OREANDA-NEWS. The sanctions imposed on Russia in connection with the special operation in Ukraine will allow the money to remain inside the country, and this money can be spent on investments in science. Pavel Volchkov, a virologist and head of the MIPT Genomic Engineering Laboratory, told Gazeta.Ru about this.

“Now a unique moment has come for Russian science. Willingly or unwittingly, ideal opportunities are created for the money to remain inside the country. Now is the time to create ideal conditions for investment in short, medium and long processes. For this, the tax system also needs to be restructured. The main indicator of a scientist's effectiveness, from my point of view, is his contribution to GDP. It is clear that it is impossible to evaluate this in a short period of time. But a scientist can be assessed by the possibility of attracting private and public investments for his development. It is through the prism of co-financing that I propose to evaluate any projects. In these times, it seems to me, we need to focus on the science that creates the product, ”Volchkov noted.

It is also worth supporting scientific journals, he added. This can be done according to the same scheme as in the 5-100 project, aimed at bringing five Russian universities into the top 100 universities in the world - to finance the strongest Russian scientific journals and raise them to such a level that they can compete with Nature and Science.