multiscale Neurodynamics
for Intelligent Systems
· Mathematical Foundations of AI
· Statistical Machine Learning
· AI & Supercomputing
· Medical Computer Vision
· Quantum algorithms for machine 
learning and optimisation
· AI for Materials Design
Artificial Intelligence 
Technology
· Algebraic and complex geometry 
· Lie theory and generalizations
· Dynamical systems
and differential equations 
· Mathematical physics
· Probability and statistics
· Сombinatorics and discrete 
mathematics
· Integrable Models
Advanced 
Studies
· 5G development
· 6G Research and Development
· Wireless technology perspective 
studies
Next Generation 
Wireless and IoT
· Data Fusion and 3D Computer 
Vision
· Physics-Informed ML
· Efficient DL for Green AI technologies
· ML for Industrial Predictive Analytics
Artificial Intelligence
in direction 
of optimization
of management decisions 
to reduce carbon footprint
Artificial 
Intelligence & 
Communications
Advanced 
Studies
Life Sciences 
& Health,
Agro
Energy 
Efficiency 
& ESG
Cutting-Edge 
Engineering, 
Adv. Materials
Photonics
Molecular 
and Cellular Biology 
· Microbiology 
· Metagenomics
· Functional and evolutionary 
virology, antiviral drugs
· Transcriptomics
· Biochemistry of nucleic acids
· Cell Biology
· Genetically encoded fluorescent 
probes: engineering and 
application in biomedical models
· Structural bioinformatics
· Immunology – Adaptive
immunity
· Plant biology
· Genetics and Evolution
· Omics technologies and big data 
for personalized medicine and 
health
· Mass spectrometry molecular 
technologies in medicine 
and environmental research 
Energy Science 
and Technology 
· Energy storage and conversion
· Energy Systems
· Laboratory of Modern Energy 
Systems
· Skoltech-KAMAZ laboratory
for automotive batteries
· Project Laboratory
on sustainable hydrogen 
and ammonia
Digital
Engineering
· Product Development
and Systems engineering
· Systems Modeling
· Robotics
· Space Systems
Materials 
Technologies
· Large-sized structures of polymer 
composite materials for 
the transport infrastructure 
of the Arctic zone
· Coating technology for nuclear 
waste management
· Additive manufacturing
of implants for translation 
into clinical practice
Petroleum Science 
and Engineering
· Enhanced Hydrocarbon Recovery 
(chemical, gas and thermal 
methods)
· Geomechanics, hydraulic fracturing 
· Petrophysics and geochemistry
of unconventional reservoirs
· Geocryology (gas hydrates, 
permafrost)
· Advanced Reservoir Modelling
· Machine learning in oil and gas 
industry
· Climate changes, environment 
protection, energy transition 
in oil and gas industry
· Nuclear waste disposal
in geological formations
Photonic Science
and Engineering
· Biophotonics
· Liquid Light Computing
· Nanomaterials 
· Photonic Circuits and Systems
Engineering
Physics
· Photonic integrated circuits
and devices for applications 
in nano-optoelectronics, fiber 
sensors, and nano-biomedicine
· Quantum current standard
· Computer modeling of cerebral 
blood flow.  Development 
of experimental microcirculatory 
model of the human brain 
to map out areas of specific 
interest and subsequent 
study of the hydrodynamics 
of a multiphase fluid 
in the microcirculatory system
Neurobiology 
and Brain Rehabilitation
· Brain-computer interfaces
· Neuromodulation
· Brain metabolism
· Biomaterials
· Small molecules
· Computational neurobiology   
· Computational neuroimaging
Agro Technologies
· Envirotyping and Digitalization
of Agriculture
· Crop improvement
· Livestock improvement
Energy Transition
and ESG
· Carbon Capture, Utilization
and Storage 
· Decarbonization of industry
· ESG Risks Assessment
in Economy
· AI for ESG applications
Project Center 
Center
Center for Research,
Education and Innovation
Research and technology structure

26
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Organizational frameworks were 
revised mainly to support Center’s 
strategic programs, and also, 
shape enablers for the Strategy 
implementation. 
The Policy on Centers, which is a 
major framework of the research and 
technology organizational structure, 
was adjusted with the concept of 
Project Center. 
Human capital policy was bolded 
on the agenda to widen motivation 
and incentives tools, ensure attention 
to individual performance and team 
accountability, provide grounds for 
building transparent career ladders. 
The new pay system was developed 
to come into force in April 2022. 
Work was started on design of the 
performance management system to 
improve strategic planning through 
cascading the Strategy goals to all 
organizational levels, on the one 
hand, and ensure incentives and 
rewards for top performers, on the 
other. The  strategic and operational 
planning framework was amended 
with the KPIs concept. 
Other directions included 
development of the Project Activities 
Policy and IP Policy update, both 
ready to go in 2022. 
Organizational 
frameworks

Making 
impact

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Skoltech focuses on research which addresses major 
challenges facing society and the world. To support 
this aspiration, strong attention is paid to academic 
excellence and recognition of results on the global scale, 
maintaining academic partnerships that enrich research.
World level 
research

31
MAKING IMPACT
Research leadership  
    
The year was remarkable for academic 
reputation and recognition of research 
excellence. The international rankings 
continued to place Skoltech among 
the top world universities. The Guide2- 
Research named Skoltech #1 university 
in Russia for computer science, 
and Prof. Cichocki and Prof. Lempitsky 
among the top world Computer 
Science scientists. 
For the second time, the prestigious 
Nature Index ranking included 
Skoltech in the list of top-100 world 
young universities with place # 65, 
which is 32 placings higher compared 
with 2019. Remarkably, Skoltech was 
also named as a rising young university 
(#25), and received recognition for 
excellence in Physical Sciences (# 35). 
Publication output quality    
    
Research results were published in top 
reputable sources, while publication 
quality and impact continued to raise. 
The total publication output of 2021 
counts more than 1200 papers, 63% 
of which are in top-25% journals. 
Almost 150 papers were published 
in Nature Index journals, while more 
than 20 papers –  in A*conferences. 
59% of papers are in international 
collaborations, among the key partners 
are MIT, CNRS, Aalto, Rutgers, 
Southampton, Oxford, Harvard, 
Cambridge.
Skoltech contributed to the global 
positioning of Moscow measured by 
several academic excellence indicators 
(source: Elsevier report on 20 Global 
Cities). In particular, the Centers gave 
Moscow 29% of the papers compound 
annual growth rate, and 12% of 
papers in prestigious journals – 
Cell, Nature and Science. 
Research excellence was also 
evidenced in faculty recognition: 
Prof. Cichocki was named a Highly 
Cited Researcher 2021 (Clarivate), 
Prof. Oganov and Prof. Terzija 
appeared in the list of 2% of top-cited 
scientists (ELSEVIER).

32
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Grant awards   
Grant funding reached an all-time the 
highest level with 808 mln Rub in 2021 
and 770 mln Rub for the coming years. 
The awards derived from various 
sources, while funding from national 
agencies kept the larger share, mainly 
due to “Megagrants” allocated for 
setting world class laboratories. Below 
are some examples of the largest 
grants:
Prof. Lebedev 
Prof. Bazуkin 
Dr. Kononikhin 
Prof. Sakellaris
Dr. Zhilyaev 
Prof. Brilliantov 
Prof. Levchenko 
Prof. Sergeichev 
Development of invasive and non-invasive corticospinal and 
peripheral interfaces, with the use of biomarker monitoring, 
for neurorehabilitation of motor functions and pain control
128 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Genomic epidemiology of socially important infectious disease
24 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Characteristic of protein-peptide composition of urine and 
blood serum of patients with chronic glomerulonephritis in 
order to diagnose the early stages of the disease 
24 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Spatially-selective synthesis of 2D materials 
24 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Nanobubbles in van der Waals heterostructures as a tool 
for studying the thermodynamic and structural properties 
of submicron portions of a substance for creating new 
energy technologies 
24 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Elaboration of a forecast model of atmospheric pollution by 
solid phase with the use of artificial intelligence 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation 
Search for new catalysts for cheap electrochemical 
hydrogen production: Combined experimental, theoretical, 
and machine-learning approach 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Creation of a distributed facility for dynamic testing of 
structural polymer composites 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Project
Principal investigator

33
Prof. Korsunsky 
Dr. Bukhanov 
Dr. Kirillova 
Prof. Khrameeva 
Dr. Fedorov 
Dr. Rudakovskaya 
Dr. Sharaev 
Prof. Akhatov 
Multiscale experimental analysis of stresses in light 
alloys and materials for aviation 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Prediction of property changes for frozen hydrate 
sediments during the development of hydrocarbon 
deposits in the Arctic 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
The dynamics of the mitochondrial genome in human 
embryo development 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Chromatin architecture changes in mental disorders 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Novel selective gas-analytical systems for mapping of 
chemical space 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Novel functional agents based on amphiphilic 
polymers for hybrid imaging modalities for 
reproductive medicine tasks 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Interpretable machine learning models 
for the analysis of large multimodal biomedical and 
neuroimaging datasets based on artificial intelligence 
methods
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Suspension droplet wall impingement and particle 
deposition 
18 mln Rub, Russian Science Foundation
Principal investigator
Project
MAKING IMPACT

34
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
International outlook
Skoltech supported international 
collaborations despite closed borders 
due to the pandemic. 
The MIT Phase III was ongoing on 
several directions: faculty projects 
within the Next Generation Program 
(3rd Call for Proposals), selection 
of new proposals within (4th Call 
for Proposals), a new call for MIT 
Principal Investigators  for  innovation 
projects that have potential to benefit 
Skoltech.
Partnerships with Europe were 
maintained within TUM Global 
Incentive Fund (projects in Energy 
and Robotics), INRIA (the project 
on advanced and new tactile 
cyberworlds and Replica Mean Fields 
project for networks), Karlsruhe 
Institute of Technology and Leibniz 
Institute for Solid State and Materials 
Research (project for development of 
K-ion batteries).
Academic ties with China were 
expanded by the Laboratory 
of Superconducting Quantum 
Technologies (joint research with 
University of Science and Technology 
of China and Tsinghua University) and 
Center for Molecular and Cellular 
Biology – the project with  Zhejiang 
University on the role of RNA 
secondary structure in the regulation 
of alternative splicing and its drug 
targets will be supervised by Prof. 
Pervouchine. 
Skoltech and the University of 
Sharjah established the AI for Life 
Joint Collaborative Grant, the joint 
Scientific Committee selected several 
projects to start in 2022.
Several multinational collaborations 
were in place. Prof. Bazykin 
participated in BRICS consortium 
on genomic epidemiology of SARS-
CoV-2, allowing to synchronize best 
practices in genomic epidemiology. 
In particular, the involvement of India 
and South Africa allowed Skoltech 
to rapidly get the first-hand data 
on the SARS-CoV-2 variants that 
originated in these countries. The 
research team of Prof. Khaitovich 
with peers from Germany, USA and 
Japan investigated recent molecular 
evolution of our species by comparing 
the modern human genome to that of 
Neanderthals. 
New agreements were signed with 
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 
Delhi University, National University 
of Singapore. Negotiations started 
with the Weizmann Institute of 
Science to launch joint research in AI, 
Agricultural and Biological Science, 
Material Science, Energy.
International conferences 
Skoltech hosted or participated 
in visible conferences – the 
10th Moscow Conference on 
Computational Molecular Biology 
MCCMB-21, Online School and 
International Conference “Poisson 
Geometry and Representation 
Theory”, 7th International Workshop 
on Combinatorics of Moduli 
Spaces, Cluster Algebras, and 
Topological Recursion – MoSCATR 
VII, Trustworthy AI Conference: 
2nd International Conference on 
the AI’s Robustness, Transparency

MAKING IMPACT

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021

37
and Sustainability, International 
conference “Enhanced recovery for 
conventional and unconventional 
oilfields” and others. 
The International Congress of 
Mathematics, planned for July 2022, 
was in a special focus. Prof. Krichever 
was selected as a plenary speaker, 
and Prof. Feigin as an invited speaker. 
Prof. Okounkov, Prof. Smirnov, and 
the President Kuleshov  represent 
Skoltech in the Organizing Committee. 
Schools for young researchers 
A number of schools for young 
researchers were organized to share 
knowledge and research results. 
The 2021 Young Scholar School of 
Neurotechnologies and Bioelectronic 
Medicine, organized by Prof. 
Lebedev, gathered more than 
100 young researchers, Russian 
and international scientists and 
entrepreneurs. 
Prof. Stevenson organized 
international schools “Battery Summer 
School” and “Interfacial Chemistry 
and Charge Transfer for Energy 
Storage and Conversion” at Telluride 
Science Research Center, Telluride, 
CO.
Research facilities 
The shared facilities, mainly Genomics 
and Advanced Imaging, FabLab and 
Machine Shop, provided services 
for almost 100 external clients, as 
well as Skoltech clients - faculty, 
engineers, students. Micro- and 
Nanofabrication Cleanroom secured 
additional funding for 3 years. The 
latter is the first funded project, which 
is a part of a new project of Research 
Facilities Center aimed at building at 
Skoltech a high-tech infrastructure for 
manufacturing and testing photonic 
integrated circuits. 
Thanks to the grant of Moscow, the 
Skolkovo Foundation purchased 
equipment for the FabLab, Advanced 
Imaging, Genomics and Cleanroom 
with a cost of more than 320 mln Rub.
MAKING IMPACT

38
Publications in Nature Index
2017
62
2018
89
2019
98
2020
144
2021
147
CNRS
MIT
Aalto University
University of Southampton
Rutgers
RIKEN
Northwestern Polytechnical University
Chinese Academy of Sciences
University of Oxford
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
205
129
110
71
70
64
63
61
60
56
56
Top international collaborators
Source: SciVal. Publication period: 2017 – 2021.
Source: SciVal.
Summary data

MAKING IMPACT
Top-10 areas of publication output
Source: SciVal. Publication period 2017 – 2021 
(All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) 
Scopus classification).
1285
Physics
and Astronomy
986
Materials
Science
1088
Engineering
890
Computer
Science
822
Chemistry
652
Mathematics
631
Biochemistry, 
Genetics and 
Molecular 
Biology
448
Energy
337
Chemical 
Engineering
389
Earth and 
Planetary 
Science

40
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Annual grant funding (mln Rub)
2018
2017
142
234
2019
2020
580
808
2021
402
Grants by source (mln Rub)
Megagrants
Foreign grant agencies
Foreign Science Foundation
Russian Foundation for Basic Research
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
2018
2017
2019
2020
2021

41
Grant funding by Principal Investigator 
Grant funding by area
Biology 
and Life 
Sciences 
21%
Mathematics, 
Computer Science 
and Systems Science 
13%
Physics and 
Space Sciences 
10%
Engineering 
Science 
32%
Chemistry 
and Materials 
Science 
22%
Basic research
for Medicine 
2%
Young 
Scientists 
28%
Categories shown as used by national grant agencies.
Calculation made based on funding 2021-2024.
The chart represents funding awarded for 2021.
Young scientists – up to 39 years old.
MAKING IMPACT

42
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Artificial Intelligence & Communications
Goncharov M., Pisov M., Shevtsov A., Shirokikh B., Kurmukov A., Blokhin I., 
Chernina V., Solovev A., Gombolevskiy V., Morozov S., Belyaev M., CT-Based 
COVID-19 triage: Deep multitask learning improves joint identification and 
severity quantification. Medical Image Analysis. 2021. V. 71.
Shvetsova N., Bakker B., Fedulova I., Schulz H., Dylov D.V., Anomaly 
Detection in Medical Imaging with Deep Perceptual Autoencoders. IEEE 
Access. 2021. V. 9.
Mortazavi B., Silani M., Podryabinkin E.V., Rabczuk T., Zhuang X., Shapeev 
A.V., First-Principles Multiscaloe Modeling of Mechanical Properties 
in Graphene/Borophene Heterostructures Empowered by Machine-Learning 
Interatomic Potentials. Advanced Materials. 2021. V. 33 № 35.
Jin J., Wang Z., Xu R., Liu C., Wang X., Cichocki A.,Robust Similarity 
Measurement Based on a Novel Time Filter for SSVEPs Detection. 
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems. 2021. 
Belov A., Stadelmann J., Kastryulin S., Dylov D.V. Towards Ultrafast MRI 
via Extreme k-Space Undersampling and Superresolution. Lecture Notes 
in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 
and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 2021. V. 12906 LNCS.
Thin A., Kotelevskii N., Doucet A., Durmus A., Moulines E., Panov M., Monte 
Carlo Variational Autoencoders (2021). ICML. 2021. 
Valialshchikov M.A., Kharin V.Yu., Rykovanov S.G., Narrow Bandwidth 
Gamma Comb from Nonlinear Compton Scattering Using the Polarization 
Gating Technique. Physical Review Letters. 2021. V. 126 № 19.
Anokhin, I., Demochkin, K., Khakhulin, T., Sterkin, G., Lempitsky, V., & 
Korzhenkov, D. (2021). Image generators with conditionally-independent pixel 
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publications

