"Together we are stronger"

"Together we are stronger"

As a result of the official visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron to Moscow on September 11-12, 2011, an MOU has been signed on Monday September 12 between JAI and the Nuclear Cluster of the Skolkovo Fund for Developing and Commercialising New Technologies.

As a result of the official visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron to Moscow on September 11-12, 2011, a number of bilateral documents were signed, including those pertaining to economic and scientific-technical cooperation. In particular, an MOU has been signed on Monday September 12 between JAI and the Nuclear Cluster of the Skolkovo Fund for Developing and Commercialising New Technologies.

The aim of the MOU is to express the intention of the parties to establish a joint Centre for Applied Research, whose work will focus on the development and creation of a compact intense x-ray source based on laser-plasma acceleration.

These developments were reflected in the speech of the UK Prime Minister in MSU (Moscow State University) on Sep 12, where David Cameron in particular has said: “…But opening up trade and investment is not enough on its own. As governments, we need to support the innovation and entrepreneurship that can drive growth. Vital to this, as Prime Minister Putin has said, are breakthrough ideas in science and technology.” … “In the UK, we are creating a tech hub, a Silicon Valley of our own in East London. Here, President Medvedev has founded the Skolkovo Innovation City. World-leading British universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Glyndŵr in Wales will be working with Skolkovo on lasers, optics, nuclear and energy efficiency.”

The Science and Technology Section of UK Embassy in Russia in its press release detailed that “…The John Adams Institute - with scientists from the University of Oxford, Royal Holloway University of London and Imperial College - are developing a new joint research and development centre with laser and accelerator institutes in Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Dubna and Moscow. With the stewardship and support of the Nuclear technology cluster of the Skolkovo Foundation, this will apply recent advances in laser plasma acceleration to create far cheaper and more compact X-ray sources with widespread applications in the pure and applied sciences, in medicine, and in industry…”

In his speech in MSU, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron emphasised the theme “together we are stronger” and repeated this phrase throughout his speech, several time, in Russian (“Вместе мы сильнее: together we are stronger”). This is both the title of this article and our main principle.