MEPhI will launch the "University Accelerator". The selection of technological projects for it will be carried out within the framework of the program “Development of MEPhI in cooperation with the State Corporation Rosatom until 2030”, which is designed to promote the formation of an entrepreneurial environment at the university.

The work of the MEPhI accelerator will be based on InnoHub of Rosatom's own methodology for working with technology startups. It has been improved over the course of five years and twelve cycles of the existence of an industry accelerator in Rosatom and has proven its effectiveness.

“The project to create the University Accelerator assumes that MEPhI will implement projects that can later turn into working technology businesses,” said acting. Vladimir Kislov, Head of the Directorate for the Development of Project Activities at MEPhI. “The test launch has already taken place: at the request of Rosatom, we independently found teams at MEPhI capable of creating technological developments, the necessary corporations.”

Six applications were submitted. Two out of six projects were accelerated at the Innohub of Rosatom as part of the methodology transfer. On July 18, the final stage of the competition took place - it selected projects that would receive funding from Rosatom.

As a result, it was decided that two projects would receive financial support from the State Corporation. One of them is devoted to the subject of UAVs - a team led by 4th year student of the MEPhI Nikita Posekanov is working on it. This project was one of two that were accelerated directly at the Innohub of Rosatom. Thanks to the active work of the team and the support of trackers, the project received funding in the amount of 10 million rubles. The second project is devoted to the problems of applied automotive electronics, a team of 40 people is working on it, headed by Director of the Institute of Engineering Physics for Biomedicine (PhysBio) of the MEPhI Alexander Garmash. Its funding will amount to 26 million rubles.

In September, the University Accelerator will operate at full capacity and begin to recruit new projects. Anyone who is ready to go down the difficult thorny path of creating their own developments and bringing them to the market - from students to laboratory leaders - will be able to apply.

The process of nominating projects and their finalization is as follows: first, the application, which describes the idea of the project, passes the primary expert selection for viability and relevance (selection is carried out by experts from MEPhI, Rosatom and invited external experts).

Then the teams that submitted applications with the most promising ideas are invited to the accelerator for a deeper study of projects and training - coaches will work with them weekly for two months. The teams will take a specialized educational course developed with the participation of Innohub of Rosatom experts, they will learn how to find potential customers, seek funding, calculate the cost of a project, plan its implementation, build a roadmap, conduct market research, look for new staff for the team, etc.

The last stage is the defense of the project at the Investment Committee, which considers the potential business models of the selected projects and makes a decision on financing.