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synthesis. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and 
Pattern Recognition (pp. 14278-14287).
Khrulkov, V., Babenko, A., & Oseledets, I. (2021, July). Functional space 
analysis of local GAN convergence. In International Conference on Machine 
Learning (pp. 5432-5442). PMLR.
Ahmadi-Asl S., Abukhovich S., Asante-Mensah M.G., Cichocki A., Phan A.H.,
Tanaka T., Oseledets I., Randomized Algorithms for Computation of Tucker 
Decomposition and Higher Order SVD (HOSVD). IEEE Access. 2021. V. 9.
David Dale, Anton Voronov, Daryna Dementieva, Varvara Logacheva, Olga 
Kozlova, Nikita Semenov, Alexander Panchenko: Text Detoxification using 
Large Pre-trained Neural Models. EMNLP (1) 2021: 7979-7996
Velikanov, M., & Yarotsky, D. (2021). Explicit loss asymptotics in the 
gradient descent training of neural networks. Advances in Neural Information 
Processing Systems, 34.
Alexey Uvarov and Jacob Biamonte, On Barren Plateaus and Cost Function 
Locality in Variational Quantum Algorithms Journal of Physics A: Mathematical 
and Theoretical 54:245301 (2021)  
Aleksey Postnikov, Aleksander Gamayunov, Gonzalo Ferrer: 
CovarianceNet: Conditional Generative Model for Correct Covariance 
Prediction in Human Motion Prediction. IROS 2021: 1031-1037
Andreev K., Rybin P. and Frolov A., Unsourced Random Access Based on 
List Recoverable Codes Correcting t Errors, In Proc. IEEE Information Theory 
Workshop, Kanazawa, Japan, 1–6, October 17-21, 2021
K. Andreev, A. Frolov, G. Svistunov, K. Wu and J. Liang, Deep Neural 
Network Based Decoding of Short 5G LDPC Codes, XVII International 
Symposium “Problems of Redundancy in Information and Control Systems” 
(REDUNDANCY), 2021, pp. 155-160.
Holzbaur L., Kruglik S., Frolov A., Wachter-Zeh A., Secure Codes with Accessibility 
for Distributed Storage, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security 
Alexander Korotin, Lingxiao Li, Justin Solomon, Evgeny Burnaev. Continuous
Wasserstein-2 Barycenter Estimation without Minimax Optimization. ICLR, 2021
Alexander Korotin, Vage Egiazarian, Arip Asadulaev, Alexander Safin, 
Evgeny Burnaev. Wasserstein-2 Generative Networks. ICLR, 2021
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Alexey Bokhovkin, Vladislav Ishimtsev, Emil Bogomolov, Denis Zorin, 
Alexey Artemov, Evgeny Burnaev, Angela Dai. Towards Part-Based 
Understanding of RGB-D Scans. CVPR, 2021
R Rakhimov, E Bogomolov, A Notchenko, F Mao, A Artemov, D Zorin, 
Evgeny Burnaev. Making DensePose fast and light. Proceedings of the IEEE/
CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, 1869-1877, 
2021.
Matvey Morozov, Ivan Fursov, Alexey Zaytsev, Nina Kaploukhaya, 
Elizaveta Kovtun, Rodrigo Rivera. Gleb Gusev, Dmitry Babaev, Ivan 
Kireev, Evgeny Burnaev. Adversarial Attacks on Deep Models for Financial 
Transaction Records. KDD, 2021.
Y. Kapushev, A. Kishkun, G. Ferrer and E. Burnaev, “Random Fourier 
Features based SLAM,” 2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent 
Robots and Systems (IROS), 2021, pp. 6597-6602.
Laida Kushnareva, Daniil Cheriavskii, Vladislav Mikhailov, Ekaterina 
Artemova, Serguei Barannikov, Alexander Bernstein, Irina
Piontkovskaya, Dmitri Piontkovski, Evgeny Burnaev. Artificial Text 
Detection via Examining the Topology of Attention Maps. EMNLP, oral 
talk, 2021.
Life Sciences & Health, Agro
Komissarov AB, Safina KR, Garushyants SK, Fadeev AV, Sergeeva MV, 
Ivanova AA, Danilenko DM, Lioznov D, Shneider OV, Shvyrev N, 
Spirin V, Glyzin D, Shchur V, Bazykin GA. Genomic epidemiology 
of the early stages of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Russia. Nat Commun. 
2021; 12(1):649.
Drobysheva AV, Panafidina SA, Kolesnik MV, Klimuk EI, Minakhin L, 
Yakunina MV, Borukhov S, Nilsson E, Holmfeldt K, Yutin N, Makarova 
KS, Koonin EV, Severinov KV, Leiman PG, Sokolova ML. Structure and 
function of virion RNA polymerase of a crAss-like phage. Nature. 2021 
Jan;589(7841):306-309.  
Galitsyna AA, Gelfand MS. Single-cell Hi-C data analysis: safety in 
numbers. Brief Bioinform. 2021; 22(6):bbab316.

45
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Kos PI, Galitsyna AA, Ulianov SV, Gelfand MS, Razin SV, Chertovich AV. 
Perspectives for the reconstruction of 3D chromatin conformation using single 
cell Hi-C data. PLoS Comput Biol. 2021 Nov 18;17(11):e1009546.  
Ulianov SV, Zakharova VV, Galitsyna AA, Kos PI, Polovnikov KE, Flyamer 
IM, Mikhaleva EA, Khrameeva EE, Germini D, Logacheva MD, Gavrilov 
AA, Gorsky AS, Nechaev SK, Gelfand MS, Vassetzky YS, Chertovich AV, 
Shevelyov YY, Razin SV. Order and stochasticity in the folding of individual 
Drosophila genomes. Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):41. 
Alina Matsvay, Galya V. Klink, Ksenia R. Safina, Elena Nabieva, Sofya K. 
Garushyants, Dmitry Biba, Georgii A Bazykin, Ivan M. Mikhaylov, Anna 
V. Say, Anastasiya I. Zakamornaya, Anastasiya O. Khakhina, Tatiana S. 
Lisitsa, Andrey A. Ayginin, Ivan S. Abramov, Sergey A.Bogdan, Kseniya B. 
Kolbutova, Daria U Oleynikova, Tatiana F. Avdeenko, German A. Shipulin, 
Sergey M.Yudin, Veronika I. Skvortsova. Genomic epidemiology of SARS-
CoV-2 in Russia reveals recurring cross-border transmission throughout 
2020. 
Galya V. Klink, Ksenia R. Safina, Sofya K. Garushyants, Mikhail Moldovan, 
Elena Nabieva, The CoRGI (Coronavirus Russian Genetic Initiative) 
Consortium, Andrey B. Komissarov, Dmitry Lioznov, Georgii A Bazykin. 
Spread of endemic SARS-CoV-2 lineages in Russia.
Galya V. Klink, Ksenia Safina, Elena Nabieva, Nikita Shvyrev, Sofya 
Garushyants, Evgeniia Alekseeva, Andrey B. Komissarov, Daria M. Danilenko, 
Andrei A. Pochtovyi, Elizaveta V. Divisenko, Lyudmila A. Vasilchenko, Elena 
V. Shidlovskaya, Nadezhda A. Kuznetsova, The Coronavirus Russian Genetics 
Initiative (CoRGI) Consortium, Andrei E. Samoilov, Alexey D. Neverov, Anfisa 
V. Popova, Gennady G. Fedonin, The CRIE Consortium, Vasiliy G. Akimkin, 
Dmitry Lioznov, Vladimir A. Gushchin, Vladimir Shchur, Georgii A. Bazykin. 
The rise and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 AY.122 lineage in Russia.
Oksana V. Stanevich, Evgeniia I. Alekseeva, Maria Sergeeva, 
Artem V. Fadeev, Kseniya S. Komissarova, Anna A. Ivanova, Tamara S. 
Simakova, Kirill A. Vasilyev, Anna-Polina Shurygina, Marina A. Stukova, 
Ksenia R. Safina, Elena R. Nabieva, Sofya K. Garushyants, Galya V. Klink, 
Evgeny A. Bakin, Jullia V. Zabutova, Anastasia N. Kholodnaia, Olga 
V. Lukina, Irina A. Skorokhod, Viktoria V. Ryabchikova, Nadezhda V. 
Medvedeva, Dmitry A. Lioznov, Daria M. Danilenko, Dmitriy M. Chudakov, 
Andrey B. Komissarov, Georgii A. Bazykin. SARS-CoV-2 escape from 
cytotoxic T cells during long-term COVID-19, 28 July 2021, PREPRINT 
(Version 1).

47
Cutting-Edge Engineering, Adv. Materials
Jha, N.K., Ivanova, A., Lebedev, M., Barifcani, A., Cheremisin, A., Iglauer, 
S., Sangwai, J.S., Sarmadivaleh, M., “Interaction of low salinity surfactant 
nanofluids with carbonate surfaces and molecular level dynamics at fluid-fluid 
interface at ScCO2 loading”, in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2021.
Orlov, D., Ebadi, M., Muravleva, E., Volkhonskiy, D., Erofeev, A., 
Savenkov, E., Balashov, V., Belozerov, B., Krutko, V., Yakimchuk, I., Evseev, N., 
Koroteev, D., “Different methods of permeability calculation in digital twins of 
tight sandstones”, in Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering, 2021.
Shakirov, A., Chekhonin, E., Popov, Y., Popov, E., Spasennykh, M., 
Zagranovskaya, D., Serkin, M., “Rock thermal properties from well-logging 
data accounting for thermal anisotropy”, in Geothermics, 2021.
Chuvilin, E., Bukhanov, B., Grebenkin, S., Tumskoy, V., Shakhova, N., 
Dudarev, O., Semiletov, I., Spasennykh, M., “Thermal properties of 
sediments in the East Siberian Arctic Seas: A case study in the Buor-Khaya 
Bay”, in Marine and Petroleum Geology, 2021.
Leushina, E., Mikhaylova, P., Kozlova, E., Polyakov, V., Morozov, N., 
Spasennykh, M., “The effect of organic matter maturity on kinetics and 
product distribution during kerogen thermal decomposition: the Bazhenov 
Formation case study”, in Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2021.
Cao, F., Eskin, D., Leonenko, Y., “Modeling of carbon dioxide dissolution in 
an injection well for geologic sequestration in aquifers”, in Energy, 2021.
Spasennykh, M., Maglevannaia, P., Kozlova, E., Bulatov, T., Leushina, 
E., Morozov, N., “Geochemical trends reflecting hydrocarbon generation, 
migration and accumulation in unconventional reservoirs based on pyrolysis 
data (On the example of the bazhenov formation)”, in Geosciences 
(Switzerland), 2021.
Sabitova, A., Yarushina, V.M., Stanchits, S., Stukachev, V., Khakimova, 
L., Myasnikov, A., “Experimental Compaction and Dilation of Porous Rocks 
During Triaxial Creep and Stress Relaxation”, in Rock Mechanics and Rock 
Engineering, 2021.
Eskin, D., Ma, S.M., Taylor, S., Abdallah, W., “Modeling droplet dispersion 
in a turbulent tubing flow at a high droplet holdup”, in Chemical Engineering 
Research and Design, 2021.
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Afanasev, P., Popov, E., Cheremisin, A., Berenblyum, R., Mikitin, E., 
Sorokin, E., Borisenko, A., Darishchev, V., Shchekoldin, K., Slavkina, O., “An 
experimental study of the possibility of in situ hydrogen generation within gas 
reservoirs”, in Energies, 2021.
Davidsen, J., Goebel, T., Kwiatek, G., Stanchits, S., Baró, J., Dresen, G., 
“What Controls the Presence and Characteristics of Aftershocks in Rock 
Fracture in the Lab?”, in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2021.
Makhotin, I., Orlov, D., Koroteev, D., Burnaev, E., Karapetyan, A., 
Antonenko, D., “Machine learning for recovery factor estimation of an 
oil reservoir: A tool for de-risking at a hydrocarbon asset evaluation”, in 
Petroleum, 2021.
Chuvilin, E.M., Sokolova, N.S., Bukhanov, B.A., Davletshina, 
D.A., Spasennykh, M.Y., “Formation of gas-emission craters 
in northern west siberia: Shallow controls”, in Geosciences (Switzerland), 
2021.
V. Rakhmatulin, M. Altamirano Cabrera, F. Hagos, O. Sautenkov, J. 
Tirado, I. Uzhinsky, and D. Tsetserukou, “CoboGuider: Haptic Potential 
fields for safe Human-Robot-Interaction,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Systems, 
Man, and Cybernetics (SMC 2021), Melbourne, Australia, 17-20 October, 
2021, pp. 2861-2866. 
Generalov A.A., Rapoport L.B., Shavin M. Attraction Domains 
in the Control Problem of a Wheeled Robot Following a Curvilinear Path 
over an Uneven Surface. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. V. 13078. 
P. 176-190.
Petrova E., T. Podladchikova T., A. Veronig, S. Lemmens, B. Bastida Virgili, 
T. Flohrerю Forecasting of the solar radio flux at F10.7 cm and F30 cm for 
orbit prediction needs. In collaboration with ESA ESOC. (2021), Medium-term 
predictions of F10.7 and F30 cm solar radio flux with the adaptive Kalman 
filter, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.
Brovar Y., Menshenin Y., Knoll D. and Fortin C., Modelling of Engineering 
and Manufacturing Data Structures through a DSM-based Approach, 
PLM2021 Conference Best Paper Award.
Afanasev, A., Shavin, M., Ivanov, A., Pritykin, D., Tetrahedral satellite 
formation: Geomagnetic measurements exchange and interpolation, (2021) 
Advances in Space Research, 67 (10), pp. 3294-3307.

49
E. Karmanova, V. Serpiva, S. Perminov, R. Ibrahimov, A. Fedoseev, 
D. Tsetserukou, “SwarmPlay: A Swarm of Nano-Quadcopters Playing 
Tic-tac-toe Board Game against a Human,” in Proc. Int. Conf. on Computer 
Graphics and Interactive Technologies (ACM SIGGRAPH 2021), Emerging 
Technologies, Virtual, 2021, Article No. 5, pp. 1–4. (No.1 Conference in 
Computer Graphics and Emerging Tech., Core2021 A*.
Aslyamov, T. and Akhatov, I., 2021. Extension of van der Waals theory for 
supersaturated thin films. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 23(45), pp. 
25776-25783.
Shayunusov, D., Eskin, D., Balakin, B.V., Chugunov, S., Johansen, S.T., 
Akhatov, I., Modeling water droplet freezing and collision with a solid 
surface, Energies, 2021, 14, 1020, 1-11.
Maxim Isachenkov, Svyatoslav Chugunov, Zoe Landsman, Iskander 
Akhatov, Anna Metke, Andrey Tikhonov, Igor Shishkovsky, 
Characterization of novel lunar highland and mare simulants for ISRU 
research applications, Icarus, Volume 376, 2022, 114873, 
ISSN 0019-1035.
Energy Efficiency & ESG
N.D. Luchinin, D.A. Aksyonov, A.V. Morozov, S.V. Ryazantsev, V.A. 
Nikitina, A.M. Abakumov, E.V. Antipov, S.S. Fedotov, α-TiPO4 as a 
Negative Electrode Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries, Inorg. Chem., 60, 
12237–12246 (2021).
B.T. Leube, C. Robert, D. Foix, B. Porcheron, R. Dedryvère, G. Rousse, E. 
Salager, P.-E. Cabelguen, A.M. Abakumov, H. Vezin, M.-L. Doublet, J.-M. 
Tarascon, Activation of anionic redox in d0 transition metal chalcogenides by 
anion doping, Nature Comm., 12, 5485 (2021).
A.M. Abakumov, C. Li, A. Boev, D.A. Aksyonov, A.A. Savina, T.A. 
Abakumova, G. Van Tendeloo, S. Bals, Grain Boundaries as a Diffusion-
Limiting Factor in Lithium-Rich NMC Cathodes for High-Energy Lithium-Ion 
Batteries, ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 4, 6777−6786 (2021).
Q. Wang, S. Mariyappan, G. Rousse, A.V. Morozov, B. Porcheron, R. 
Dedryvère, J. Wu, W. Yang , L. Zhang, M. Chakir, M. Avdeev, M. Deschamps, 
Y.-S. Yu , J. Cabana, M.-L. Doublet, A.M. Abakumov, J.-M. Tarascon, 
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Unlocking anionic redox activity in O3-type sodium 3d layered oxides via Li 
substitution, Nature Mater., 20, 353–361 (2021).
V.A. Nikitina, Advanced electrochemical analysis of metal-ion battery 
materials for rationalizing and improving battery performance, Curr. Opin. 
Electrochem., 29, 100768 (2021).
Frolova, L. A.; Luchkin, S. Yu; Lenka J.; Tsarev, S. A.; Zhidkov, I.; Kurmaev, 
E. Z.; Shen, Z.; Stevenson, K. J. Aldoshin, S. M.; Troshin, P. A. “Reversible 
Pb2+/Pb0 and I-/I3- Redox Chemistry Drives the Light-induced Phase 
Segregation in All-inorganic Mixed Halide Pervoskites,” Adv. Ener. Mater. 
2021, 2002934.
J. Zhou, Z. Han, X. Wang, H. Gai, Z. Chen, T. Guo, X. Hou, L. Xu, X. 
Hu, M. Huang, S. V. Levchenko, H. Jiang, “Discovery of Quantitative 
Electronic Structure-OER Activity Relationship in Metal-Organic Framework 
Electrocatalysts Using an Integrated Theoretical-Experimental Approach”, 
Advanced Functional Materials 31, 2102066 (2021).
Z.-K. Han, D. Sarker, R. Ouyang, A. Mazheika, Y. Gao and 
S. V. Levchenko, “Single-atom alloy catalysts designed by first-principles 
calculations and artificial intelligence”, Nature Communications 12, 
1833 (2021).
S.V. Porokhin, V.A. Nikitina, D.A. Aksyonov, D.S. Filimonov, E.M. 
Pazhetnov, I.V. Mikheev, A.M. Abakumov, Mixed-Cation Perovskite 
La0.6Ca0.4Fe0.7Ni0.3O2.9 as a Stable and Efficient Catalyst for the Oxygen 
Evolution Reaction, ACS Catalysis, 11 (2021) 8338-8348.
S. Chevalier, F. M. Ibanez, K. Cavanagh, K. Turitsyn, L. Daniel 
and P. Vorobev, “Network Topology Invariant Stability Certificates for DC 
Microgrids with Arbitrary Load Dynamics” in IEEE Transactions on Power 
Systems.
Ibanez, F.M., Martin, F., Eletu, J., Echeverria, J.M., “Input voltage 
feedforward control technique for DC/DC converters to avoid instability in DC 
grids”, IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, 2021, 
9, 6099–6112.
A. Alahyari, D. Pozo, “Electric end-user consumer profit maximization: 
An online approach,” International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy 
Systems, 125, 106502, 2021.

