Science is being rearranged on a project track - Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) of 09/20/2022

Science is being rearranged on a project track - Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) of 09/20/2022



Government plans to change approaches to the management of science are beginning to manifest themselves in departmental documents. The Ministry of Education and Science has published a draft government decree proposing to decouple experiments on targeted support for individual result-oriented R&D from the general cumbersome and clumsy state system of science management and to manage complex scientific and technical programs according to project principles - as separate federal projects outside of national projects. The White House is looking for ways to converge investor interest in innovation with the massive resources that the government is already spending on R&D without getting much of a return.

The Ministry of Education and Science published for discussion a draft government decree "On approval of the Rules for initiating integrated scientific and technical programs (KSTP) and complex scientific and technical projects of a full innovation cycle ...". De facto, we are talking about the desire of the department to raise the status of such programs to independent federal projects that are not included in existing national projects.

To do this, the agency rewrites the rules for initiating programs so that the documents prepared by the developer (usually one of the ministries) and agreed by the priority area council and the coordinating council are submitted for approval to the government commission for scientific and technological development (nowa joint decision of the government and the presidential council for science). KSTP, let us explain, are research and production programs focused on a specific industrial result, for example, “New Composite Materials”, “Synthetic Lubricants for Extreme Conditions”, “Creation of Domestic Protein Components for Baby Food”, etc.

From the logic of the document, it follows that the status of a “federal project that is not part of the national project” is needed by the Ministry of Education and Science for the KSTP in order to extend the principles of project management implemented by the White House project office to the management of such programs. The project office was an idea of ​​2016, which was subsequently expanded into a system of national projects and made it possible to implement a number of initiatives, bypassing the extremely formalized and bureaucratic interdepartmental interaction that was standard for the then government. Note that in the field of science, this problem is also obviously present: even in the described innovative development of the Ministry of Education and Science, the first sentence contains 208 words, and the subject and predicate in it are separated by 72 words.

The need to simplify the management of results-oriented science is caused by the White House’s plans to rebuild the state program “Science” and consolidate about 1 trillion budget funds under its management, with the declared (see “Kommersant” dated February 2) intentions to close the loop of those interested in innovation and technological solutions of investors (see Kommersant of August 30) and authors of promising, but rarely brought to industrial designs, R&D results. Another task is to ensure the "technological sovereignty" of the industry in conditions of international isolation. So far, science in Russia is financed by two-thirds of the state (see "Kommersant" of August 29), and this situation, according to the authorities, should be a real demand for the results of private sector research.

To do this, the ministry also specifies the requirements for integrated programs and projects - an application for a separate federal project linking the scientific, practical and industrial solution of a specific problem will have to include not only its description, but also a rationale for relevance, a list of customers and proposals for development and production products, a description of the markets in which they will be in demand, an assessment of resources and an indication of sources of financing, including confirmation by the performers of the obligations to “implement guaranteed financing of a comprehensive program”.

Oleg Sapozhkov



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