Figures were placed on the way to sovereignty – Kommersant

The White House has decided on the targets of the strategy of technological development of the Russian Federation until 2030, which can be approved “in the coming days.” Among the plans is a 2.5-fold reduction in the technological dependence coefficient, for which it is planned to increase the level of innovative activity by 2.3 times, and patent activity by a factor of three: as a result, this should accelerate the growth in the supply of innovative goods by 1.9 times. This should help to provide venture investors with the “right to risk”, strengthen tax incentives for the commercialization of the results of intellectual activity and develop infrastructure for experimental design work. However, one of the main problems of the innovation market – the lack of lending in the Russian Federation secured by intellectual property to finance innovators – is still far from being solved.

First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, speaking yesterday at the Federation Council, revealed a number of target indicators of the concept of technological development of the Russian Federation until 2030. So, according to him, by this time the coefficient of technological dependence of the Russian Federation should be reduced by 2.5 times (compared to 2022). The indicator is determined by the ratio of the number of foreign and Russian patent applications for inventions – to reduce it, it is proposed to increase the level of innovative activity by 2.3 times, and increase the patent activity of Russian companies three times. As a result, this should ensure an acceleration in the growth in the supply of Russian innovative goods by 1.9 times – we recall that after foreign companies left the Russian Federation with the start of the military operation in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions, many industries complain about the shortage of domestic substitutes for foreign products.

De facto, the Russian economy is invited to make a sharp leap forward in technological development. “Over the past 20 years, these indicators have not changed at all: just as we were at the level of about 2000, so in 2020, and in 2022 they remain at about the same level with slight fluctuations,” he explained. , noting that the government’s target model for achieving technological sovereignty is now linked to the macroeconomic outlook until 2030. As a source in the White House told Kommersant, methods for calculating indicators for controlling the “spurt” will have to be developed practically from scratch. According to him, they are responsible for the methodology of the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of Education and Science with the involvement of the National Research University Higher School of Economics and other organizations.

It should be noted that, according to the HSE Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge, the interest of industrial enterprises in innovations, including those based on the results of research and development (R&D), is still small – in 2021 in the Russian Federation, only 17.4% of innovative activities were carried out large and medium-sized organizations (against 15.1% in 2019) and 6.9% of small enterprises (against 5.8%). R&D was performed on average by every fourth innovatively active company (23% of large and medium-sized businesses and 26.7% of SMEs). For comparison: the same indicator in Germany is 51.9%, in France – 61.3%, in Italy – 67.9%. In the Russian Federation, indicators close to international ones are typical only for enterprises in high-tech industries (41.9% and 51.6%, respectively).

To increase the innovative activity of business, the government is preparing for regulatory and organizational changes: a significant part of the concept is dedicated to removing legal barriers, supporting technological innovation and the intellectual property market. In addition, it is necessary to provide new production opportunities (see Kommersant of January 24). Thus, the first vice-premier complained that there is practically no infrastructure in the country for carrying out development work, and it needs to be developed rapidly. In addition, according to Mr. Belousov, in the industry it is necessary to revive the institution of a qualified customer – the institution of chief designers and chief technologists, by analogy with the military-industrial complex. Recall that earlier the White House, using the adopted technological taxonomy, set priorities in this area for the coming years – we are talking about both the creation of new industries for a wide list of products that are missing in the country, and the development of infrastructure for Russian exports in new directions (see “Kommersant” dated 18 April).

Also among the government’s ideas are the removal of the risks of administrative and criminal prosecution of bona fide investors in case of failure to achieve the goals of research and development, strengthening tax incentives for the commercialization of R&D and accelerating the turnover of intellectual property. The list also includes the launch of lending secured by intellectual property, but the government and the Bank of Russia have not yet been able to find a balanced risk sharing scheme for banks and right holders, which limits the financing of innovators, although some pilot projects in this industry have been launched (see Kommersant dated February 9 ).

Venera Petrova, Oleg Sapozhkov