In 2021, 100 new youth laboratories will be created in Russia

20/05/2021

A meeting of the Council of World-class Scientific and Educational Centers (RECs) was held in the Government of the Russian Federation under the chairmanship of Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Andrey Fursenko and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko. Valery Falkov, Head of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, delivered the main report on the results of the implementation of REC activity programs over the past year.

The members of the Council also heard reports from the heads of regions on strategic goals and key technological projects that are being implemented as part of the creation of REC.

"At the state level, the creation of REC is a chance to bring the regional economy, and with it the economy of the whole country to a new level. To develop a dialogue between scientific organizations and the real sector of the economy, it is necessary to consolidate efforts and develop new measures to support world-class scientific and educational centers, pay attention not only to their successes, but also to difficulties. This area of work should become a key one for the Council members for the coming year," Andrei Fursenko said.

Dmitry Chernyshenko stressed that today the state is aimed at the effective development of cooperation between science and business. To this end, the Government of the Russian Federation is developing new measures to support young professionals.

"The main idea of creating RECs is that the centers should demonstrate significant dynamics of development in various indicators. We are launching a unified assessment scale by August 1, and the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia together with the Ministry of Finance will develop an information digital platform. According to the principle of openness and publicity, regions will upload primary data to it. This will give you the opportunity to look up to the champions and improve your performance if necessary. And see the whole picture for all RECs. This way we will be able to understand which mechanisms need to be improved," Dmitry Chernyshenko said.

Summing up the results of the work of scientific and educational centers last year, Valery Falkov noted that the activities of the REC are unique in their own way and each center implements projects in accordance with the priorities of the country's Scientific and Technological Development Strategy.

"The creation of REC has had a positive impact on the development of scientific and technological activities in the regions of Russia, forced universities and scientific organizations to look at themselves from the other side. The membership of the centers is gradually expanding: Today, on average, about nine universities, seven research institutes and 18 organizations of the real sector of the economy participate in each association. The main thing is that scientific and educational centers have become a recognizable brand, to which business is actively responding," Valery Falkov said.

Certain areas of activity of the centers have already become end-to-end and are present in almost every REC, for example, digital technologies and artificial intelligence. In addition, there are also narrower topics in the activities of the REC, such as developments in the field of defense industry, Arctic research or innovations in the agro-industrial complex.

In March, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia conducted an assessment of the REC's activities for 2020. The total volume of indicators has been fulfilled by the centers. Thus, the highest growth rate in terms of the number of high-tech jobs created was recorded at the West Siberian REC, and the leader in terms of the growth rate of the volume of work performed and services completed with the creation of a prototype was the Kuzbass REC.

At the same time, according to the Minister, along with the positive dynamics, there are still a number of difficulties in the activities of the REC, which have not yet been overcome. Among them, there is a weak use of regional support opportunities, insufficient measures to attract and retain qualified personnel in the regions, including young researchers for the implementation of scientific and technological projects.

Valery Falkov noted that in 2020, the model of functioning of scientific and educational centers was significantly improved. Taking into account these changes and the difficult epidemiological situation in 2020, the Minister suggested to the members of the Council not to revise the funding of the centers in 2021 and distribute the grant among all RECs in equal shares.

The total amount of funds allocated to support scientific and educational centers in 2021 is 1,280 billion rubles.

"At the same time, I propose to develop a model for rating centers in 2021, taking into account the growth rates of performance indicators and, starting from 2022, distribute grant funds taking into account the ranking of RECs," concluded the head of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.

The members of the Council also discussed the creation of youth laboratories. In 2021, within the framework of the national project "Science and Universities", it is planned to create 100 new laboratories in scientific organizations and universities under the leadership of young, promising researchers.

"The personnel agenda is one of the key directions in the implementation of the programs of scientific and educational centers. We often talk about the problem of insufficient number of tools for attracting and securing young researchers in scientific and technical projects. In 2021, we have planned to create 100 new laboratories in Russian scientific organizations and universities. I propose to do this within the REC. The laboratories will be headed by promising young scientists under the age of 35. At the same age, there must be at least 70% of the total number of employees in it. We will allocate about 1.8 billion rubles annually for these purposes in 2021-2023," Dmitry Chernyshenko stressed.

The Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the Council support the initiative to create new youth laboratories among the participants of the selected scientific and educational centers, as well as in the REC participating organizations, whose applications showed high results during the REC 2020-2021 competitive selections, but were not among the winners.

Recall that today there are 10 scientific and educational centers that unite the efforts of universities, scientific organizations and industry in 20 regions: Tyumen, Belgorod, Kemerovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Penza, Tambov, Ulyanovsk, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Tula, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan regions, Perm Krai, the Republics of Bashkortostan and Mordovia, Nenets, Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts.

On April 28, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia announced another competition for the selection of RECs, during which at least five projects will be selected. You can submit the necessary documents until 18 o'clock (Moscow time) on May 27. The experience of the implementation of the first years indicates that the effect of the work of the REC participants will be cumulative. This will increase the potential for accelerating technological changes and the development of human capital in specific territories and, as a result, will form a stable framework of spatial connectivity of our country.