OREANDA-NEWS. March 21, 2012. The meeting, the Commission’s 29th so far, addressed the issue of making the research and development support system more effective in order to better pursue modernisation and innovative development.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon,

Colleagues, we are here at this research and production centre for the second time now. Two and a half years ago our Commission met to discuss modernisation in general and the development of new centres and clusters, including the [International] Biotechnology Centre Generium that is hosting us today.

We have seen what has been accomplished over this short time. Everything looks very good: the laboratories, offices, and the support infrastructure too, which I think is particularly important. When visiting various sites we always look over the production facilities, but here we have a good example of how to successfully combine the production site, the research facilities, and the living infrastructure, with houses built right nearby.

I met with the young people just now, and they told me about how things work here. This is a good example that illustrates well the subject we are set to address today, and it is always good when you see something new develop and take shape before your eyes, and what we see here is of world-class standards. This is all the more important when we think that many of the young people working here were working elsewhere before, working abroad in some cases, but had the will and desire to come here to work. They all said to me just now that the working and living conditions here are totally competitive in terms of how they measure up to world standards.

We will discuss the effectiveness of our scientific research support system today. I remind you that in 2010, I instructed the Government and the big state-owned corporations to draft an innovative development programme and make provisions for a substantial increase in spending on research and development. This matter was discussed with business community representatives too. We issued instructions designed to encourage the development institutions to support R&D activities at all stages, from coming up with new ideas to commercialising their results. I hope that Mr Fursenko [Education and Science Minister] will give us more detail on this in his report.

These efforts saw state investment in R&D increase, in some cases several-fold. The Federal Targeted Programme for Research and Development in Priority Fields [of S&T Complex of Russia in 2007-2012] alone saw its financing increase almost four-fold over the last year, from 1 billion rubles in 2010 to 4 billion rubles in 2011.

Our big state companies invested 50 percent more money in their innovation programmes in 2011 than in 2010. This is an improvement, though I think that 50 percent is still not a fantastic increase. The big state companies can do more, both by cutting costs in other areas and simply by investing more in R&D. This is essential and it is time they opened their wallets instead of waiting for handouts from the state.

We need to ensure maximum returns on investment by working faster to get the results of R&D put to practical use in production. We need to step up applied research in the universities and get business broadly involved in co-financing R&D activities as much as their possibilities allow.

I gave a few figures. Let’s take a look at what they actually mean and how the support mechanisms are working in practice, how the various support methods fit together, what real problems there might be, open or latent, and what additional decisions might be needed to make the support system more effective. I hope to hear from you not just appraisals of the situation, but proposals too.

Let’s get to work.

Before giving the floor to Mr Fursenko, I note that the Commission has met regularly throughout these last few years and you have all taken part in its work. I will think about how to reformat its work, but overall, its activity will continue and I hope that all of you here will continue to play as active a part in its work as possible.