Meeting with the participation of Government Expert Council members.
Excerpts from opening remarks by Dmitry Medvedev:
Meeting with the participation of Government Expert Council members
Opinions about the effectiveness of our efforts to promote innovations vary. Nevertheless, it is clear that much has been done in recent years to create a modern system to promote innovation in Russia. Public and social organisations, as well as businesses, were involved in this work. We created specialised institutions and engaged in research and design policy in the broad sense. We have carried out reforms in theoretical science and higher professional training. We have also provided support to the high-tech industry. All of that has led to concrete results recognised both in Russia and internationally. In late January, Bloomberg released the Bloomberg Innovation Index. Russia went up several lines to a fairly decent, considering the current economic situation, 12th position, while the United States ranks eighth.
Our activities are closely linked to the level of higher education in the country, and the number of high-tech enterprises.
Meeting with the participation of Government Expert Council members
Problems that we are faced with include the low level of cooperation between research and private business, inadequate demand for innovation, and weak protection of intellectual property, even though the regulatory framework is fairly strong. We will discuss issues, such as assessing the effectiveness of development institutions, updating the innovation-driven development programmes of the companies with state participation, increasing the efficiency of spending on research and development, and ensuring transparency of support measures.
In line with a presidential instruction, we will soon create a new technological development agency, one which will focus on providing services related to searching for and acquiring technology licenses for Russian businesses, in addition to other tasks.
