Dmitry Medvedev: “The foundation needs to partner with everyone who is interested in seeing it achieve results, such as the Russian Research Foundation and Russian universities. Of course, it should enlist the participation of leading research and designs teams as well.”
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and General Director of the Foundation for Advanced Research Andrei Grigoryev
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and General Director of the Foundation for Advanced Research Andrei Grigoryev
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and General Director of the Foundation for Advanced Research Andrei Grigoryev
Prior to the meeting, Dmitry Medvedev toured an exhibition of projects designed by the Foundation for Advanced Research, featuring a wide range of the latest weapons and military equipment, as well as the technology for their manufacture and use.
The Foundation for Advanced Research, in conjunction with the Russian Academy of Sciences, public research centres and leading universities, aims to promote research and design in the field of defence and national security.
In 2013, the foundation reviewed 1,017 projects, developed and approved the 2013-2016 Foundation Programme and drafted a shortlist of 77 realisable projects.
***
Opening remarks by Dmitry Medvedev at the meeting:
Meeting on cooperation between the Foundation for Advanced Research and research institutions
The Foundation for Advanced Research was established to support the development of advanced weapons. However, this is not all that the foundation is designed to do. I hope that it will engage in other activities as well. We really need to focus on what our armed forces will look like 20-30 years from now. As you may be aware, this idea is partially based on international analogues, but this is nothing to be ashamed of. We should take advantage of all sensible things that are used by our partners, and not only our partners, to build our institutions.
Dmitry Medvedev: "The Foundation for Advanced Research was established to support the development of advanced weapons. However, this is not all that the foundation is designed to do. I hope that it will engage in other activities as well. We really need to focus on what our armed forces will look like 20-30 years from now."
Last year, the foundation became fully operational and started looking for innovation-based projects that it could work on. Now it’s time to implement them. We’ve looked into what the foundation is doing now. Many of their ideas are quite promising, but some of them need additional work. In fact, they are still only ideas, but these ideas have a good chance of being implemented.
The foundation should employ approaches that will allow it to conduct innovative research that might also involve high risk. This research should open up opportunities to create the weapons of the future, meet our long-term strategic goals and ensure protection against projected critical threats. We are all aware of these threats, and military and other analysts are studying them; therefore, the foundation’s breakthrough projects should focus on the future and should be proactive, if you will. They should stay ahead of the state armaments programme and look into the future.
Dmitry Medvedev: "The foundation needs to partner with everyone who is interested in seeing it achieve results, such as the Russian Research Foundation and Russian universities. Of course, it should enlist the participation of leading research and designs teams as well."
The foundation needs to partner with everyone who is interested in seeing it achieve results, such as the Russian Research Foundation and Russian universities. Of course, it should enlist the participation of leading research and designs teams as well.
It is preferable to avoid overlapping research, although at times it helps achieve better results. Occasionally, concentrated efforts of different research groups on the same topic bring better results, but we still want to focus on new ideas.
The foundation should not confine itself to designing military equipment. As a matter of fact, the idea behind the foundation was for it to develop defence solutions that would help address socioeconomic issues, such as the capacity utilisation of minerals (mining in the Arctic), building scientific and industrial clusters in various locations, including the Far East, and developing advanced medicine.
Dmitry Medvedev: "The foundation should not confine itself to designing military equipment. As a matter of fact, the idea behind the foundation was for it to develop defence solutions that would help address socioeconomic issues, such as the capacity utilisation of minerals (mining in the Arctic), building scientific and industrial clusters in various locations, including the Far East, and developing advanced medicine."
It is, of course, important to employ innovative forms of work organisation. We must work on concentrating the intellectual potential. This is a complicated matter that involves issues of remuneration and other forms of motivation, and working conditions in general. So, I hope that the foundation's administration and Government leaders will keep this in mind.
The partnership between the foundation and prospective clients will be instrumental in achieving this goal.
