Moscow State University denies reports that its scientific manuscripts must be vetted by federal police

The Vice President of Moscow State University, Andrei Fedyanin, who heads the school's scientific research programs, has denied reports that all new research must be vetted by the government's security services, in accordance with a federal law on state secrets. According to Fedyanin, only scholar's manuscripts are screened, though it is by expert commissions composed of fellow university staff.

"The university has introduced no new rules," Fedyanin stressed, explaining that this review process has been in place for decades.

• On October 20, Nature.com reported that Moscow State University's biology department would be "among the first to require that all manuscripts comply with Russia's law on state secrets." According to Nature.com, this new rule "appears in minutes from a meeting held on October 5 at the A.N. Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology at Moscow State University." Viacheslav Shuper, a geographer at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and Moscow State University, confirmed that all scientists will need to seek permission for new research from a branch of the Federal Security Service. He told the website that the university's geographers have received such instructions.
• In 2006, Vladimir Putin issued an executive order classifying "information about achievements in science and technology, and technologies that might be used in the creation of innovative products and the production processes of different industries." Similar language existed in the original version of this law, approved in 1995.