#6159
#14
Ekspert
March 26, 2002
Innovation Revolution
The government, the scientific community and hi-tech businesses attempt to
turn Russia into an intellectual superpower
By Dan Medovnikov
(therussianissues.com)
What happened in the Kremlin last Wednesday could only be described as a triumph of technocracy. The president's Council for Science and High Technology, the Presidium of the State Council and the Security Council led by Vladimir Putin arrived at the conclusion that science and technology are among Russia's top priorities. Speaker after speaker emphasized the point that innovation was the only way open to Russia and that it must take that path without delay.
In what might have been seen as a revival of long-forgotten slogans, they called for measures to make science the country's main productive force and make sure that scientists and developers enjoy an adequate social status (the calls date back to 1914 when the outstanding Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, founded a commission "for the study of Russia's natural productive forces." The Bolsheviks carried on the commission's work). An outsider might have been under the impression that the political and business elite were demonstrating full support for the country's scientific community, notably the Academy of Sciences, to spend more on the study of natural phenomena so that they could later be changed into the cold, hard cash of hi-tech business. According to statistics, it is hi-tech businesses that account for the lion's share of GDP growth in developed countries. However, that impression would have been correct only in part.
The reform in science and technology is to be completed within a relatively short time, about eight years. The drafting of guidelines ran into problems. It encountered resistance from the more conservative section of the academic lobby who can't stomach even the word "innovation" and also from the Ministry of Finance bureaucrats who insisted that the four percent budgetary appropriations were too much of a good thing (although the law "On State Policy on Science and Technology" provides for four percent, appropriations for this sphere have been five times as low).
The final draft that came under discussion on Wednesday could be seen as a fair compromise between academics, politicians and those who advocate the interests of the innovation community in the state. One of the provisions makes it clear that "the formation of a national innovation system" will be one of the government's main priorities in the next few years. According to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology Ilya Klebanov, "the establishment of the correct balance for distributing the state's resources between various phases of the innovation cycle" is called for. He made his point even clearer when he said that "government support for fundamental and applied research in the absence of a developed industry and of a marketing system for hi-tech products results in subsidizing other countries' economies at our expense. Today, Russian industry is under intense pressure from international corporations aiming to oust our scientific and technological products from the Russian, as well as international, market by supporting their own innovation systems."
Like any other innovation system, the Russian system implies the establishment of a single infrastructure, including both state-run and private organizations (technical parks, innovation and technological centers, guaranty and venture funds, investment banks, etc). In this situation, the government will seek to form a favorable economic and legal environment by "stimulating extra-budgetary financing and creating the necessary conditions for venture investment in science-intensive sectors." Of course, such bureaucratic formulas make it difficult to understand the real mechanisms stimulating the establishment of an effective innovation system within a short period of time, but at least the objective has been set.
President Vladimir Putin made another important point. He said he was confident that Russia needed "a market-oriented innovation model for organizing science" that would reflect "the meaning of the science reform," especially in the academic sphere. The guidelines provide for the wholesale inventory of state-run research institutions and also a reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which will "release some federal property." As plans stand now, inefficient research institutes and laboratories will be closed, with the money thus released being used to support small innovation businesses. The guidelines also set out a procedure entitling Russian manufacturers and "other investors" to state-owned intellectual property. You gets the impression that the country is in for a new wave of privatization, this time privatization of the "intellectual" component of the economy.
In addition, customs duties on imported scientific equipment will be lowered, and research institutes will receive tax concessions. One line in the guidelines is entirely revolutionary: it calls for federal and regional budgets to fund "the training of specialists in innovation management."
And, finally, the guidelines say the government will give approximately ten innovation projects the status "of national importance." Which areas of scientific and technological progress they will be covered is easy to see. They include power generation (including alternative sources of power), energy conservation, biotechnology, medicine, new materials, chemical technologies, electronics, ecology and possibly transport and space.
Ilya Klebanov revealed that a special team of experts was considering more than 200 projects laying claim to the "of national importance" status. They have to conform to stringent conditions: within three years they are supposed to yield a profit exceeding the initial investment by five times, and projects that have no chance of achieving that target will be rejected out of hand.
Ekspert has learned that the projects submitted for consideration include such well-known innovations as new-generation catalysts making it possible to increase the cost of petrochemical products by three to four times by refining crude more thoroughly. There are also promising projects for a powerful gas turbine, genetically modified plants, synthetic crystal dielectrics and many more (dielectrics, incidentally, have been exported to the tune of $100 million a year).
Seventy-five percent of the annual increment of budgetary appropriations are to be channeled into the Ministry of Industry and Science's "strategic" projects. The corresponding figure for fundamental research will be only 25%. In any case, the innovation revolution has come to pass, at least in the heads of key officials, including the president.
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