51
Q. Hu, S. Bu and V. Terzija, “A Distributed P and Q Provision-Based Voltage 
Regulation Scheme by Incentivized EV Fleet Charging for Resistive Distribution 
Networks,” in IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, vol. 7, no. 4, 
pp. 2376-2389, Dec. 20.
Kanin, E. A., Dontsov, E. V., Garagash, D. I., & Osiptsov, A. A. (2021). 
A radial hydraulic fracture driven by a Herschel–Bulkley fluid. Journal 
of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 295, 104620. 
Garagash, I. A., & Osiptsov, A. A. (2021). Fracture propagation in an 
initially stressed anisotropic reservoir under shear: Reorientation and fluid lag. 
Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 242, 107457.
Duplyakov, V. M., Morozov, A. D., Popkov, D. O., Shel, E. V., 
Vainshtein, A. L., Burnaev, E. V., Osiptsov A.A. & Paderin, G. V. 
(2022). Data-driven model for hydraulic fracturing design optimization. 
Part II: Inverse problem. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 
208, 109303. This is major achievement of our collaboration 
with Gazpromneft, which marks the success of our multi-year effort – 
the ML-driven platform of hydraulic fracturing design optimization 
based on digital field data base is now deployed on the client servers.
Khmelenko, P. P., Shel, E. V., Boronin, S. A., Paderin, G. V., Osiptsov, A. A.
(2022) Proppant packing near the fracture tip during TSO: 
asymptotic models for pressure buildup calibrated on field data and verified 
with two-continua simulations. SPE Journal, accepted, to be published 
in 2022. 
Photonics 
M. Smith, A.V. Andreev, and B.Z. Spivak, Giant magnetoconductivity 
in noncentrosymmetric superconductors Phys. Rev. B Letters 104, L220504 
(2021). 
Dmitriev, A.Yu., Astafiev, O.V. A perspective on superconducting flux qubits 
Applied Physics Letters, 2021, 119(8), 080501.
Dmitriev, A.Yu., Astafiev, O.V. Erratum: A perspective on superconducting flux 
qubits (Applied Physics Letters (2021) 119 (080501) Applied Physics Letters, 
2021, 119(14), 149902)
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Fedorov, G.P., Remizov, S.V., Shapiro, D.S., ...Astafiev, O.V., 
Ustinov, A.V. Photon Transport in a Bose-Hubbard Chain 
of Superconducting Artificial Atoms, Physical Review Letters, 2021, 
126(18), 180503. 
N.Stroev and N.G.Berloff, Discrete Polynomial Optimization with Coherent 
Networks of Condensates and Complex Coupling Switching, Physical Review 
Letters, 126, 050504 (2021). 
Alexander Johnston, Kirill P. Kalinin, and N. G. Berloff “Artificial Polariton 
Molecules,” Physical Review B Letter, 103, L060507 (2021).
Tamsin Cookson, Kirill Kalinin, Helgi Sigurdsson, Julian D Töpfer, Sergey 
Alyatkin, Matteo Silva, Wolfgang Langbein, Natalia G Berloff, Pavlos G 
Lagoudakis “Geometric frustration in polygons of polariton condensates 
creating vortices of varying topological charge,” Nature Communications, 
12(1), 1-11 (2021). 
Kevin Roccapriore, Andrey Bozhko, Gleb Nazarikov, Vladimir Drachev, 
and Arkadii Krokhin, Surface plasmon at a metal-dielectric interface with 
an epsilon-near-zero transition layer, Physical Review B (letters) 103 (16), 
L161404 (2021). 
Sushrut Modak, Leonid Chernyak, Alfons Schulte, Minghan Xian, Fan Ren, 
Stephen J Pearton, Igor Lubomirsky, Arie Ruzin, Sergey S Kosolobov, 
Vladimir P Drachev, Electron beam probing of non-equilibrium carrier 
dynamics in 18 MeV alpha particle- and 10 MeV proton-irradiated Si-doped 
β-Ga2O3 Schottky rectifiers, App. Phys. Letters 118 (20) 202105 
(2021). 
Tatiana N. Tikhonova, Nataliya N. Rovnyagina, Zohar A. Arnon, 
Boris P. Yakimov, Yuri M. Efremov, Dana Cohen-Gerassi, Michal Halperin-
Sternfeld, Nastasia V. Kosheleva, Vladimir P. Drachev, Andrey A. Svistunov, 
Peter S. Timashev, Lihi Adler-Abramovich, Evgeny A. Shirshin, Mechanical 
Enhancement and Kinetics Regulation of Fmoc-Diphenylalanine 
Hydrogels by Thioflavin T, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60,2– 9, (30 
September 2021). 
Tikhonov, K.S., Mirlin, A.D. Eigenstate correlations around the many-body 
localization transition. Physical Review B, 2021, 103(6), 064204 [EDITORS’ 
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Advanced Studies
I.Krichever, A.Zabrodin, Kadomtsev-Petviashvili turning points and CKP 
hierarchy, Communications in Mathematical Physics 386 (2021) 1643-16836
V.Prokofev, A.Zabrodin, Elliptic solutions to the KP hierarchy and elliptic 
Calogero-Moser model, Journal of Physics A: Math. Theor. 54 (2021) 
305202, 
V.Prokofev, A.Zabrodin, Elliptic solutions to matrix KP hierarchy and spin 
generalization of elliptic Calogero-Moser model, Journal of Mathematical 
Physics 62 (2021) 061502
Grigori Olshanski, Macdonald polynomials and extended Gelfand–Tsetlin 
graph. Selecta Mathematica, New Series 27 (2021), paper 41, 61pp. 
Grigori Olshanski, Macdonald-Level Extension of Beta Ensembles and 
Large-N Limit Transition. Communications in Mathematical Physics 385 (2021), 
595–631. 
Cesar Cuenca, Vadim Gorin, and Grigori Olshanski, The Elliptic Tail Kernel. 
International Mathematics Research Notices Vol. 2021, No. 19, pp. 14922–
14964. 
Dumanski, E. Feigin, M. Finkelberg, “Beilinson-Drinfeld Schubert 
varieties and global Demazure modules”, Forum of Mathematics, Sigma, 
9, E42.
M. Bershtein, R. Gonin, Twisted and Non-Twisted Deformed Virasoro 
Algebras via Vertex Operators of Uq(sl2), Lett. Math. Phys. 111(1), art. 22 
(2021); arXiv:2003.12472, 
M. Bershtein, P. Gavrylenko, A. Grassi, Quantum spectral problems 
and isomonodromic deformations, arXiv:2105.00985, ADS: 
2021arXiv210500985B, InSpire: 1861707.
M. Bershtein, R. Gonin, Twisted Fock module of toroidal algebra via DAHA 
and vertex operators, arXiv:2109.12598, ADS: 2021arXiv210912598B.
V. Delecroix, E. Goujard, P. Zograf, A. Zorich, Masur–Veech volumes, 
frequencies of simple closed geodesics and intersection numbers of moduli 
spaces of curves, Duke Math. J. 170(12): 2633-2718 (1 September 2021). 
MAKING IMPACT

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SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The strategic goal is to establish a strong position 
in technology intense areas, contributing to the national 
agenda. Skoltech serves as a national think tank through 
advising the governmental authorities and policy makers 
on complex technology initiatives, membership 
in trustworthiness working groups, professional training 
programs to key industry players.
National 
‘think tank’

55
• Artificial Intelligence and Communications
The Project Center for Next 
Generation Wireless & Internet 
of Things participated in working 
groups for Telecommunication 
Technologies, Association 
of Organizations for Development 
of Open Communication 
Networks “Open Network 
Technologies”, Associations 
of Internet of Things Market 
Participants. The Center also 
contributed to working groups 
of the Ministry of Digital Development, 
Communications and Mass Media, 
Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Skoltech was also presented 
in the working group “Artificial 
Intelligence” of the Digital Economy 
program (Prof. Burnaev) to form 
a basis for collection and publishing 
data by state authorities and state- 
owned companies necessary 
to create products, solutions 
and services using AI technologies.
The Center for Energy Science and 
Technology and the Analytical 
Department on Science and 
Technology Development contributed 
to the concept for development of 
production and usage of electro 
transport in Russia till 2030, advising 
on the market forecast and global 
trends and sharing expertise on 
production of cathode materials in 
Skoltech.
Materials for the governmental 
working group “New technological 
environment” were provided to 
develop the strategy for socio-
economic development of Russia.
• Electro transport
Skoltech faculty advised on a number of the national technology roadmaps and 
policies as outlined below. 
MAKING IMPACT

56
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
• Energy efficiency, ESG
• Life Sciences 
Prof. Bazykin served on the working 
group on the global genetic 
databases of the Presidential 
Administration of Russia, advised on 
SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology to the 
Head of Russia’s Federal Medical 
Biological Agency Dr. Skvortsova, 
and the Head of the Central 
Research Institute of Epidemiology 
Dr. Akimkin. 
Prof. Severinov developed guidelines 
to the Ministry of Science and Higher 
Education on implementation of the 
Federal Program of Development 
of Genetic Technologies. He also 
participated in activities of the 
Presidential Council of Genetic 
Technologies, the expert group 
of the National Security Council and 
in the biomedical think tank run by 
Dr. Fursenko, RF President’s Scientific 
Advisor.
At the Congress of Young Scientists 
in Sochi, the President 
of the Russian Federation listened to 
Prof. Kostyukevich on issues required 
governmental attention, and entrusted 
Skoltech to lead development of 
the roadmap on mass spectrometry 
equipment in Russia.
The Center for Energy Science and 
Technology advised on various 
aspects of energy efficiency: Prof. 
Vorobiev, Prof. Terzija, Prof. Ibanez, 
and Prof. Gryazina acted as leading 
experts in the governmental report 
on technologies for electric energy 
transmission and distribution 
(National Technology Initiative), 
while Prof. Antipov served on the 
Council on priority direction of 
scientific and technology development 
“Transformation to ecologically clean 
and resource-efficient energy”.
Prof. Osiptsov advised on energy 
transition to the Department of Energy 
Efficiency and Climate (Ministry of 
Economic Development). 
• Oil and gas
The Center for Petroleum Science and 
Engineering delivered expertise in the 
Expert Group of the Commission on 
Technological Development of Russia’s 
Economy (Prof. Spasennykh, Prof. Cher-
emisin) and participated in brainstorms 
on digital tech in energy organized by 
the Government (Prof. Koroteev).

57
The Analytical Department on 
Science and Technology provided 
support on a number of advising 
activities. Among the major results 
are the concept “Beacons” (part of 
42 large strategic initiatives approved 
by the RF Government on October 
6, 2021, No. 2816-r), White Paper 
on the Technological Development 
of Dairy and Beef Cattle Breeding, 
assessment of results of implementation 
of the Basic Research Program for 
the Accounts Chamber of the Russian 
Federation. 
After series of expert reviews, the Head 
of the Department, Irina Dezhina, 
became a member of the Expert Board 
of the Accounts Chamber. 
Professional programs
Professional programs
were delivered to various clients in 
the topics demanded in the national 
industry – “Technology management 
in electro energy” and “Digital 
“Awareness” for energy companies, 
“Integration of ESG factors” for 
representatives of the banks and 
business community, “Technology 
leadership in aerospace industry”, 
“Technologies for agroindustry”. 
Machine learning programs and 
courses were delivered to the middle 
level and top management of Sber. 
Courses for the Moscow International 
Medical Cluster gathered almost 900 
specialists in Molecular Oncology. 
Leveraging the positive feedback from 
participants, training activities will be 
expanded, also to the global pharma 
companies such as Roche, AstraZeneka.
Trainings and workshops for oil and 
gas companies were organized by 
the Center for Petroleum Science 
and Engineering on topics of thermal 
petrophysics, reservoir geochemistry, 
enhanced recovery, geomechanics. 
STS Forum Russia-Japan 
The STS Forum Russia-Japan was 
organized by Skoltech 
in collaboration with the Skolkovo 
Foundation and policy making 
organizations, such as Ministry 
of the Economic Development, 
Ministry of Industry and Trade, 
Ministry for Science and Higher 
Education, Japan External Trade 
Organization.  The Forum gathered 
more than 200 participants  
representing Rostelecom, VEB.RF, 
KPMG, EY, Rosneft, Zarubeshneft, 
ITOCHU, Nissan, Yokogawa Electric 
Corporation, National Agriculture 
and Food Research Organization,  
Hokkaido University, leading Russian 
universities and others. 
The agenda predominantly focused 
on hot topics of the technology 
agenda – ESG,  Argo Technologies, 
Smart Cities. The participants 
addressed transformation of oil 
and gas companies into “energy 
companies”, renewable energy, 
hydrogen generation, cross cut topics 
of ESG and Smart Cities with a focus 
on ecological goals. Special session 
was organized for discussing ESG 
in Agro Technologies. 
As a result of the Forum, a set 
of harmonized goals in ESG agenda 
for the next decade was defined.
MAKING IMPACT

58
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Skoltech has strategic commitments to embed 
technology expertise in national technology programs. 
By doing so, Skoltech defines technology priorities, 
monitors the global agenda, organizes consortia 
with industry players to ensure development, 
implementation and scaling of technologies.
Integrator 
of large-
scale national 
programs

59
Artificial Intelligence
One of the big successes of the year 
was a win of 1 bln Rub for establishing 
the national level Center in Artificial 
Intelligence. The Center, chaired by 
Prof. Burnaev, will focus on directions 
of optimization of management 
decisions to reduce carbon footprint. 
The research and technology 
program will be implemented with 
partners – Sber, Association “AI in 
Industry” (subsidiary of Gazprom 
Neft), CityAir, Izrael Institute of 
Global Climate and Ecology, Shirshov 
Institute of Oceanology, Institute 
of Numerical Mathematics, Space 
Research Institute, New Economic 
School, Institute of Geography. The  
Center will receive more than 570 mln 
Rub of industry co-funding until 2024. 
The first deliverables include the 
software for analysis of multimodal 
data for carbon balance evaluation 
and monitoring, software for ESG–
default risks estimation (jointly with 
Sber), software for management 
decision optimization in oil production 
for carbon footprint and environmental 
risks reduction (jointly with “AI in 
Industry” Association), software to 
calculate atmospheric dynamics for air 
quality assessment and identification of 
pollution sources (jointly with CityAir).
Skoltech established four Project Centers to focus on development, piloting and 
further scaling of technologies, contributing to the national economy.
MAKING IMPACT

60
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Project Center “Next Generation 
Wireless & IoT”, operating in Digital 
Economy Program, continued to 
accumulate expertise and promote 
Skoltech as the intellectual and 
technological leader in Russian 
telecommunication and IT industry. 
The Center deployed the first version 
with 5G functionality (TRL 5), and 
made tests in MTS Lab and Skoltech 
pilot zone. Jointly with MTS and the 
Skolkovo Foundation, the Center 
expanded 5G coverage in Skolkovo 
by deploying pilot 5G communication 
network for the International Medical 
Cluster. 
Leveraging the Center’s expertise, 
Skoltech was the first in Russia to 
demonstrate the operation of an 
autonomous 5G (SA) network using 
domestic software and made the first 
VoNR call in Russia. 
The Center also showcased a 
functioning prototype of a quantum 
messaging platform for mobile, 
intended for secure communication 
in organizations where it is critical 
– in particular, large domestic 
corporations. The messaging 
application can be used on regular 
smartphones that support 4G and/
or 5G. Russian Railways, a major 
contributor to development of 
quantum technologies in Russia, acted 
as the project’s key partner.
Important steps were also made in 
technology standardization – a series 
of preliminary national standards 
(PNST) in 5G – OpenRAN were 
developed. 
The Center presented Russia in the 
international associations –  O-RAN 
Alliance, Telecom Infra Project, 
Industrial Internet Consortium, 3GPP. 
The Project Center for Energy 
Transition and ESG was established 
under direction of Prof. Osiptsov. The 
Center will address decarbonization 
of industry (including CCUS), 
assessment and management of ESG 
risks in banking and energy transition 
technology (hydrogen, renewable 
energy). 
The Center joined the CCUS consortium, 
where Gazprom Neft acts as the oper-
ator of a new emerging carbon capture 
and storage industry, as well as Sber AI 
lab and AI institute in the field of energy 
transition. First contracts were signed to 
start work in 2022. The Center will also 
collaborate with the Center in Artificial 
Intelligence on industrial projects.
Next Generation Wireless & IoT
Energy Transition and ESG

61

62
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Based on the dataset of more than 
330,000 genotyped animals, the 
Agro Technologies Center and 
Miratorg optimized prediction of 
genetic polymorphisms. This multiplies 
the amount of usable data by 100 
times. Currently the project is ongoing 
on identification of genes linked to 
key traits in the beef cattle based on 
trait characteristics and the genome 
information of more than 15,000 
animals. In this partnership, Skoltech 
provides algorithms, statistical and 
computational skills while the Miratorg 
provides data on genomic information 
and traits. Also, the Training Center 
of Plant Biotechnologies, funded by 
Bayer, was established. 
Robust engagement with industry 
continued to reinforce Skoltech 
technology capacities. Skoltech has 
been proactively engaging with 
existing partners such as Gazprom 
Neft, Sber, Huawei, Bayer AG, Lukoil, 
Zarubezhneft, MTS, and also kicked 
off new partnerships with Yandex, 
CityAir, Russian Railways, Rosatom, 
Hyundai, IPG Photonics. This has 
generated multiple opportunities 
for joint research, forming 
commercialization capacities, projects 
to better prepare students for R&D 
careers. 
Following a 10-year upward trend, 
Skoltech secured the highest ever 
amount of income from industry 
with a 19% growth comparing with 
2020. Simultaneously, the number of 
research projects reached almost 200. 
While maintaining the leadership in oil 
and gas, electrochemical materials, 
5G, AI, the expertise was extended in 
photonics, quantum communications, 
new materials, agro- and biotech. 
Agro 
R&D programs

63
The newly established Center for 
Artificial Intelligence Technology 
under the chair of Prof. Oseledets, 
reinforced the positions as one of the 
focal points of Skoltech long-time 
strategic partnerships with Huawei, 
Gazprom Neft, MTS and Sber. 
Several new contracts were signed 
with Huawei, resulted not only in the 
increase of  funding, but also longer 
term projects. 
Jointly with Sber, the Center 
completed the first stage of the 
“Green AI” project on the topic of 
compression and acceleration of big 
neural networks training. 
Among other examples are the 
project for 3D Slam with Samsung 
(Mobile Robotics Lab), R&D projects 
with Philips, also with opportunities 
for PhD advising (Computational 
Imaging Lab), a large-scale project 
in numerical simulation of quantum 
algorithms for ionic, atomic and 
photonic quantum computing systems 
with RQC (Laboratory for Quantum 
Algorithms for Machine Learning and 
Optimization).
Artificial Intelligence 
MAKING IMPACT

