St Petersburg University STI Competence Centre to make recommendations to the State Duma Expert Council
Victor Dostov, Director for Research at the STI Competence Centre of the St Petersburg University Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre and a winner of the University’s competition on interdisciplinary projects, addressed a meeting of the Expert Council of the Committee on Economic Policy, Industry, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
By using blockchain technology, the St Petersburg University STI Competence Centre will make it possible to develop the economy
At this meeting, the bill ‘On Experimental Legal Regimes in the Sphere of Digital Innovations in the Russian Federation’ was discussed. Internationally, these regimes are called ‘regulatory sandboxes’, and they provide a chosen sphere with immunity from the basic law, making it possible to experiment expeditiously with new technologies and models.
Mr Dostov spoke about the experience of using ‘regulatory sandboxes’ in the financial sector and presented the St Petersburg University STI Competence Centre, which began its educational and research activities in 2018.
‘Regulatory sandboxes’ are relevant to those spheres of the economy in which innovations are actively being developed – medicine, transport and the production of new materials. Today, distributed ledger (blockchain) technologies are beginning to be used virtually everywhere, and the absence of a legal framework slows this process down, so specialists insist on using ‘sandboxes’ as soon as possible in this sphere.
Victor Dostov, Chairman of the Electronic Money Association and Director for Research at the STI Competence Centre of the St Petersburg University Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre
The St Petersburg University Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre will now prepare analyses and submit recommendations to the members of the Expert Council on the possibility of introducing an experimental legal regime in the sphere of distributed ledger technology.
The St Petersburg University Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre
Dmitrii Sazonov, Vice-Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, Industry, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, also addressed the Expert Council, as did Artem Koltsov, Chairman of the Expert Council on the Digital Economy and Distributed Ledger Technologies, Sergei Izrailit, Director of the Development and Planning Department of the Skolkovo Foundation, and representatives of finance companies and law firms.
The St Petersburg University Distributed Ledger Technologies Centre was established in 2018 following a Russian Venture Company competition for federal government grants to universities and academic organisations. The Centre is part of St Petersburg University. A consortium of industrial partners, along with Russian and foreign universities and academic organisations, has been set up to carry out its development programme. As a result of the competition, 14 STI competence centres were set up throughout Russia to promote technologies that could lead to economic breakthroughs.