Next to the Olympic Winter Games in 2014, the research centre Skolkovo is Russia's currently largest development project (the "Russian Silicon Valley"), which has been driven with highest priority by the Russian government since its announcement in 2009. The aim is to build various subcentres for research, education and innovation for today's key technologies. A major new innovation city that will consist of a university and a technology park is to be built not far from Moscow.

Together with the TU Berlin, the GFZ was involved in the three-stage international competition with a successful application for the creation of a Center for Space Geodesy, Navigation and Robotics. In addition to numerous Russian universities and research institutes, the American JPL of NASA and DLR with its Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof are application partners. GFZ scientists of the Department 1 - Geodesy and Earth Observation - are involved in leading positions in two important project areas of the new centre: Geodesy and Earth Observation (Prof. H. Schuh, Professor F. Flechtner) and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (Dr. J. Wickert ). The final formation of the centres is preceded by extensive contract negotiations that will begin in July 2013.