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021

65
The Center for Petroleum Science 
and Engineering continued applied 
research jointly with oil and gas 
industry. 
Several projects were completed with 
Gazprom Neft. 
The project on coupling a reservoir 
flow metamodel with a surface 
infrastructure model (TRL 3-4) allowed 
to have the prototype helping to 
optimize oil reservoir development 
while accounting for limitations coming 
from surface facilities. Development of 
a two-phase simulator for digital twins 
of rock samples from tight formations 
(TRL 3-4) was completed. The simulator 
brings the digital rock technology 
to a completely new application-
level making it possible to compute 
properties of samples with submicron 
pores, such as Achimov formation 
samples. A unique experimental 
platform was created and tested to 
investigate the processes of filtration 
of reservoir fluids on microchips under 
reservoir conditions (TRL 3-4). Unique 
multiphase experiments on microfluidic 
chips were performed, paving the way 
for future technology transfer to the 
industrial partner. 
Studies were carried out on 
experimental and numerical 
modeling of the possibility of in-situ 
hydrogen generation using various 
methods of conversion from methane 
and liquid hydrocarbons. The studies 
confirmed the possibility of hydrogen 
generation from methane in reservoir 
conditions.
Technologies for digital core models 
construction were developed. Several 
projects were completed to create 
digital rock models of complex 
carbonate and low-permeability 
reservoirs based on multi-scale 
microtomography and electron 
microscopy. The developed approach 
has the advantage of combining 
information on the multi-scale 
structure of the pore space in a single 
digital model.
Geochemical methods for organic 
matter examination were developed 
to improve the reliability of oil and gas 
prospects forecasting in sedimentary 
basins and individual licensed areas. 
The methodology for calculation and 
analysis of wellbore stability based on 
a 3-D elastic-plastic geomechanical 
model (TRL 3-4) was developed. The 
method was verified and validated in 
the laboratory. The software module 
will be commercialized jointly with the 
industrial partner. 
Oil and gas technologies
MAKING IMPACT

66
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Several milestones have been 
achieved in the field of energy storage 
technologies. The first-ever Russian 
prototype of a Na-ion battery cell was 
developed (TRL 3-4), demonstrating 
properties comparable with Li-Ion bat-
teries (LFP type) while being cheaper 
and its raw materials are much more 
abundant. Also the technologies for 
NMC type cathode materials synthesis 
was developed, and the production 
line (TRL 5-6) with capacity of over 
1 ton per year was set. A laboratory 
line to manufacture pouch-type Li- and 
Na-ion battery cells in half-automatic 
mode was built (TRL 5-6). 
In line with demands for higher energy 
use efficiency, the Center for Energy 
Science and Technology demonstrated 
results in design of technologies 
for energy systems optimization. 
The Electric Energy Disaggregation 
Project was launched. The technology 
comprises AI algorithms, as well 
as highly accurate smart meters to 
collect data required. The goal is 
to supply power grids operators 
with disaggregated data for better 
load-demand forecasting, grid 
development planning, estimation 
of Demand Response Program’s 
potential. Moreover, AI algorithms 
allow for prediction of faults in 
appliances or electric machines 
at an early stage. In this case, 
fault prediction increases the cost-
effectiveness of the operations, which 
is particularly critical for small and 
medium businesses. 
The Real-time Digital Simulation 
Laboratory was established to create 
digital twins of energy systems, and for 
that purpose accommodating unique 
hardware and software instruments 
to test electrical energy systems, and 
equipment used within the systems. The 
first industrial partners will be oil and 
gas companies interested in optimizing 
energy consumption to reduce carbon 
emissions and improve cost-benefit 
indicators. 
The Center also developed a new 
approach to assess the flashover 
probability of overhead power line 
insulators based on the leakage 
current. This approach makes it 
possible to define risk thresholds, 
quantify the likelihood of flashover 
and move to a risk-based approach in 
insulation management. The first full-
scale tests of the developed technique 
began in April 2021 on an overhead 
power line of 110 kV with the MOESK 
(Zelenograd) utility company. For 
the first time, a continuous recording 
of leakage current oscillograms in 
insulation was conducted using an 
autonomous device, which allowed 
to assess the probability of insulator 
flashover. In addition, a software and 
hardware setup for insulator state 
diagnostics was developed. 
Electrochemical energy storage

67
MAKING IMPACT
The Vladimir Zelman Center for 
Neurobiology and Brain Rehabilitation 
made progress in development of new 
tools and techniques for diagnostics, 
prevention, and treatment of 
neurological and psychiatric disorders, 
from molecular techniques to brain-
computer interfaces. 
Firstly, a prototype of an invasive 
rehabilitation system for treatment 
of phantom limb pain and prosthesis 
sensitivity based on brain-computer 
interfaces (TRL 3-4) was developed 
with the prosthetics manufacturer 
Motorica LLC and the Far 
Eastern Federal University. It was 
demonstrated that stimulation of 
nerves by means of electrical impulses 
through an implant installed in the 
body of two Motorica’s pilot users 
with amputated arms removes the 
phantom pain and allows them to feel 
the tips of artificial fingers.
The Center also developed a high 
accuracy test for mental disorders 
based on blood plasma lipidome 
alterations and tested it in a blind 
clinical trial at the Alekseev Psychiatric 
Clinical Hospital of Moscow Health 
Department. Timely and accurate 
diagnostics of health problems is a 
key step to efficient treatment and, 
potentially, disease prevention. 
Currently, no objective laboratory 
tests, which could indicate psychiatric 
disorder risks, exist.
Skoltech carried out applied 
research to tackle a novel challenge 
and contribute to the SARS-CoV-2 
response efforts in Russia. In a project 
funded by the Center for Strategic 
Planning and Management of 
Biomedical Health Risks of the Russian 
Federal Medical Biological Agency 
(FMBA) Prof. Bazykin and his team 
assessed how the export/import 
dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 have been 
affected by governmental measures, 
and assessed the level to which SARS-
CoV-2 testing systems designed by 
FMBA remain sensitive to the currently 
circulating viral strains. Furthermore, 
the team analyzed genome sequences 
of thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples, 
monitoring virus spread in Russian 
regions. 
Neurotechnologies in medicine and rehabilitation
SARS-CoV-2 response

68
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The research group of Photonic 
Integrated Circuits acquired 
competences in using standard and 
homemade software packages for 
PIC design, established contacts with 
Fablabs in the EU, UK, and Asia, as 
well as tested several runs to produce 
a set of main passive and active 
components on the chip. 
With support from the National 
Technology Initiative, a project on 
tunable laser sources on chip was 
launched. The PICs are to be designed 
and produced in Russia based on a 
new hybrid technological approach in 
cooperation with industrial partners. 
The proposed laser technology 
on a chip may find applications in 
structural health monitoring systems, 
telecommunications, THz generation. 
In a further initiative with support from 
national research funding bodies, the 
project on design, production and test 
of a fully functional prototype of the 
transmitter on chip for application in 
QKD systems (TRL 3-4) was launched. 
Among the examples of technology 
transfer is a project with SIBUR. 
Skoltech researchers modified 
and applied the “electronic nose” 
technology (TRL 5-6) to identify 
molecule types and their smell 
intensity in polymer gas emissions 
by development of custom software 
and hardware. The solution solves a 
long-lasting problem in the polymers 
industry, where previously the design 
of new polymer types required 
its scent intensity to be tested by 
human control groups, making it a 
time-consuming process. This case 
demonstrates high commercialization 
potential in chemical industry, food 
production and healthcare. 
The Laboratory of Cyber-Physical 
Systems collaborated with several 
Russian engineering and transport 
industry leaders for projects in design 
and systems engineering. The first 
stage of a large-scale project with 
Russian Railways in prescriptive 
diagnostics of train systems was 
completed. 
With the United Aircraft Corporation, 
work on aircraft hydraulic system 
design was conducted – an initiative 
that paves the way for future joint 
projects with the company. 
Photonic Integrated Circuits
Cyber-physical systems

69
The Center for Materials Technology 
entered the consortium of universities 
and research organizations 
participating in development of the 
Center “Technologies for Modeling 
and Development of New Functional 
Materials with Set Properties” 
(National Technology Initiative). 
Demonstrating diversity in 
the challenges and industrial 
partnerships, the Laboratory for 
Composite Materials and Structures 
launched a joint project with Hyundai 
(South Korea) on fundamental 
research in the field of technologies 
of composite materials products 
manufacturing for automotive 
industry.
Skoltech facilitated productive 
partnerships with industry in additive 
manufacturing. 
Leveraging the successful partnership 
between the Additive Manufacturing 
Lab and Rosatom on development of 
the software for modeling physical 
processes occurring in selective laser 
melting (SLM), the agreement was 
reached to continue the joint program 
and to expand work to include 
another 3-D printing technology.
Having completed a 3 year 
partnership on additive 
manufacturing and materials with 
Oerlikon, the parties agreed to 
extend the agreement for 3 years. 
The lab will continue work on 
developing new ceramic pastes for 
3-D printing, new alloys with unique 
mechanical properties, and creating 
an open-metal 3-D printer to study 
the 3-D printing process and validate 
predictive multiscale models for the 
printing process using various sensors 
and high-speed cameras.
New materials
Additive manufacturing
MAKING IMPACT

70
Annual R&D funding (mln Rub)
R&D funding by source (mln Rub) 
2017
2018
847
2019
1135
2020
1357
2021
1671
427
State funded technology programs
High-tech companies
0
500
1000
1500
637
370
404
386
230
1034
986
577
462
197
2020
2021
2019
2018
2017
Summary data

71
R&D funding by area 
R&D funding by client
Shares are calculated for funding 2021-2024
Shares are calculated for funding 2021-2024
Other 
67.4%
Gazprom Neft 
11.8%
Huawei 
8.1%
Bayer AG 
5.1%
Sberbank 
7.6%
Photonics & 
Quantum Materials 
9%
Manufacturing 
3%
Oil & gaz
8%
Energy
2%
Agro & 
Biotech 
17%
IT
7%
IoT
6%
Al
48%
MAKING IMPACT

72
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Strategy targets enriching and nurturing 
entrepreneurial environment through E&I educational 
track, translational research programs, programs for 
identifying patentable and commercially significant 
results, mentoring, attracting investments for Skoltech 
affiliated companies. 
Cultivating 
entrepreneurial 
readiness 
and spirit

E&I curriculum
The Startup Funnel, piloted in 2020, 
finally came to the full scale mode, 
starting from Innovation Workshop and 
continued with Startup Workshop and 
Startup Founders Workshop.
The Innovation Workshop was the 
largest ever, welcoming offline 350 
students and resulting in visible 
outcomes. Apart from 95% positive 
feedback, 7 projects went to StartUp 
Workshop, several received Skolkovo 
residency and 2 more filed patents. 
2 projects are already approved as 
Skolkovo residents – AR glasses UNREA 
and Smart AI Toy UMNYASH, 2 more 
projects plan to resubmit applications 
(AI biz-meeting summarizer FOLLOWUP 
an AI CV loading tool SMART-C). 
The CEI delivered various courses in 
technology entrepreneurship, finance, 
marketing and commercialization, 
product development, innovation 
management, operations management 
and supply chain. In total, over 90% 
of students participated in the courses, 
adding more than 50 new projects to 
the project pipeline. 
The Student Startup Club reopened 
doors and welcomed more than 
200 students with a rich agenda: 
presentations, interviews, meetups, 
follow-up sessions and mentorship 
support. With introduction of Skoltech 
Triple Point Challenge (NGP program), 
the Startup Club significantly expanded 
the reach to Skoltech community.
MAKING IMPACT

74
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Cultivating E&I environment 
In 2021 the portfolio of Skoltech associated startups reached 121 enterprises. 
71 companies have Skolkovo residency, 29 companies have been established 
by students or alumni of Skoltech. Among success stories are: 
• Spheroid Revolution (Skoltech 
Startup Funnel) proposes 
innovative software for 
determining optimal characteristics 
of a spheroid without invasive 
intervention using the minimax 
method (maximizing the size while 
minimizing necrosis). 
• Cyclop (project in the area of 
ultrashort pulse laser for quantum 
computing) and Gheron Polymers 
(project for examining degradation 
of polymers to increase recycling 
process efficiency) got initial 
shaping and market validation. 
• Oil Gene project is aimed 
at developing a service to support 
marker-assisted and genomic 
selection in oilseed crops based 
on high-throughput genotyping 
technology using next-generation 
sequencing and associative 
mapping. The proof-of-concept 
studies were performed on more 
than 1,500 oilseed genotypes 
and more than 100 phenotypes.
• Vibrant RehUp is a rehabilitation 
robotic device using a brain-
computer interface, AI and VR 
is designed to restore motor 
function after stroke and CNS 
injuries in collaboration 
with leading experts in the field 
of neuroscience. After confirmation 
of effectiveness in clinical trials, 
preparations are underway 
for registration of a medical device 
and sales of the research version 
have begun. The development 
of the project goes both 
in the direction of technology 
and market, and it is being done 
in close cooperation with Moscow 
Center for Healthcare Innovations. 
The new call for Translational 
Research and Innovation Program 
received 45 applications. Coming 
through the review of world-class 
experts, 10 projects were awarded 
with funding for 2 years. The results of 
ongoing program (round 2021/2022) 
covered creation of IP and startups. 
Sustainable Development Goals 
Initiative and a portfolio of innovative 
projects were announced in Industry 
Day ‘21. The most interesting projects 
focused on cleaning remains of oilspills, 
water purification, energy storage. 
One of the successful projects turned 
out to be project “Illuminate” – the 
team designed a biogas digester that 
by recycling organic waste prevents the 
emission of methane by transforming 
organic waste into biogas and top-
class organic fertilizer. The Illuminate 
successfully participated in Gazprom 
Neft pre-acceleration program and 
later established a startup.

75
Commercialization pathways 
More than 250 mln rubles were fundraised for startups via grants, VC funds, 
commercial contracts. 
Several project teams took part 
in the Commercialization Reactor 
(Riga, EU) events for CR incubation 
and acceleration program to gain 
a balanced entrepreneurial team,
pre-seed investments of up to 300k EURO,
access to target customers world-wide 
with sales of products using technology 
and Skoltech IP licensed into EU startup 
established by Skoltech scientists.
DATADVANCE 
01Math
Inspector Cloud
XReadyLab
CyberPhysics
Komarik
IRA Labs
PICsTech
LABADVANCE
Ministry of Industry and Trade 
commercial contracts 
Moscow Seed Fund
a business angel
Skolkovo Ventures
business angel
Department of Healthcare of Moscow 
Fasie (Bortnik Fund)
commercial contracts
21.1 mln Rub 
40 mln Rub 
14. 8 mln Rub
400k USD
50 mln rubles
4 mln rubles
69 mln rubles
15 mln rubles
1 mln rubles
Company 
Funding source
Funding 
MAKING IMPACT

76
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Intellectual Property
Extending partnerships
The year brought a number of 
successful results in knowledge 
transfer and IP management, 
including the first license contract with 
a European company and the first 
US patent for the open dynamically 
harmonized trap for the ion cyclotron 
resonance mass spectrometer received 
solely by Skoltech. 
The patents applications amounted 
to 74 applications, 20% of which 
were foreign and PTC applications. 
The active IP portfolio has grown 
to 40% and represents around 140 
patents and other registered IPR for 
technologies and inventions. 
Skoltech continued to maintain 
relationships with licensees, despite 
financial burdens caused by the 
pandemic. All anticipated royalties 
were received, three new licensing 
agreements were signed. In parallel, 
the KTO initiated the IP policy update 
focusing on revision of remuneration 
schemes and priority rights for authors 
of inventions. 
Most activities were conducted 
in cooperation with the Skolkovo 
ecosystem, academic, industrial, and 
financial partners.
Joint events were held with the 
Skolkovo Foundation and other 
Skolkovo participants. One of the 
multiple examples is Skoltech Pavilion 
at Startup Village 2021, offered panel 
discussions on public health, deeptech 
startups, development institutes 
and industrial partnerships. Among 
the speakers were representatives 
of Gazprom Neft, VEB Ventures, 
Skolkovo Ventures, SmartHub Venture 
Boutique, GETVISION, Chicago Booth 
Angels Network, and AngelsDeck. 
The event was also supported with 
Skoltech startups: Robust Forest 
Classification, Live Printed Metal, 
Morphing Technologies, Tensor 
Fields, HeadKraken, LABADVANCE, 
Ecosilica, XReadyLab, Vein CV, 
Lean Orbit, Tag Trace Systems, 
FlowBat_MS. 
Ties with MIT resulted in launch 
of Skoltech Triple Point, which is 
the first Russian student-led set of 
entrepreneurial competitions similar 
to MIT$100K and Tiger Launch 
of Princeton. The team organized 
lectures with MIT faculty for Skoltech 
students, and initiated a joint student 
networking event. Ties with MIT 
student organizations and MIT 
Innovation Teams Program were set. 
PITCH, the first competition finals, 
acquired 36 project applications using

MAKING IMPACT
various technologies such as AI and 
ML, VR and AR, biotech and pharma, 
computer vision, robotics, energy 
and fuel, optics and holography. 15 
projects were selected and presented 
during the offline event. 1 million 
rubles were provided as a sponsorship 
support from Pekka Viljakainen, a 
member of the Board of Trustees. The 
MIT Global Startup Lab bootcamp 
was arranged during the Independent 
Study Period to set interaction 
between Skoltech and MIT students. 
In support of Moscow Center for 
Health Care and Innovation, the 
CEI hosted a visit of the Mayor of 
Moscow for showcasing projects 
having potential for Moscow 
healthcare infrastructure. Commercial 
contracts for antivirus paint, complex 
components of medical devices were 
completed. 
As a result of participation in Tatarstan 
Oil and Gas Forum, antivirus paint 
was successfully tested in the Republic. 
Pilot tests of the anticorrosion coating 
were successfully carried out.  
The cooperation with Grozny State 
Oil Technical University was kicked 
off with “landing” a few projects: 
Geonome, Labadvance and 01 Math. 
Five students took part in Innovation 
Workshop and were among the first 
ones to work on ESG agenda.

