Reference
The document was drafted by the Ministry of Education and Science under the Presidential Executive Order on State Scientific Centres of the Russian Federation.
The directive aims to preserve leading world-class scientific schools in the Russian Federation, to develop the country's scientific potential and to train highly-skilled scientists.
State scientific centres of the Russian Federation operate under the federal law On Science and State Science and Technology Policy.
Under Clause 2 of Article 5 of the Law on Science the status of state scientific centres is awarded to any scientific organisation which owns unique equipment for conducting experiments, which employs highly-qualified scientists and specialists, and whose scientific and/or science and technical activity has received international recognition.
The current list of state scientific centres was approved by Government Directive No. 221-r of February 15, 2011 and contains 47 scientific organisations. In addition, Government Resolution No. 392 of April 25, 2012 awarded the status of state scientific centre to the federal State Budget Institution – the Burnazyan Federal Medical Biophysical Centre.
The Ministry of Education and Science has assessed the activities of state scientific centres in 2010-2012 and has drawn the following conclusions:
· State scientific centres involved in research and development projects (without part-time executors) employ 55,366 people, including 22,547 researchers. These centres employ 114 members and associate members of state academies of sciences, 7,047 doctors of sciences and specialists who hold PhDs. Over 30% of researchers are under 39 years of age;
· The size of the fixed assets of state scientific centres is estimated at about 83.44 billion roubles, including machinery and equipment worth 40.03 billion roubles. This is 20 billion roubles more than their fixed assets in the previous 2008-2010 evaluation period;
· State scientific centres were actively involved in implementing research and development projects under 28 federal targeted programmes;
· The proportion of work to implement priority aspects and to introduce advanced critical technologies, including under federal targeted programmes, accounted for 69% of their work;
· The annual number of publications in scientific journals and magazines, including research papers, books and teaching aids is about 7,000, including over 5,500 in peer-reviewed science and technology publications.
The science and technology expert evaluation and an assessment of the work of state scientific centres have confirmed that their activity meets the goals and tasks set out in the Law on Science.
The Inter-Departmental Commission on Technology Development of the Presidium of the Presidential Council for Economic Modernisation and Innovative Development has deemed it appropriate to preserve the status of 48 scientific organisations as state scientific centres (Commission Decision of March 13, 2013).
The document specifies the preservation of the status as state scientific centres of the aforementioned scientific organisations.