Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences explained the need to adopt a new Concept of technological development of the Russian Federation

How we can strengthen and develop the country in such a difficult time associated with sanctions was discussed at the beginning of this week by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov with the expert community. The meeting dealt with the Concept of Technological Development of the Russian Federation until 2030.

Let us recall that back in July last year, at a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to develop this concept. By words Belousov, the document is almost ready and should be approved by March. The main goal of the concept is to achieve technological sovereignty, that is, the country’s independence from foreign technologies. We must have our own developments that will raise the economy, the social sphere and ensure the functioning of production.

To do this, you need, firstly, to concentrate on priorities, that is, to understand what problems need to be addressed in the first place.

MK, for example, wrote that after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, our government identified several priority scientific areas in which we must urgently close the gap with the West. Among them are microelectronics, medical equipment, pharmacology, agriculture… According to the upcoming concept, in order for these and other areas to develop successfully, it is necessary to concentrate scientific thought on them and urgently begin training relevant personnel in universities. Next, it will be necessary to remove the existing barriers to the transition of the created science-intensive products to industry.

There is no text of the concept yet, but, according to information that became known to CNews, it was proposed to fight against the technological degradation that threatens us, in particular, by allocating sufficient funds for the development of new technologies and domestic high-tech products, state subsidies for reverse engineering, that is, copying foreign technologies, and mobile conversion of developments from the defense sector to the civilian one.

We talked with Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Ivanov.

Everything that Andrei Belousov said is correct and timely. Now the main document that determines the development of the field of science and technology is the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development, which was adopted in 2016. Naturally, it was adopted under other conditions, one of which was the need to integrate Russia into the world scientific and technological space. That is why the Strategy is focused mainly on big challenges, and its task is to ensure the competitiveness of Russian science.

Over the past year, the situation has changed dramatically. A new world order is being formed, and as a result of the actions of unfriendly countries that imposed sanctions against our country, we found ourselves isolated from foreign advanced technologies. In this case, now the main task is to transfer the country’s economy to a full innovation cycle. This, of course, requires setting a different task for science and technology policy. Now the main task is to ensure the competitiveness of the domestic economy as a whole.

– What should you pay attention to first of all?

In organizational terms, it is necessary, first of all, to restore the systematic nature of fundamental scientific research under the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to ensure the transfer of new knowledge to the education system, developers of new technologies and new product samples.

It is necessary to fundamentally change the goal-setting system, putting the creation of new product samples in the first place, and to form institutional structures for these tasks, and not vice versa, as is happening now.

And, of course, it is necessary to move away from formal, largely far-fetched, indicators of the effectiveness and efficiency of scientific research, to indicators that characterize the resource endowment of the research and development sector and the relevance of the results obtained.

If we talk about technology sectors, then here I would single out four main priorities: these are energy, information technologies (including those based on microelectronics), new materials, life and social sciences (medicine, agriculture, social issues).