Educating 
leaders

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Strategy is about delivering educational programs, 
competitive nationally and on the global scale, 
accounting for expectations of the stakeholders – 
students and employers. Skoltech is committed to 
continuous refresh of programs curriculum, capitalizing 
on expertise accumulated by the Centers. 
Teaching 
excellence

81
EDUCATING LEADERS 
MSc Thesis defenses usually take 
place in June across all MSc 
programs. Over 22 Defense 
Committees operate with more than 
100 members, assessing performance 
results. Industry representatives 
typically constitute nearly 20 percent 
of the Committees members. 
In the environment of pandemic, 
pre-defenses and defenses were 
held online showing exceptional 
faculty engagement, higher quality of 
students’ presentations, seamless and 
professional work of the Committees.
Skoltech elite education is ensured by 
innovative content of internationally 
recognized graduate programs, 
curriculum flexibility, world class 
faculty and researchers, excellence 
in teaching and research advising, 
access to cutting-edge laboratories. 
These components are supported 
with a favorable environment, 
involvement of the stakeholders into 
programs design and delivery, wide 
opportunities for career development. 
MSc defenses 
Advanced Manufacturing Technologies 
Life Sciences 
Information Science and Technology
Data Science
Energy Systems
Materials Science
Mathematical and Theoretical Physics
Petroleum Engineering
Photonics and Quantum Materials
Space and Engineering Systems
TOTAL
16
33
33
70
13
13
13
13
28
29
261
MSc Program
MSc Graduates

82
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The highest appraisal received the following Theses: 
Victoria Dochkina 
Puskar Pathak 
Aiusha Sangadiev 
Konstantin Zamansky 
Maksim Valialshchikov 
Daniil Selihanovich 
Aleksei Kalinov 
Basel Omran 
Fedor Selyanin 
Vladimir Zakharov 
Andrei Vasenin 
Mikhail Goncharov 
Ilya Pletenev 
Prof. Koroteev
Prof. Dzhurinskiy
Prof. Pozo
Prof. Nasibulin
Prof. Rykovanov
Prof. Panov
Prof. Rykovanov
Prof. Pritykin
Prof. Kazarian
Prof. Skvortsov
Prof. Astafiev
Prof. Chudakov
Prof. Khrameeva
Predicting Permeability Based on Improved 
Pore-Network Modelling
Development and Characterization of Cr3C2-
NiCr Based Metal Matrix Composite Coatings 
for Wear Resistance Applications
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty for Large-
Scale Power System Planning
Thermocycling of Resistive Sensors for Selective 
Discrimination of Volatile Compounds
Numerical Studies of Nonlinear Compton Scattering
Efficient Sampling for Generative Adversarial 
Networks via MCMC
Efficient Simulation Techniques for Problems of 
Mathematical Physics
Dynamics and Control of Multi-Tethered 
Tetrahedral Satellite Formations
Arnold’s Problem on Monotonicity of the 
Newton Number
Viscosity of a Two-Dimensional Disordered 
Electron System in an External Magnetic Field
Dynamics of Multiphoton Scattering 
of Coherent Waves by an Artificial 
Superconducting Atom in a Waveguide
Identification of Tumor Antigen-Specific T Cells in 
Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes Population Defined 
by Expression of Surface Markers of Exhaustion
Whole-Genome Analysis of Epigenetic 
Control of Human GABAergic Interneuron 
Differentiation
Thesis Title
Research 
Advisor
Student

83
The regular post-defense survey 
was completed by approximately 
60 percent of Committees 
members who shared feedback 
on students’ performance 
and provided recommendations 
on achievement of learning outcomes 
by the students.
In 2021, Skoltech organized 34 PhD 
defenses in a hybrid mode with online 
presence of Jury external members, 
while keeping a requirement of 1/3 of 
on-site attendance.
Joint doctoral programs with 
leading international universities 
were continued through cotutelle 
agreements signed with KU Leuven, 
RIKEN, Aalto University, Curtin 
University, Ben Gurion University, 
Sorbonne, ETS Montreal, University of 
Paris, University Grenoble Alps. New 
agreements were signed with Karlstad 
University, Eindhoven University of 
Technology and other universities. 
In a response of students to have 
one source of information, the PhD 
handbook was published, guiding 
on formal regulations and practical 
aspects of doctoral education from the 
very beginning till the defense.
Since 2017, 128 PhD graduates have 
successfully defended PhD thesis: 
109 have been awarded with Skoltech 
Doctor of Philosophy degree, while 
19 with Candidate of Science degree 
at the external committees 
(Higher School of Economics, 
Moscow State University, Moscow 
Institute of Physics and Technology, 
Landau Institute, etc.).
PhD studies and defenses
Skoltech defenses
External defenses
0
10
20
30
40
50
2020
2021
2019
2018
2017
EDUCATING LEADERS

84
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Center for Teaching and Learning 
Excellence was opened in 2021 
to support faculty and students in 
teaching and learning, empower 
favorable environment by creating 
new knowledge, forming networks 
and partnerships, celebrating 
progress towards success in improving 
student learning outcomes. The Center 
organized many activities, including: 
• The unique professional 
development course “Facilitating 
and Accessing Learning” of Prof. 
Magnus Gustafsson (Chalmers, 
Sweden) for course instructors 
and teaching assistants 
to strengthen and broaden 
pedagogical skills,
• Series of workshops 
“Excellence in Teaching 
and Learning” jointly with 
the Teaching and Learning Center 
of the University of Iowa 
and Skoltech faculty, awarded 
for Teaching Excellence, 
• Skoltech Learning Community 
of faculty and representatives 
of Education Department founded 
for joint work with the workshops 
“Teaching Excellence Series” 
(best practices by best faculty) 
and foundation of the new award 
“Innovation in Education”,
• The round table with Program 
Directors and Coordinators 
of MSc Programs organized 
to discuss benefits and challenges 
of involving multiple lecturers 
and students’ learning experience 
based on the feedback.
Teaching and Learning Excellence

86
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021

87

88
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Enhanced educational offering 
In addition to expanding curriculum, 
developments were undertaken in the 
programs. 
Two MSc programs were opened in 2021: 
“Advanced Computational Science” 
and “Internet of Things and Wireless 
Technologies”, aimed to educate next 
generation of STEM leaders ready to 
design principles and architectures as 
well as develop applications and services 
for IoT and next generation wireless 
technologies. The program enrolled 
the first cohort of 18 students from 336 
applications/46 interviews.
The development of MSc program 
“Energy Systems” resulted in a new 
track “Energy Transition and ESG” 
for educating qualified engineers and 
future industry leaders capable to 
facilitate energy policy and develop 
new technologies to ensure deep 
decarbonization and energy transition 
towards a low-carbon economy (first 
admission in 2022). 
The collaboration was set with IPG 
Photonics for a new educational track 
in Photonics and Quantum Materials 
to educate engineers who will be 
ready to become leaders and take 
full responsibility for technological 
progress at the company.
The Innovation Workshop is a 4 week 
full-time dive into the Skoltech vibrant 
ecosystem designed to foster innovators, 
focus on teamwork, group projects, 
and spark entrepreneurial instincts from 
the very first days in Skoltech. Together 
with faculty, 60 mentors from Israel, 
Switzerland, Germany, USA, Russia, 
Canada, Italy and Armenia took part in 
the Innovation Workshop supporting 350 
students.
Another important part of MSc curriculum 
is the “Industrial Immersion” providing 
opportunities for individual or team 
projects in companies. 266 MSc students 
performed projects in 116 companies. 
The pool of companies included 48 
Skolkovo residents (Big 3, Genetico, 
Haut.ai, Insilico, Motorica, New 
Spintronic Technologies, PrimeBioMed, 
Sibur PolyLab, VisionLabs and others), 
also Skoltech affiliated startups (Digital 
Petroleum, Head Kraken, Tensor 
Fields, Tsuru Robotics, WareVision, Ira 
Labs, Rustor, TetraQuant, Novaprint 
3D, GeoAlert). Placements were also 
organized in Gazprom Neft, IBM, 
Huawei, Yandex, Rosneft, Sber, EVRAZ, 
Russian Quantum Center, Intel, IPG 
Photonics, Samsung, Nissan, Boeing, 
Generium. The Industrial Immersion and 
career development survey to the partner 
companies demonstrated excellent 
feedback and readiness to host students 
for long-term internships.
The Independent Studies Period 
traditionally included a variety of courses 
and workshops: MIT Global Startup Labs 
(Tim Mille, Lauryn Kortman, Ophelia 
Zhu, and Darren Lim, all-external 
students), Pilot School arranged by PhD 
students (Burkov Egor, Perkov Sergei, Pak 
Marina, Morozova Polina, and Yermakov 
Yakov), EQ & Negotiation Games (Prof. 
Kulish), Science in Contemporary Art 
(Prof. Shpanin, Rutgers University, and 
worldwide famous artists), Competition 
in Loan Origination (Masyutin Alexey, 
Managing Director, Sberbank).

89
Library
The state-of the-art library opened 
the doors for Skoltech community in 
October. Also, the library extended 
digital database portfolio and digital 
infrastructure, providing access to 
top international databases such as 
Science Direct, Springer or IEEE, 
Scopus, Web of Science, e-books 
collections from Springer and Elsevier. 
Also, Skoltech and Moscow School 
of Management merged print book 
collections allowing to have access to 
more than 1000 titles on business and 
management. 
Print books collection
Skoltech e-books*
Full-texts downloads from e-library 
databases
Databases
930
370
110 000
2018
1 100
420
240 000
2019
1 248
435
210 000
2020
2700
469
237 000
2021
*Thanks to RFBR grant Skoltech has access to Elsevier Freedom Collection
(approx. 5 000 titles) and Springer e-books (approx. 113 000 titles)
EDUCATING LEADERS

90
Students by gender 
Student cohort by level of studies 
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
427
279
594
383
613
449
586
482
559
504
MSc
PhD
Male
Female
347
721
2021
347
716
2020
316
746
2019
293
684
2018
2017
211
495
Summary data

91
International students in cohort
Africa & 
Middle East 
29%
Asia 
26%
CIS 
21%
Americas
8%
Europe  
16%
% of international students in cohort
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
17%
19%
18%
20%
21%
EDUCATING LEADERS

92
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Student cohort 
Data Science
Life Sciences
Space and Engineering Systems
Photonics and Quantum Materials
Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
Petroleum Engineering
Materials Science
Information Science and Technology
Energy Systems
Internet of Things and Wireless Technologies
Mathematical and Theoretical Physics
Advanced Computational Science
TOTAL 
159
82
48
45
39
39
37
36
26
19
18
11
559
MSc Program
Students
Computational and Data Science and Engineering
Life Sciences
Materials Science and Engineering
Engineering Systems
Physics
Petroleum Engineering
Mathematics and Mechanics
TOTAL
139
85
68
59
52
52
49
504
PhD program 
Students

94
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Fostering 
student
success 
Talent recruitment 
Skoltech goal is to attract and support a diverse pool 
of talented students, shaping rich experiences and best 
possible opportunities to start careers in academia, 
R&D and entrepreneurship, encouraging to establish 
lasting professional networks and friendships. 
Graduates’ employment outcomes in the national 
innovation sector is the priority. 
Following the strategic priorities, 
Skoltech continued concerted efforts 
to recruit the best and brightest 
students from Russia and the 
world, although it was challenging 
considering COVID-19 restrictions 
and closed borders. 
The outreach team completed 
the mostly online recruitment 
campaign, composed of various 
appealing formats: virtual open 
doors, lab tours, webinars, lectures, 
Q&A sessions, Telegram channels. 
The project “Hi, Tech” made 
a significant contribution to attraction
of more than 1700 high-quality applicants.

95
Promotions were mainly carried out 
through online advertising channels: 
contextual / targeted ads in Google 
and Yandex, social media, webinars, 
landing pages, email marketing.
The Statistical Learning Theory 
track of MSc Data Science program 
underwent rebranding 
to the “Math of Machine Learning” 
track resulted in the sharp increase 
of applications (+49%) and admitted 
students (+56%).
In total, Skoltech received more 
than 17000 applications from 131 
countries. As a result of the multiple 
stage selection and admission 
procedures, 263 MSc and 129 PhD 
students joined Skoltech. 21% 
of enrollments are internationals 
from 28 countries of the world, 
incl. USA, India, Mexico, 
Kazakhstan, Nigeria, France, 
UK. The campaign to the target 
countries3 was successful, 
bringing 22 % of international 
enrollments.
Applications 
Invited to pre-selection 
Invited to selection 
Yield 
% of enrolled 
17808
8444
781
391
2%
Recruitment funnel
2021
17987
7644
888
435
2%
13881
4346
941
416
3%
2020
2019
3 Regions of interest, 
approved by the Academic 
Council: Germany, Italy, 
USA, Mexico, India, China, 
Nigeria, and Kazakhstan.
EDUCATING LEADERS 
45% of the Сlass 2021 are graduates
of top national universities such 
as Moscow Institute of Physics and 
Technology, Moscow State University, 
Higher School of Economics, Bauman 
State Technical University. 12% 
of the intake are double degree students 
under agreements with Higher School
of Economics, Moscow Institute of Physics
and Technology, Tomsk State University
of Control Systems and Radioelectronics,
Saint Petersburg State University
of Aerospace Instrumentation.
19 students were enrolled with “Zero 
stipends” introduced in the new 
Scholarship Policy.

96
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Multiple activities provided by 
Skoltech to support students’ 
success brought results evidenced 
in top quality papers, national and 
international awards and fellowships. 
Below are examples: 
Excellence recognition 
Academic excellence
Tkachev, A., Khaitovich, P. et al. Long‐term fluoxetine administration 
causes substantial lipidome alteration of the juvenile macaque brain. (2021) 
International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 22 (15), art. no. 8089. 
A.I. Komayko, S.V. Ryazantsev, I.A. Trussov, N.A. Arkharova, D.E. Presnov, 
E.E. Levin, V.A. Nikitina, The Misconception of Mg(2+) Insertion into Prussian 
Blue Analogue Structures from Aqueous Solution, ChemSusChem, 14, 1574-
1585 (2021). 
S.V. Porokhin, V.A. Nikitina, D.A. Aksyonov, D.S. Filimonov, E.M. 
Pazhetnov, I.V. Mikheev, A.M. Abakumov, Mixed-Cation Perovskite 
La0.6Ca0.4Fe0.7Ni0.3O2.9 as a Stable and Efficient Catalyst for the Oxygen 
Evolution Reaction, ACS Catalysis, 11, 8338-8348 (2021).
I.A. Luchnikov, D. Métivier, H. Ouerdane, and M. Chertkov. Super-relaxation
of space-time-quantized ensemble of energy loads to curtail their synchronization
after demand response perturbation. Applied Energy 285, 116419 (2021).
B. Mohseni-Gharyehsafa, J. Abolfazli Esfahani, K. C. Kim, and H. 
Ouerdane. Soft computing approach analysis of thermohydraulic enhancement 
using twisted tapes in a flat-plate solar collector: Sensitivity analysis and multi-
objective optimization, Journal of Cleaner Production 314, 127947 (2021).
Tepliakova, M. M.; Kuznetsov, I. E.; Avilova, I. A.; Stevenson, K. J.; Akkuratov, 
A. V. “Impact of Synthetic Route on Photovoltaic Properties of Isoindigo-
containing Conjugated Polymers,” Mol. Chem. Phys. 2021, 222(15), 2100136.
E.V. Anikin, N.S. Maslova, N.A. Gippius, I.M. Sokolov, Multiphoton resonance 
in a driven Kerr oscillator in the presence of high-order nonlinearities, PHYSICAL 
REVIEW A 104(5) 053106 (2021).

97
N.S. Salakhova, I.M. Fradkin, S.A. Dyakov, N.A. Gippius, Fourier modal 
method for moire lattices, PHYSICAL REVIEW B 104(8) 085424 (2021)
Drobysheva AV, Panafidina SA, Kolesnik MV, Klimuk EI, Minakhin L, 
Yakunina MV, Borukhov S, Nilsson E, Holmfeldt K, Yutin N, Makarova 
KS, Koonin EV, Severinov KV, Leiman PG, Sokolova ML. Structure and 
function of virion RNA polymerase of a crAss-like phage. Nature. 2021 
Jan;589(7841):306-309. 
Komissarov AB, Safina KR, Garushyants SK, Fadeev AV, Sergeeva MV, 
Ivanova AA, Danilenko DM, Lioznov D, Shneider OV, Shvyrev N, Spirin V, 
Glyzin D, Shchur V, Bazykin GA. Genomic epidemiology of the early stages of 
the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Russia. Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):649.
Ulianov SV, Zakharova VV, Galitsyna AA, Kos PI, Polovnikov KE, Flyamer 
IM, Mikhaleva EA, Khrameeva EE, Germini D, Logacheva MD, Gavrilov 
AA, Gorsky AS, Nechaev SK, Gelfand MS, Vassetzky YS, Chertovich AV, 
Shevelyov YY, Razin SV. Order and stochasticity in the folding of individual 
Drosophila genomes. Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):41. 
Mendelevich A, Vinogradova S, Gupta S, Mironov AA, Sunyaev SR, 
Gimelbrant AA. Replicate sequencing libraries are important for quantification 
of allelic imbalance. Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):3370.
Kalmykova S, Kalinina M, Denisov S, Mironov A, Skvortsov D, Guigó R, 
Pervouchine D. Conserved long-range base pairings are associated with pre-
mRNA processing of human genes. Nat Commun. 2021; 12(1):2300. 
Gavrylenko, P., Semenyakin, M., Zenkevich, Y. Solution of tetrahedron 
equation and cluster algebras. J. High Energ. Phys. 2021, 103 (2021). 
Litvinov, A., Vilkoviskiy, I. Integrable structure of BCD conformal field theory 
and boundary Bethe ansatz for affine Yangian. J. High Energ. Phys. 2021, 141 
(2021).
D. Kubrak, A. Prikhodko, Hodge-to-de Rham Degeneration for Stacks, 
International Mathematics Research Notices, 2021;, rnab054
Alexander Korotin (PhD), Lingxiao Li, Justin Solomon, Evgeny Burnaev. 
Continuous Wasserstein-2 Barycenter Estimation without Minimax 
Optimization. ICLR, 2021
Alexander Korotin (PhD), Vage Egiazarian (PhD), Arip Asadulaev, Alexander 
Safin (PhD), Evgeny Burnaev. Wasserstein-2 Generative Networks. ICLR, 2021
EDUCATING LEADERS

98
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Alexey Bokhovkin, Vladislav Ishimtsev (PhD), Emil Bogomolov, Denis 
Zorin, Alexey Artemov, Evgeny Burnaev, Angela Dai. Towards Part-Based 
Understanding of RGB-D Scans. CVPR, 2021
R Rakhimov (PhD), E Bogomolov, A Notchenko (PhD), F Mao, A Artemov, 
D Zorin, Evgeny Burnaev. Making DensePose fast and light. Proceedings of 
the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, 1869-
1877, 2021.
Nikita Kotelevskii got the 2nd place 
at the NeurIPS 2021 competition on 
Approximate Inference in Bayesian 
Deep Learning and 2nd author paper 
at ICML-2022. 
Mikhail Pautov is the 1st author paper 
at AAAI-2022.
Daryna Dementieva became the first 
author of ACL SRW paper, led a team 
at the largest European hackathon 
Junction, participated as a co-author 
in CORE A publication at EMNLP. 
Victoria Chekalina got the 1st place at 
the Touche CLEF-2021 competition on 
argument retrieval. 
Alexander Belov gave the oral talk 
at MICCAI as first author, the top-1 
conference in the field.

