SAMARA, June 2. /TASS/. The second Russian-Swiss forum "Innovation Day" opens today in Samara, the press service of Russian Engineering Union said on Thursday.

"Scientists, politicians, heads of leading industrial enterprises and companies of Russia and Switzerland will meet at the forum. About 70 Swiss businessmen are expected to participate," the press service said.

The forum will start with the plenary session "Partnership of Russia and Switzerland. Demand for innovations." After that, work will continue on four major directions - engineering, medicine and pharmaceuticals, environment protection, education and infrastructure of innovation support. The participants of the forum will discuss issues of leading innovational approaches in the sphere of dealing with industrial and household waste, prospects of developing renewable energy in Russia, relevant issues and problems of introducing systems of water and air purification. Special attention will be paid to training professionals in innovational industrial spheres, cooperation between institutes and holding joint scientific research in innovational spheres.

"Switzerland has been the leading innovational country in the world for several years. Its success was based on the very close connections between science and production. Dialogue between scientific and entrepreneurial elite should be continued in order to turn into mutually beneficial cooperation, and the second innovations forum provides a great opportunity for that," Switzerland’s Ambassador to Moscow Pierre Helg said in an address to participants in the forum.

The first Russian-Swiss innovations forum was held in Lausanne in 2013 and become a start of implementing the whole range of Swiss investment projects in Russian regions. In particular, Samara State Aerospace University and Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology signed an agreement on establishing a joint institute in Samara for developing the component base for Russia’s aerospace enterprises.