99
Daniil Rabinovich became a winner 
of the Presidential PhD Student 
Scholarship, awarded for the project 
“Limitations of variational quantum 
algorithms.” 
Valeriya Pronina and Nikita 
Kotelevskii were awarded with 
Ostrogradskii PhD fellowship for 
short-term research stays in France. 
Rishat Zagidullin, Maksim 
Valialshchikov and Egor Konyagin 
won DAAD fellowship for short-term 
research stays in Helmholtz Institute 
Jena, Germany.
Galina Chikunova won participation in 
a highly competitive NASA Heliophysics 
Summer School and was selected as a 
young scientist to participate in an ISSI 
team workshop funded by ESA and 
Swiss Space Office.
PhD students E. Romadina and S. 
Marshenya received the Haldor 
Topsoe scholarship award for the 
projects “Design of new materials 
for organic redox flow batteries”, 
and “Development of electrodes and 
electrolytes for all-solid-state high-
voltage batteries”.
The special prize in research 
excellence, scientific novelty, 
significance for the theory of catalysis, 
and practical impact categories was 
awarded to PhD student N. Luchinin.
Students supervised by Center for 
Advanced Studies won a number of 
awards: Semen Abramyan is a winner 
of “Young Russian Mathematics”, 
Nikolai Bogachev – a winner of 
“Sirius” Contest 2021, nomination 
“Young Scientists”.
Dmitry Artemasov became one out 
of three IoT Awards 2021 held by 
Internet of Things Association finalists 
in the category “IoT DIY” with the 
modular device for collecting and 
transmitting data according to the NB-
IoT standard.
Yuri Katser became the winner of the 
hackathon “Smart Cities, Industry, Fuel 
and Energy Sector” (ENERGOMACH) 
as part of the Waico.ru team.
Alexander Korotin has been chosen 
as the recipient of the Ilya Segalovich 
Award, a prize that Yandex awards 
annually for outstanding achievements 
in computer science. Alexander Korotin 
receives the prize for the second time.
Gurgen Sogoyan participated in 
research of Prof. Lebedev group 
funded by Motorica LLC and 
successfully demonstrated stimulation 
of nerves by means of electrical 
impulses through an implant installed 
in the body of two Motorica’s pilots 
with amputated arms to remove the 
phantom pain and allow them to 
feel the endings of artificial fingers. 
Gurgen talked on the preliminary 
results of that research at the Congress 
of Young Scientists held in Sochi.
PhD student Pavel Afanasiev created a 
startup “Hydrogen power” LLC.
Fellowships 
R&D, entrepreneurship 
EDUCATING LEADERS

100
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Skoltech provides an extensive 
support to students, which includes 
not only financial support, but 
also opportunities to establish and 
extend professional network. The 
comprehensive series of seminars, 
presentations and workshops were 
held during the year, involving 
top R&D companies: Roadmap to 
Career Success course, overviewing 
R&D job market and hints to start 
career in companies, Soft Skills 
Marathon with Sber, meetings with 
Huawei, BostonGene, Tinkoff, P&G, 
Online Hackathon with Sberbank 
Risk Management. Meetings with 
employers were held on campus – 
Yandex Days, Meeting with Sber 
AI, Nvidia. 
Students received monthly Career 
Digests, prepared involving more 
than 70 partner companies. The 
Job Board portal was launched. 
In autumn, together with Industrial 
Immersion team, the Industry 
Day Partners activities were 
held. Among formats – a round 
table “Career in Biotech” with 
BostonGene, Insilico Medicine, AIRI 
and Blastim, special networking 
zones for students with Huawei, 
AIRI and Accenture. 
Looking forward to 2022, the 
student development program will 
be extended, also by introducing 
a fellowship of the Center for 
Entrepreneurship and Innovation for 
innovation achievements. 
The Student Council is the main body, 
representing interests of the student 
community, also facilitating student 
life and community building activities.
 In 2021, the Council addressed 
a number of issues related to the 
educational process, scholarships, 
extracurricular activities, student 
services. Also, students conducted the 
largest events in the online format, such 
as Talent Show and International Night, 
followed by a range of offline events. 
Students also had access to a wide 
offering of clubs in sports, languages, 
music, arts, dancing. Despite a 
lockdown, most clubs were functioning 
online, and by the end of 2021 
successfully turned to offline mode.
Career support 
Student self-governance

The Career Center, serving as a point 
of contact for all alumni, traditionally 
tracked the career success of the 
graduates 2021 by conducting an 
online survey. 
Despite the COVID and its influence 
on market, the Class 2021 was 
successfully employed in R&D sector, 
continued for PhD, or became 
entrepreneurs. The share of “gap year 
and job seekers” remained on the level 
of 2020. The pool of top employers in 
R&D sector did not change – Yandex, 
Sber, Tinkoff, Samsung, Gazprombank. 
The most common positions include 
data scientists, product managers, 
analysts, software engineers. 
Graduates, willing to pursue research, 
found positions in national research 
centers specializing in biology, 
physics, and quantum materials. 
Those decided to continue for PhD 
outside Skoltech, were enrolled in 
top-national universities or went 
abroad, mainly to European countries 
(Germany, Switzerland, France).
Graduates 2021 career paths 
EDUCATING LEADERS

102
Asia
Africa&Middle East
Europe
CIS
Americas
MSc and PhD annual intake: internationals
MSc and PhD intake
PhD
MSc
136
298
2021
129
263
2020
128
288
2019
158
356
2018
2017
118
225
2017
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2018
2019
2020
2021
Summary data

103
MSc and PhD intake by university
Other universities
MSU
BMSTU
HSE
MIPT
2017
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2018
2019
2020
2021
PhD intake by background 
Skoltech
MSc graduates  
47%
Other 
Russian 
universities 
44%
Foreign 
Universities
9%
EDUCATING LEADERS

104
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Graduates 2021 career paths 
R&D 
31%
Skoltech
Research 
12%
Other 
5%
Startup 
6%
Work 
on Thesis 
3%
PhD
28%
R&D
6%
Other
3%
Research 
6%
PhD
Abroad 
8%
PhD 
in Russia 
4%
Skoltech 
PhD
16%
Abroad
Russia

105
Class 2021 geography 
Russia
Africa&Middle East
Europe
Asia
CIS
Americas
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
EDUCATING LEADERS

106
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Engaging with alumni is crucial for Skoltech 
advancement. The priority focus is on building 
the community of active supporters, ambassadors, 
promoters, and donors, contributing to Skoltech 
development and its positioning in Russia 
and the world. 
Alumni 
community
The alumni community exceeded 1300 graduates, spreading across 
49 countries, 77% are in Russia. The breakdown of career tracks per most 
common organizations where Skoltech alumni are employed or continue 
for PhD or research positions is presented below: 
Sber
Yandex
Huawei
Samsung
BostonGene
Tinkoff
Gazpromneft
Accenture
Company
38
36
25
13
11
10
7
6
Number 
of alumni
High-tech sector in Russia 
EPFL
ETH
TU Eindhoven
MIT
Technical University
of Denmark
HKUST
Carnegie Mellon University
University
12
6
5
4
4
3
3
Number 
of alumni
PhD abroad

107
The alumni were involved in a range 
of activities during the year. 
The supported promotion of Skoltech 
brand by involvement in outreach 
and recruitment campaign, sharing 
insights of experiences in Skoltech, 
also through the online portal 
“True story”. They also contributed 
to Sber-Skoltech Hackathon 
in October, meetings with employers. 
Skoltech
HSE
MIPT
Institute for Information 
Transmission Problems
RQC
Medical-Biology Agency
Institution
162
17
17
6
5
4
Number 
of alumni
Research Russia 
Criteo
Chawanich Co., Ltd.
Cisco
Microsoft
Snap
Facebook
Huawei
Company
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
Number 
of alumni
High tech sector abroad 
EDUCATING LEADERS 
Other
4%
France
1%
Netherlands 
2%
UK 
1%
Switzerland 
2%
Germany
3%
Russsia 
77%
Americas
7%
Asia
2%
Africa & 
Middle East
1%
Europe
13%

Community 
engagement

110
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The portfolio of programs was 
expanded, mainly with Skoltech 
presence in events such 
as Technosreda Festival, All-Russian 
Science Festival “NAUKA0+”, “N+1 
Fest”, Ural Biennale, FANK, and 
others. Simultaneously Skoltech 
activated activities in lecture hubs, 
also shaped a collaboration 
with Moscow Department of Education 
and Science and Academy 
of the Ministry of Education. 
The programs involved faculty, 
researchers, students and alumni, 
select examples are: 
• Open lectures in modern molecular 
biology were delivered by CLS 
faculty and students in Ufa,
Ekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, 
Moscow. 
• Prof. Severinov developed 
a Youtube-based basic 
molecular biology course 
with a popular radio anchor 
Alexander Plyushev.
 
• Open Seminars involving top 
researchers in neurotechnology 
and neurobiology were organized 
by CNBR inviting as speakers 
Dr. Amol Yadav (Indiana University 
School of Medicine), Dr. Marcus 
Conrad (Helmholtz Zentrum 
München).
• a new educational media project 
“Life and other stories” featuring 
more than 50 interviews from 
39 world leading scientific centers, 
including Skoltech scientists 
and Skolkovo ecosystem members 
was launched.
Science outreach programs 
Skoltech is committed to giving back to society. 
The comprehensive engagement program is built 
around wide outreach, projects for kids and school 
students, activities aimed to explain Skoltech value 
and impact to the public.

111
© Gorky Park press-office

113
Activities for schoolkids covered 
more than 15000 participants who 
joined online courses and seminars: 
International Research School, 
Skolkovo Junior Challenge Olympiad, 
Saturdays of Moscow schools by 
Moscow Department of Education and 
Science. Offline track was presented 
with courses, workshops and lectures: 
Letovo Summer Scholar Program, 
workshops for schoolkids and teachers, 
courses and workshops for Children’s 
University of the Polytechnic Museum.
Select examples include: 
• a course in molecular microbiology 
by Prof. Severinov and PhD students 
was delivered to Moscow high 
school students and biology teachers 
in collaboration with Moscow 
Outreach Education Department, 
with more than 500 participants. 
•	Prof. Stevenson designed 
and executed Summer Research 
Program for Letovo school 
students.
•	5G-lab tours, open lectures 
and quizzes were delivered 
in Cybersecurity and Smart 
agriculture in a partnership 
with School of New Technologies 
as well as IT track of the Skolkovo 
Junior Challenge Olympiad 
with the International Gymnasium 
“Skolkovo”. 
•	Letovo school students were 
hosted in laboratories of the Center 
for Materials Technologies. 
The internships also included 
a course of lectures, a joint 
project with Harbin Technological 
University on production 
of composite profile.
Kids programs 
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
In spite of constraints imposed by the 
pandemic, Skoltech supported external 
relations, building relationships 
with representatives of universities, 
research institutions, high tech 
companies, governmental authorities 
and diplomatic missions. 163 official 
visits were hosted by the executive 
management and faculty.
Skoltech Open Day was organized on 
campus to showcase Skoltech results to 
the ecosystem and all those interested 
in learning more about the Institute. 
Executive management, stakeholders, 
faculty, researchers and staff delivered 
a comprehensive program composed 
of panel discussions, lab tours and 
activities for kids.
Visitors

116
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
This year’s highlights are a BBC Reel 
short film and a CNN report on 
Evgeny Chuvilin’s Siberian crater 
research, an episode of VICE’s “Space 
Show” featuring Prof. Podladchikova, 
more time in the spotlight on national 
TV, special materials, and a massive 
increase in the coverage received 
from top-tier media.
Skoltech speakers continued giving 
expert commentaries on the scientific 
and societal impacts of the COVID-19 
pandemic, appearing in The New 
York Times, BBC, Bloomberg, RT, 
Voice of America, RBC, Kommersant, 
and other media. The story about Prof. 
Bazykin’s work showing one substrain 
of the coronavirus delta variant to 
account for 90% of infections in Russia 
was among Yandex’s most read news.
Skoltech made headlines on a 
number of special occasions: an 
investigation of the Yamal crater, 
Zhores supercomputer helping Ian 
Nepomniachtchi to train for the 
World Chess Championship, extreme 
space weather events, an expedition 
to the Russian Arctic, etc., and was 
mentioned by top international media: 
The Guardian, The Telegraph, CNN, 
BBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times, The 
New York Times, VICE, AP.
The Nature journal dedicated a series 
of features to some achievements of 
Skoltech made during 10 years.
A story on the electronic nose 
developed at Skoltech by Prof. 
Nasibulin, Senior Research 
Scientist Fedor Fedorov, and their 
colleagues was featured in prime 
time in “Vremya” — the main evening 
newscast in Russia, airing on Channel 
One Russia.
Prof. Kulish shared his expert opinion 
in the first article in Nature News 
positively rating the Sputnik vaccine.
The Chairman of the Board of 
Trustees Viktor Vekselberg, President 
Alexander Kuleshov, Senior Vice 
President for Industrial Cooperation 
Alexey Ponomarev, Director of the 
AI Research Center Prof. Burnaev, 
Prof. Lebedev, Prof. Gabitov, Prof. 
Cheremisin, and Prof. Vorobev 
joined the Nobel Vision to discover 
“nexttech” on the evolutionary stage. 
The PR team won the AKSON 
Communication Laboratory 
Award in the presence effect 
category. Since 2017, AKSON 
has been annually awarding 
the prize to the best press offices 
of universities and research 
centers.
Media coverage

117
117
The engagement with audiences 
continued to grow, demonstrating 
stronger interest to Skoltech. The major 
increase is evidenced in Instagram* 
and Youtube. The top Instagram* posts 
included a post on testing a refueling 
robot for electric vehicles 
by the research team of Intelligent 
Space Robotics Lab (92600+ views), 
a story of PhD student Maria Osetrova 
who created a brain lipid map project 
with a reference to Tatler magazine 
advising to keep track of Maria’s 
scientific progress (1383 likes), 
and autumn landscapes of Skoltech 
campus (590 likes). 
Among the most viewed Youtube 
videos are the open lecture of Prof. 
Gelfand in the Gorky park (18400 
views), the New League of universities 
webinar on vaccination (5600 views), 
the commencement speech 
to the graduation class 2021 
from Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy 
Chairman of the Security Council 
of the Russian Federation, Chairman 
of Advisory Board of Skolkovo 
Foundation (2100 views).
Social media profile 
VK
14%
increase up to
24 600 followers
LinkedIn
20% 
increase up to
8 300 followers
Youtube
45% 
increase up to 
4 500 followers
+145,7k views
Instagram*
45%
increase up to
9 600 followers
Facebook*
10%
increase up to
14 600 followers
Twitter
12%
increase up to 
3 700 followers
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT 
As of Dec 31, 2021.
* The following social 
networks are owned by Meta 
Platforms LLC which is not 
allowed to conduct activities 
in Russia of March 21, 2022. 
Starting from this date, 
Skoltech has suspended 
activities in these social 
networks.

Human
Capital

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
People Awards
and Achievements
in 2021
Humboldt 
Research 
Award
Prof. Oseledets
International awards 
and recognition
DFG Merkator 
Fellowship
Prof. 
Panchenko
L’OREAL – 
Unesco 2021
Prof. 
Khrameeva
National awards 
and recognition 
Technological 
Breakthrough 
Award 2021
Prof. Lakontsev
Moscow 
Government 
Award 
for Young 
Scientists in 
the chemistry 
and materials 
science
Prof. Popov
Moscow Government Award for Young 
Scientists in the information transmission, 
storage, and processing category for 
developing AI-based medical image analysis 
methods that help detect and quantify major 
diseases, including COVID-19
Prof. Belyaev, Dr. Shirokikh, Dr. Goncharov

Academic 
Fellows 
Royal 
Microscopical 
Society
Prof. Korsunsky
Turing Fellow 
(Alan Turing 
Institute)
Prof. Bialek
Turing Fellow 
(Alan Turing 
Institute)
Prof. Berloff
Best 
Instructor 
Prof. Ferrer
Teaching 
Excellence 
Prof. Dylov 
Best
Mentor
Prof. Oseledets
Professor 
of the Year 
Best Career
Trainer
Prof. Kulish
Best Research 
Supervisor
Prof. Nasibulin
Faculty 
Promotions
Full 
Professorship 
Prof. Osiptsov
Full 
Professorship 
Prof. 
Cheremisin 
Full 
Professorship 
Prof. Koroteev
MAKING IMPACT
Associate 
Professorship 
Prof. 
Podladchikova

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Performance excellence award
Natalia 
Galochkina
Head 
of Admissions 
and 
Assessment 
Center
Ekaterina 
Kuznetsova 
Senior 
Compensation 
and Benefits 
Specialist
Olga 
Ustinova 
Deputy 
Head 
of PR 
Varvara 
Tsygankova 
Head 
of Events 
Daria 
Romanova 
Head 
of Office 
for Sponsored 
Research
Anna 
Gogareva 
Head of 
Institutional 
Development 
Department

I have finished MEPhI in plasma physics, but my 
thesis was related to the plasma space thruster, 
so I decided to go to the Space and Systems 
Engineering track at Skoltech as my master’s 
degree.
I wanted to work at a private space company, 
and eventually, after Skoltech I found a position 
in a company that fits this description.
Now I work at Megafon1440, it is a private 
aerospace company developing the Satellite 
Internet Constellation (as Starlink) in Russia. I’m 
an analyst-developer in the team building a math 
model of the overall system: traffic, antennas, 
finance, etc. Thanks to Skoltech I met people 
that helped me to set my career path. Also, I 
had cool courses at Skoltech that became a solid 
introduction to the industrial challenges.
“Thanks to Skoltech 
I met people that 
helped me to set 
my career path. 
Also, I had cool 
courses at Skoltech 
that became 
a solid introduction 
to the industrial 
challenges”
Angelina Prokopeva
MegaFon
MSc graduate 2021

SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
I was born in Tomsk and spent the first year of my 
bachelor’s in Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) 
studying mechanical engineering. Then I switched 
to the physical faculty of Lomonosov MSU, where I 
suddenly got interested in biology. This interest led 
me to the biophysics department and later - to the 
“Life Sciences” program of Skoltech.
I like doing science for several reasons. First, I enjoy 
making sense of things. Second, I appreciate the 
scientific community, where most people are excited 
about their work, and your social status is based only 
on your intelligence.
My area of interest is spatial chromatin structure, i.e., 
the 3D conformation of DNA and proteins around 
it. Chromatin structure in the nucleus regulates 
changes that occur in cells, such as differentiation or 
response to signals. Therefore, most of my scientific 
projects involve studying changes happening in 
cells with time. For example, one of my projects is 
devoted to the differentiation of human neurons, 
and another one - to how amoeba D. discoideum 
reacts to starvation. During my master’s at Skoltech, 
I also participated in a project devoted to the 
methodology of chromatin data analysis which has 
been published. From a practical standpoint, all 
this research aims to better understand how human 
organisms develop, why errors in development occur 
and how to fix them.
Skoltech plays an important role in my scientific 
career. It gathered outstanding scientists under one 
roof and allowed me to learn from them and work 
with them. And the Skoltech scholarship keeps me 
going without the need for side jobs. After my PhD, 
I plan to stay in science, but I haven’t figured out the 
place and the research topic yet.
“Skoltech plays 
an important role 
in my scientific 
career. It gathered 
outstanding 
scientists under one 
roof and allowed 
me to learn from 
them and work 
with them”
Ilya Pletnev
Skoltech PhD Student
MSc graduate 2021

CONTEXT
I was born in Barnaul, Altai region, Siberia. Got 
my BS and first MS in physics from Novosibirsk 
State University. The initial focus of my studies 
belonged to the intersection of physics and 
embedded systems programming. My second MS 
I got at Skoltech diving into Product Design as I 
was eager to learn how to structure and manage 
hardware products development. Within the 
course of my PhD, I have developed a framework 
for strategic decision-making which was tested at 
the Airbus CTO office for emerging technologies 
evaluation. 
In parallel, after getting back from half a year 
of studies at MIT I’ve founded my passion - 
startup inTouch. My company goal is to develop 
wearable emotion recognition technology. This 
technology embedded into wearable devices 
would contribute to the whole mental health 
industry enabling better and remote services. 
My team has developed a hardware complex 
based on the in-house designed sensors to 
collect multimodal data labeled with human 
emotions. We won several startup competitions 
(e.g. Eureka contest at MSU, START program at 
Bortnik foundation), got pre-seed funding, and 
received the Skolkovo Foundation resident status. 
Currently, we are conducting negotiations with 
two out of the five largest electronics companies in 
the world discussing possible future partnerships. 
Several Skoltech representatives helped me 
along the way as mentors. I can certainly say 
that studying at Skoltech notably contributed to 
my maturation as a scientist and start-up CEO 
helping to develop professional skills on the top-
notch international level.
“I can certainly say 
that studying at 
Skoltech notably 
contributed to my 
maturation as a 
scientist and start-
up CEO helping to 
develop professional
skills on the top-notch 
international level”
Anastasia Stelvaga
inTouch
PhD graduate 2021

“Almost all 
the knowledge 
I use in my work 
was acquired 
at Skoltech 
or the university 
motivated me 
to get it”
I am from Severodvinsk, I got my bachelor’s 
degree in information security at the St. 
Petersburg State University of Aerospace 
Instrumentation (SUAI)) and after graduation 
decided to change the area of study. So, I 
got into the Skoltech master’s program in 
Information Science and Technology.
I didn’t have any significant achievements in 
industrial cases, so I started to participate 
in all possible ones to gain experience and 
understand my strengths and weaknesses. 
I entered the industry in my second year of 
undergraduate studies when I started working 
as a web developer.
In my opinion, areas related to artificial 
intelligence are very promising, complex, 
and interesting at the same time. Doing 
what you love is one of the most important 
success factors. I joined Sber in my first 
year at Skoltech when I was looking for an 
opportunity to combine my scientific work 
with something important for the industry. 
Continuous employee educations is the key 
to success in rapidly changing and dynamic 
areas. Almost all the knowledge I use in 
my work was acquired at Skoltech or the 
university motivated me to get it. I hope that 
the PhD program will be the next step in my 
further development.
Artem Zabolotniy 
Computational 
and Data Science 
and Engineering
program 
MSc graduate 2021

“Skoltech 
is an ideal place 
for startups”
I am from Moscow, I graduated from a gymnasium 
with a language bias. I had been interested in 
economics in high school but eventually I decided to 
go to a technical university (Sergo Ordzhonikidze 
Russian State University for Geological Prospecting 
(MGRI)). My school interests forwarded me to 
startups more then to fundamental science. Petroleum 
engineering seemed to me as the most promising 
option, moreover it is the basis of the Russian 
economics.
 The first my startup idea, which I worked on at 
MGRI, had not succeed. Then the new idea came to 
and I still working on it with my team at Skoltech. We 
are developing a hardware complex to improve the 
data transfer rate in drilling. There are a lot of sensors 
at the pick of drill. These sensors provide different 
kinds of data to operator. Due to specific of drilling 
of an oil well the data transmits with interference and 
not fast enough. Our team tries to fix that. 
We had got grant foundation for the project which 
allowed us to develop a laboratory setup. We have 
got many prizes at conferences in Lomonosov MSU 
and other Russian universities with that setup. Now 
we are working on an experimental prototype that 
can be used on an oil well. 
Skoltech is an ideal place for startup development. 
Firstly, the faculty is open for discussing projects with 
students. Most professors have major experience in 
the industry and can advise whom to contact with an 
idea. Secondly, Entrepreneurship and Innovations 
(E&I) courses help to improve the theoretical 
understanding of startups: business planning, 
strategy building, negotiation skills, etc. Thirdly, 
Skoltech has an excellent community. Graduates 
of the best universities study here which allows to 
assemble a team of like-minded people with a strong 
and diverse background and develop good projects.
Arsenii Chekalov
MSc Petroleum Engineering 
Class 2021

“At Skoltech 
education 
and research 
in machine 
learning are 
at a high level”
I was engaged in Olympiad mathematics since 
school and succeeded there. Then I decided 
to continue with this field and entered 
St. Petersburg State University. At the University I 
realized that I want to do something more practical 
and shifted my interest towards machine learning. 
I am attracted to advanced areas of machine 
learning: deep learning, Bayesian methods, 
reinforcement learning. I am trying to balance 
between fundamental and applied science.
On the one hand, I can finally apply my fundamental
mathematical education, on the other hand, I can 
implement the resulting algorithm and see how it 
works. Well, or it doesn’t work sometimes. I was 
lucky to get the opportunity to study at the new 
joint program of Skoltech and St. Petersburg State 
University. This year I will spend at Skoltech, and 
next year I will return to my native St. Petersburg. 
I enjoy the courses I have taken here, and I am 
glad that Skoltech has a wide range of research 
teams and supervisors. I started my scientific work 
here in the group of Statistical Methods in Machine 
Learning under the guidance of Maxim Panov. 
The topic is related to Gaussian processes and 
was proposed in cooperation with St. Petersburg. 
I like the idea of doing science in a research 
lab like Google Deep Mind or OpenAI (keep 
dreaming). At Skoltech education and research 
in machine learning are at a high level” Scientific 
work provides a lot of freedom, allows you to 
apply your knowledge, taste the interest and joy 
of small discoveries. The advancement of science 
undoubtedly brings benefits and doing something 
useful is always a pleasure. The laboratories of 
large companies often work on important and 
useful tasks and have enough resources for large-
scale experiments and a decent salary.
Kirill Tyshchuk 
MSc Data Science 
Class 2021

“One day, 
a friend of mine told 
me about Skoltech. 
When I searched,
at the first glance, I was
totally impressed 
because of the 
quality information 
which can be found 
on the website”
I’m from Turkey, Izmir. I studied Aerospace 
Engineering at Middle East Technical University 
which is one of the best universities in Turkey. 
After graduating, I’ve started a master’s 
program at the same university and department. 
I always wanted to work in the space field but, 
this program was mostly based on designing an 
aircraft. That’s why I kept searching for other 
opportunities through the internet. One day, a 
friend of mine told me about Skoltech. When 
I searched, at the first glance, I was totally 
impressed because of the quality information 
which can be found on the website. After 
that, I’ve searched for current projects in the 
Space and Engineering Systems Department. 
These projects were exactly what I wanted 
to work on. Also, I checked professors in 
terms of their research fields and the ongoing 
projects they have. I was quite interested in this 
opportunity and decided to apply. After a long 
admission process - online tests, interviews, 
and documentation, I got accepted, quit my 
previous degree, and came to Skoltech. Right 
now, I’m thinking about going to work in the 
industry since there are lots of ongoing projects 
which are done in connection with different 
companies/startups. Also, all the courses 
provide us to improve our hands-on experiences 
as a team since we are included in different 
projects along with those courses. That’s why I’m 
sure that Skoltech will prepare me to develop my 
skills mostly in the industrial field.
Melisa Basak 
Space and Engineering Systems 
MSc program student
Class 2021

130
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021

131
CONTEXT

Governance & 
management

134
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Skoltech was established by the decision of the General 
meeting of Founders in 2011. Since then, the governing 
system was evolved coming to the comprehensive 
framework with clear lines of authorities. The strategic 
priority is to maintain the framework focused, effective, 
and supportive to decisions on Skoltech development 
and the strategy implementation. 
Governing 
bodies 
International 
Advisory 
Committee 
External asessment 
of results, 
recommendations
on strategy 
Appointment, 
Promotion 
& Tenure 
Committee 
Review of faculty  
appointment, 
promotion and 
contract renewals, 
awards nominations
Executive  
Committee 
Recommendation 
on management 
decisions,
strategy 
and finance
Executive management
Educational 
Committee  
Oversight 
of teaching 
and learning 
activities,  
recruitment
Audit 
Committee 
financial
reporting, 
internal and 
external audit,
risks control
Research
& Innovation 
Committee  
Review 
of research 
plans, concepts 
for new 
laboratories, 
grant reports
General Meeting of Founders  
Board of Trustees
Academic Council
President

135
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT
The governance framework has a 
clear structure documented in Skoltech 
Charter. The governing bodies, each 
within the assigned authority, support 
the strategic planning, decision-
making and effective management. 
The Charter defines Skoltech 
purpose and goals, framework of 
the governing bodies. In 2021 the 
Charter was amended in support of 
the strategic initiatives – revisions 
covered the target domains, as well as 
provisions allowing to open bachelor 
programs. 
The General meeting of Founders is 
the highest collegial decision-making 
body, empowered to approve 
the Charter, appoint the Board of 
Trustees as well as approve Skoltech 
membership in different associations. 
Among resolutions made in 2021 
– approval of the 6th edition of the 
Charter, appointment of the new 
membership composition of the Board 
of Trustees with the term of office till 
December 2026, approval of Skoltech 
membership in Association “Industrial 
Internet”.  
Charter 
General meeting of Founders 
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
Tomsk Polytechnic University
Moscow School of Management Skolkovo
New Economic School
Rusnano
Russian Venture Company (RVC)
Development Institution “VEB.RF”
Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology
Scientific Center RAS in Chernogolovka
Sberbank Russia
General meeting of Founders

136
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Board of Trustees is a collegial 
decision-making body which gives the 
overall strategic direction of Skoltech 
development and ensures that ongoing 
activities are properly implemented. 
The Board is responsible for approval 
of the Strategy and Financial plan, 
monitoring the progress against the 
targets, evaluating effectiveness of 
executive management decisions. It 
also provides recommendations on a 
variety of activities to keep focus on 
Skoltech standing in the context of the 
mission and vision.
The Board’s agenda was dominated 
by the topics to bring the Strategy 
into operations – transformation of 
the research agenda, new strategic 
programs of Centers, a concept of 
the Project Centers. The Board also 
considered and approved the updates 
to the Strategy and new KPI system. 
Recommendations were provided 
on the strategic HR framework, 
the baccalaureate concept and 
endowment strategy. Among the 
regular decisions – approval of the 
Annual Report, Financial Report, 
budget 2022-2024. 
Considering the planned rotation, 
the Board elaborated the succession 
approach, allowed to keep 
a balanced composition of national 
and international experts, 
representing governmental 
authorities, top world universities, 
business. The new members were 
appointed in November. 
Board of Trustees

Viktor Vekselberg
Chairman of the Board of Trustees 
Member of Skolkovo Foundation Board of Directors. 
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Renova Group of companies
Arkady 
Dvorkovich
Chairman 
of the Skolkovo 
Foundation
Prof. Dr.
Johann Füller
Founder and 
CEO of HYVE 
AG, Chair for 
Innovation and 
Entrepreneurship 
at Innsbruck 
University
Tony F. Chan
President 
of King Abdullah 
University 
of Science 
and Technology
Simon 
Bradley
Founder & CEO 
of Percent-Edge.
Board member 
since 2020
Edward 
Crawley
Skoltech 
Founding 
President
Anastasia 
Rakova
Deputy 
Mayor 
of Moscow
Alexander
Vedyakhin
First Deputy 
Chairman 
of the Executive 
Board of 
SberBank
Pekka Antero 
Viljakainen
Advisor 
to the Chairman 
of the Board of 
Directors, Skolkovo 
Foundation
Svetlana 
Yachevskaya
Deputy 
Chairperson – 
Member 
of the Board, 
VEB.RF
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT
Alexander 
Galitsky
Co-founder 
and Managing 
Partner 
of Almaz 
Capital
Alexander 
Kuleshov
Skoltech 
President
Irina 
Okladnikova
Deputy Minister 
of Finance of 
the Russian 
Federation
Oleg Kharkhordin
Professor, Political 
Science Department, 
Director of the 
Center “Res Publica”, 
European University
at St. Petersburg
Richard 
Lester
Japan Steel Industry 
Professor and 
Associate Provost 
at the Massachusetts
Institute 
of Technology
Composition of the Board 
of Trustees as of Dec 31, 2021

138
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The Academic Council is a decision-
making collegial body to give 
academic governance for scientific, 
research and development, and 
education activities ensuring their 
highest quality and integrity. 
The Council is responsible for 
academic personnel recruitment and 
promotions, approval of educational 
programs, admission plans, review 
of research concepts related to new 
Centers and laboratories. 
The year was productive as the 
Council and Committees addressed 
a wide span of issues, the major of 
which were brought up to the Board 
of Trustees’ approval, such as the 
update of the Strategy 2021 – 2025, 
progress reports on the institutional 
transformation and reconfiguration 
of the Centers, a new organizational 
structure with regards to the Centers. 
Core educational policies were 
approved. 
In the year closure meeting, the 
Council rotated the Committees 
allowing a wider representation of 
faculty from the new Centers. 
Academic Council

140
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The executive management 
is responsible for organizing 
and managing Skoltech day-to-day 
operations in the respective directions. 
The authorities and responsibilities 
of the executive management 
are defined by the President  
and stated in the corresponding 
policy. 
During the year a few changes were 
in place with regards to the executive 
management team. After several 
years of valued service, Prof. Fedorov 
resigned from position of Vice 
President for AI and Mathematical 
Modelling to take up the position 
of Rector in the Sirius Educational 
Center. Tatyana Zakharova took up 
the position of Senior Vice President 
for Finance and Operations, 
while authorities of Vice President 
for Development Alexander Safonov 
were extended with oversight 
of the institutional transformation 
and HR strategy. Prof. Fortin was 
appointed as Associate Provost, Dean 
of Education while Denis Stolyarov
was appointed as the Dean of Students.
Executive 
management

141
The Institute management is supported 
by committees and working groups 
operating as advisory bodies with 
appropriate scope of expertise. 
The Strategy working group chaired 
by the Provost, is the principal 
management body, exercising 
authorities to facilitate the strategic 
report and planning cycle. During 
the year, the group set the approach 
for review and approval of the new 
strategic programs of the Centers, 
reports were delivered to the President 
and Academic Council. 
The Personnel Committee was 
established in December to facilitate 
the HR strategy. Under the guidance 
of Vice President for Development, 
the Committee addressed the new 
pay system and approaches for job 
levelling. 
The IT Committee advised on priorities 
of the IT landscape, considering 
alignment to the Strategy. 
Dozens of working groups were 
functioning on policy making to 
develop balanced regulatory 
provisions on policies regulating 
Centers’ operations, planning and 
reporting, teaching and learning, 
safety and operational management, 
financial issues. 
The organizational chart represents the management and administration 
structure as of 31 December 2021.
Collegial bodies 
Оrganisational chart
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

Organizational 
chart 
Development
Academic  Affairs 
Technology & Business 
Developmentt
Operational 
Management
Founders
Board
President
Alexander Kuleshov
Academic 
Council
Advisor for 
Security
Andrey 
Simonov
Security
Campus 
Construction
Provost
Keith 
Stevenson
Centers
Research 
Facilities
Research 
Initiatives 
Sponsored 
Research
Senior VP
Industrial
Cooperation
Alexey 
Ponomarev
STD Analysis
R&D Contacts
Industrial Programs
VP
Communications 
Alexey Sitnikov
Strategic 
Communications 
VP
Development
Alexander Safonov
Institutional 
Development
HR
Senior VP
Finance & 
Operations
Tatyana 
Zakharova
Finance & 
Administration
Legal
Procurement
IT
Internal Control
VP
Int. Business 
Affairs, IP 
Lawrence 
Stein
CEI
VP
Academic 
Relations
Grigory 
Kabatyansky
Center for Advanced Studies
Education
Dean of 
students 
Denis 
Stolyarov
Student  Affairs 
Associate 
Provost, Dean 
of Education 
Clement Fortin

144
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The composition and targets 
of Skoltech key indicators of 
development are defined by the 
Strategy, Grant agreement with the 
Skolkovo Foundation, the national 
program “Economic Development 
and Innovative Economy”. Annual 
and interim reports on achieving the 
targets are reviewed by the Board of 
Trustees, Skolkovo Foundation, and 
the Ministry of Finance. 
The 2021 was a year of transition to 
the new KPI system, focused precisely 
on four major components – research 
excellence, impact on economy, 
employability of graduates and 
contribution to Skolkovo ecosystem. 
The methodology on calculating 
Skoltech impact on the national 
economy and estimates were made by 
the New Economic School, Skoltech 
Founder and a long-lasting partner.
KPIs and 
benchmarking

145
Strategy 2021 – 2025 indicators
Impact on the national economy 
(bln Rub)*
Skoltech affiliated startups in Sk 
ecosystem
Publications in Nature Index, A* 
conferences 
Graduates’ employment in the 
national innovation sector 
Bln 
Rub
Units 
(cum.)
Per av. 
faculty5
%
Unit 
17
57
NA
70
2020
201
71
1.0
70
2021
NA
70
0.7
70
Target 
2021
Supporting indicators
Publications in WoS, Scopus per faculty 
MSc and PhD graduates
MSc and PhD graduates (cumulatively) 
Patent applications per faculty 
External funding (% in the budget) 
5.6
92
224
0.2
20%
2017
5.8
176
400
0.5
25%
2018
6.3
252
652
0.4
26.5%
2019
6.4
365
1017
0.6
29.6%
2020
6.5
342
1359
0.6
34.5%
2021
* measured in core impact (direct effect, suppliers effect, staff spending effect, students spending effect), 
graduate premium, commercialization, impact produced by startups. 
4 Source: report of the New 
Economy School (2021)
5 Average faculty – 119.4
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT
Indicator

146
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Group 1. Top world leaders with science and technology focus 
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Delft University of Technology
KU Leuven
Group 2. Young research intense universities 
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Nanyang Technological University
Pohang University of Science and Technology
Group 3. National universities
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
St. Petersburg National Research University of Information 
Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
University
Short
Foundation
year
Caltech
MIT
TU Delft
KU Leuven
KAUST
OIST
KAIST
NTU
POSTECH
MIPT
ITMO
1891
1861
1842
1834
2009
2011
1971
1991
1986
1946
1994
The data was sourced from Scopus /
SciVal, THE profiles of the universities, 
and official university webpages.
As shown on the charts, Skoltech 
is a fast-developing international 
university, maintaining the position 
on track with similar model young 
universities in science and technology.
The present benchmarking report serves 
a purpose to overview Skolech standing 
against to the top world institutes, rising 
young universities rapidly climbing up 
in the international rankings, as well as 
national technological universities. The 
comparative university group includes 
11 universities.
Benchmarking report

147
Student – faculty ratio
Share of international students 
KU Leuven
TU Delft
ITMO
NTU
MIPT
KAIST
POSTECH
MIT
Skoltech
KAUST
Caltech
OIST
17,0
16,0
14,7
11,8
10,3
10,1
8,3
7,4
7,1
6,3
3,1
36,3
Engineering - Petroleum 101-150
Materials Science & Engineering 301-400
Biological Sciences 301-400
KU
Leuven
TU
Delft
ITMO
NTU
MIPT
KAIST POSTECH
Skoltech
KAUST Caltech
MIT
OIST
82%
64%
34%
33%
31%
24%
21%
20%
18%
16%
10%
3%
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

148
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Share of female students
KU Leuven 51%
OIST 41%
KAUST 37%
TU Delft 31%
ITMO 36%
POSTECH 24%
NTU 48%
Skoltech 33%
MIPT 26%
KAIST 20%
MIT 40%
Caltech 36%

Share of International faculty
98%
68%
15%
21%
15%
14%
11%
POSTECH
ITMO
Skoltech
KAIST
KAUST
MIPT
NTU
*According to QS WUR 2022

150
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Growth of papers in Nature Index 
55%
50%
22%
38%
16%
6%
4%
KU
Leuven
NTU
KAIST
POSTECH
Skoltech
KAUST
OIST
The chart shows the growth based on comparing two periods (2018-2019 and 2020-2021)
Nature Index Growth versus papers in Nature Index per faculty
Publications in Nature Index (per faculty)
Skoltech
OIST
KAIST
KU Leuven
KAUST
NTU
POSTECH
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Nature Index Growth (2018-2019 to 2020-2021)
0
2
4
6
8
10

151
Publication in top 1% growth (period 2018-2019 versus 2020-2021)
48%
40%
12%
25%
4%
3%
1%
KU
Leuven
NTU
POSTECH
Skoltech
KAUST
OIST
KAIST
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT
Papers in Nature Index per faculty versus university age
Years after foundation
Skoltech
OIST
KAIST
ITMO
KAUST
NTU
POSTECH
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Number of publications in Nature Index
per faculty
0
10
20
30
40
50

152
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Foreign grants awarded (2017-2021) (mln,$)
Source: SciVal 
Awards Volume in SciVal refers to both the count and the value of grant awards. Awards Volume considers 
aggregated values of awards over the award lifetime. In other words, it considers the total value awarded at 
the time of award and not the value (to be) spent in any particular time period.
33.0
44.5
23.5
21.2
16.0
7.4
4.5
MIPT
NTU
KAIST
ITMO
Skoltech
KAUST
OIST

153
Source: SciVal. 
This is the average patent-citations received per 1,000 scholarly outputs published by the entity (e.g. a 
university). i.e. the patent citation counts divided by the total scholarly output of the university for that period 
and multiplied by 1,000.
Patent-Citations per Scholarly Output (2017-2021)
MIT 108.2
KAUST 43.6
OIST 40.3
NTU 31.2
KAIST 35.9
ITMO 7.7
Skoltech 61.5
KU Leuven 33.9
TU Delft 25.2
POSTECH 43
Caltech 36.4
GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

Financial 
performance

156
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Financial Highlights
Operating Expenses
Capital expenses
Endowment Net Assets
3 626
2 215
4 556
4 084
1 794
4 717
5 557
689
4 559
6 620
800
4 775
7 204
1 083
4 787
7 499
806
4 635
2017
2016
(in millions of rubles)
2018
2019
2020
2021
Attracted Funding incl. other revenue
   Attracted Funding
         Sponsored research contracts 
         & professional training 
         Grants
         Shared Facilities
   Other revenue
1 887
1 840
1 276
544
20
48
2 466
2 345
1 603
709
34
121
31%
27%
26%
30%
70%
154%
2020
(in millions of rubles)
2021
Change %
Financial Report 
for the year ended December 31, 
2021
In fiscal year 2021 Skoltech operated 
in the challenging pandemic 
environment. Thanks to the financial 
strategy and a reasonable and well-
balanced finance framework, during 
2021 Skoltech demonstrated a stable 
financial performance that supports 
the core activities and enables 
the strategy. Skoltech met 2021 
operational budget requirements, 
grew income, fulfilled commitments 
in delivering research contracts and 
kept educational process going. 
Delivering on an ambitious
agenda to complete the campus 
construction in 2023, 
in 2021 Skoltech continued 
construction of laboratories.

157
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
Funding
Expenses
As of fiscal year end 2021, Skoltech 
total funding from various sources 
was 10 224 mln Rub, a 1 239 mln 
increase, or 14 percent from fiscal 
2020. The increase was primarily 
driven by the attracted funding, a 
506 mln Rub increase, or 27 percent, 
along with a carry forward balance 
of 2020 unused cash of Skolkovo 
Foundation Grant (585 mln Rub). 
The increase was partially offset by a 
decrease of distributed income from 
Endowment, total distributed 396 
mln Rub incl. unused cash of 2020 
(79.8 mln), a 14 percent decrease 
from fiscal 2020, total 460 mln Rub, 
including unused cash of 2019 (52 
mln Rub). 
The 2021 structure of funding did not 
change significantly in comparison 
with the previous year. The Skolkovo 
Foundation Grant (total 7 361 mln 
Rub) remains the largest component 
of total funding resulting to 72 percent. 
Despite general implications of 
the pandemic, attracted funding 
continued to demonstrate a substantial 
growth, 27 percent comparing to 
fiscal 2020. In 2021 income from 
research grants and industrial 
contracts remain the core category 
of attracted funding. In the upcoming 
year Skoltech is going to move to the 
new business model. This will result 
in a change of Attracted funding 
portfolio: a slowdown of extensive 
growth in research contracts and 
grants, versus increase of share of 
income from commercialization of IP 
results and technology transfer.
In fiscal year 2021, the expenditures 
totaled 8 304 mln Rub, including 
capital investment projects, a 45 mln 
Rub increase, or 0.6 percent from 
fiscal 2020. A slight increase of total 
expenses in fiscal 2021 resulted 
from a combination of a few factors. 
Operating expenses rose 322 mln 
Rub due to an increase of number of 
attracted research contracts and partial 
return to a normal mode of operations 
on Campus. The increase was offset 
with a 277 mln Rub decrease in Capital 
expenses due to the slowdown of 
capital construction works in fiscal 
2021. As of fiscal year end 2021 
Operating expenses totaled 7 499 mln 
Rub, Capital expenses totaled 806 
Mln Rub. Structure of expenses did 
not change significantly comparing to 
fiscal 2020. Expenditure comprises the 
following primary activities: Teaching 
& Learning, Research, Innovation, 
Student support and development, 
Operations, Campus, Governance and 
Management.

158
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Operating Expenses
In fiscal 2021 staff expenses 
increased 105 mln Rub, or 3 percent 
comparing to 2020. The increase 
is naturally driven by salaries of 
additional staff recruited to support 
research contract activities and new 
Faculty members. These expenses 
include salaries, compulsory social 
security contributions, bonuses, 
medical insurance, reimbursement of 
accommodation and benefits in kind 
provided to employees. Remaining the 
largest category for Skoltech, staff 
costs represent 55 percent from total 
operating expenses. 
Teaching and scholarship support 
increased 79.5 mln Rub, or 11 percent 
comparing to fiscal 2020 mainly due 
to a scholarship increase 12 percent. 
The increase is naturally explained by 
the shift in the payment schedule to the 
students in 2021 and due to partial 
release of COVID-19 restrictions in 
Russia, which allowed international 
students to return to semi-offline 
educational process. The cohort did 
not change significantly and reached 
1063 students as of the year end 
2021.
As in previous years, in 2021 funding 
of Joint research programs with 
world’s leading universities remained 
in priority agenda for Skoltech. 
During fiscal 2021 expenses related 
to research initiatives increased 
62 mln Rub, or 11 percent and totaled 
632 mln Rub. The core expenses 
related to the payment of 499 mln Rub 
under the long-term research program 
with MIT, 12.5 mln Rub for NGP 
projects, and 61 mln Rub for Agro 
technology initiatives. 
Campus rent, utilities and maintenance 
expenses totaled 845 mln Rub 
representing 12 percent from total 
Teaching 
& Learning, 
Research, 
Innovation 
67%
Student support 
& development 
10%
Campus 
13%
Operations 
5%
Governance 
& Management 
5%
5 542
1 107
870
380
405

159
operating expenses and include 
costs for repair, maintenance 
of engineering systems, utilities, 
cleaning and security services. 
A 10% increase is driven 
by Campus utilities expenses, 
which were paid by Skolkovo 
Foundation in Jan-May 2021.  
Other operating costs included 
materials for research, business 
trips and events, software and IT 
equipment maintenance, operating 
rent of equipment, PR and marketing, 
library, taxes and charges. Expenses 
of this combined group totaled 
1 077 mln Rub and remained 
at the same level as in fiscal 2020, 
a slight 0.1 percent change was 
primarily due to the same external 
and internal conditions, far from 
normal operational Campus mode: 
less need for travel, office supplies, 
services for offline conferences offset 
by COVID-related expenses such 
as cost of work safety. Apparently 
business trips expenses increased 
by 60% and materials for research 
by 19% comparing to 2020 due 
to partial release of pandemic 
restrictions in Russia in 2021, 
which was balanced by a decrease 
in professional services expenses.
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

160
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
2020
Staff costs, 
4,122
Other operating 
expenses, 527
Professional 
services, 226
Campus rent, utilities 
& maintenance, 845
Teaching and 
scholarships, 822
Joint Research 
Program, 632
Materials for 
research, 324
55%
11%
8%
4%
12%
3%
7%
Staff costs, 
4,018
Other operating 
expenses, 547
Professional 
services, 257
Campus rent, utilities 
& maintenance, 770
Teaching and 
scholarships, 742
Joint Research 
Program, 570
Materials for 
research, 273
56%
10%
8%
4%
11%
4%
8%
2021

161
Capital Expenses
Skoltech is committed to a long-
term expenditure plan, implying 
construction of the campus. In fiscal 
2021 the capital expenses totaled 
806 mln Rub, including expenses 
on research equipment and SW 
totaled 526 mln Rub, 246 mln Rub on 
construction of Laboratories 
and 33 mln on furniture. In Q1 2021 
the laboratory construction schedule 
was revised, considering the change 
in financing schedule 
from the Skolkovo Foundation, 
which resulted to a delay 
in construction works, a 54 percent 
decrease in Labs construction 
expenses comparing to 2020 
and increase in operating cost.
Endowment
The Endowment Fund has a long-
term investment strategy developed 
to enhance the Institute’s financial 
independence and support the 
Strategy. The primary goal of the 
Endowment Fund investment policy 
is to ensure reliability, liquidity, yield 
and diversification of investments. 
Endowment funds are managed 
by professional asset management 
companies, including Management 
Company Alfa Capital and 
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
754
586
67
24
285
536
246
97
101
33
1461
1208
598
418
445
526
2019
2020
2016
2 500
2 000
1 500
1 000
500
2018
2021
2017
Spent on equipment and software
Spent on Labs construction
Spent on furniture 
0

162
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Management Company VTB Capital 
Asset Management, and can be 
invested into the state bonds of the 
Russian Federation, Russian corporate 
bonds and in Russian Rubles in state-
owned banks.
As a part of the investment strategy in 
2021 Skoltech carried out an analysis 
of the local market of key players, in 
which management large endowment 
are located. Proposals for investment 
strategy were requested and received 
from strong Asset Management 
Companies, the proposed strategies 
of which recommended to diversify the 
portfolio with more risky assets and 
an increase in the share of investments 
in liquid shares of Russian companies. 
The attractive factors towards the new 
strategy are low assessment of Russian 
market, high dividend yield with 
no withdrawals from the body 
of the fund. 
The Endowment Fund as at 31 
December 2021 amounts to 
4 635 mln Rub (vs 31 December 
2020 amounts to 4 787 mln Rub). 
The following assets comprise 
the portfolio of the Endowment Fund 
as of December 31, 2021:
Russian government bonds
Corporate bonds
Cash and Cash Equivalents 
Other receivables/payables 
TOTAL
559  
4 072  
2  
2  
4 635
12%
88%
0%
0%
100%
Mln RUB 
Net assets
TOTAL
 %

163
Analysis of the structure 
of the Endowment Fund portfolio 
(including bonds, cash in bank) 
as of 31 December 2021 shows 
that Corporate bonds share represents 
88 percent of the total portfolio 
comparing to 79 percent as of 31 
December 2020. 
Financial result from the management 
companies’ investment activity
in fiscal 2021 is 163 mln Rub comparing
to 322 mln Rub in fiscal 2020. An 
annual return declined 3.4 percent 
comparing to fiscal 2020 due 
to the general negative situation 
on the market. The Year 2021 was 
very challenging for the Russian bond 
markets. Among unfavorable factors 
were tightening of western sanctions, 
acceleration in inflationary pressure 
up to 8.4 percent by the end of year, 
conservative monetary policy 
of the Central Bank of Russia, interest 
rates hike from 4.25 percent in March 
21 to 8.5 percent in December 21. 
All these negative factors created 
conditions for a significant short-term 
volatility for the Ruble bonds and 
resulted the OFZ index declined 
4.9 percent during the year 2021. 
In these conditions the Endowment 
Management companies focused on
a conservative investment portfolio with
a duration of under 1 year to mitigate
credit and interest rate risks, which helped
to produce a return of 3.59 percent.
Annual return, mln rub 
Annual return, %
163  
3,59%
322  
6,98%
-159  
-3,39%
2021
2020
Change
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

Campus

166
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
Skoltech campus is internationally recognised for its 
exceptional environment and high-quality facilities 
for staff and students. In 2021 Skoltech continued to 
invest in design and arrangement of spaces, making the 
environment inspiring and vivid. In addition to design 
and construction activities, several creative projects 
were completed.

167
CAMPUS
The Library was designed around the 
principle of noise level gradation and 
designing specialized zones. Getting 
into the library, students go from a 
“noisy” entrance group, allowing to 
have discussions of conduct group 
projects, towards a “quiet” space 
equipped with mobile modules 
for individual work. Bookcrossing 
zones are available while valuable 
literature is concentrated indoors. 
The furniture supports the concept 
providing both acoustic solutions and 
providing opportunities of team work. 
The multimedia system allows to hold 
conferences, thematic lectures and 
supports students’ independent work. 
In the library space, a graphic project 
is being implemented, carried out with 
involvement of ESH team. Graphics 
provide a navigational function, 
which in a game format showcase 
publications through QR codes on the 
stained glass windows.
The campus space at the main 
staircase was used to present the 
exhibition of modern art, collected 
by the curator Marina Vinogradova. 
The collection of art was placed on 
the specially designed exposition 
equipment, which allows to place 
exhibits provided to Skoltech. The 
concept of the equipment supports 
the aesthetics inherent in Skoltech 
campus, focuses on art, dissolving 
into space with subtle structures. The 
following artists are represented at 
the exhibition: Alexander Dashevsky, 
Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai, Asya 
Marakulina, Egor Kraft, Ekaterina 
Sokolovskaya, Ivan Plyushch, 
Konstantin Benkovich, Liza Bobkova, 
Petr Dyakov, Semyon Motolyanets, 
Tanya Akhmetgalieva.
Library
Exhibition of the Russian Museum

168
SKOLTECH  ANNUAL REPORT	 2021
The campus spaces were also used to showcase 
some art work produced by Skoltech community. The 
examples are graphic design of the campus, made 
by Ivan Bogdanov, deputy head of professional 
training programs direction, as well as art work of kids 
dedicated to the Holiday season.
Exhibits of Skoltech community
In order to use the spaces more 
effectively, Skoltech leases spaces 
to external clients to hold events. 
In 2021, around 50 events were 
hosted, among the clients are 
VEB. RF, Ward Howell, MSM, 
Accounting Chamber of the RF, 
Sberbank, Otkrytie Bank, Alfa-
Bank, Tochka Bank, MTS, Beeline, 
Yandex, KIA, Adidas, Aeroflot,
Ferrero, J7, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle.

The installation “Table of 
electronegativity of the chemical 
elements”, showcases the scientific 
discovery of Professors A. Oganov 
and K. Tantardini in a visualization 
of the periodic table in the form 
of a system of chemical elements. 
The elements that are not 
hazardous are presented in flasks 
integrated 
into the cell system. Elements 
that cannot be exhibited in open 
space are illustrated with flags 
representing the country that 
opened the element. Screens with 
the presentation of a scientific 
discovery are built into the 
structure.
Science installations

Skolkovo Institute of Science 
and Technology
Bolshoy Boulevard 30, bld. 1
Moscow, Russia 121205
Tel.: +7 (495) 280 14 81
skoltech.ru
The information in this report 
was correct at the time 
of printing (March 2022).
Skoltech reserves the right 
to alter or amend the material 
contained in this report.