Translated material
The science of coercion
The Prime Minister ordered to make the decisions of his Innovation Commission mandatory
Yesterday, the White House hosted a regular meeting of the government commission on high technologies and innovations - and the first one chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (previously it was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov). Mr. Putin ordered to expand the scope of the commission’s tasks and powers, increasing its influence on the implementation of state policy in the field of science and high technology.The Prime Minister immediately announced that the decisions made by the commission would be binding on all executive authorities. And the heads of departments will bear personal responsibility for the implementation of these decisions. Vladimir Putin recalled that a specialized department of science, high technology and education was recently created in the government apparatus. Many were interested in the question of how, in the light of all the changes carried out, the areas of interest of this government commission and the presidential commission on economic modernization would correlate. The head of the cabinet of ministers did not differentiate between them, diplomatically finding work for everyone: “The state stated that it chooses development based on innovation and modern technological solutions. Serious steps have already been taken to form a system of institutions and tools for modernization, but we still have too little truly innovative stuff. And we have a lot of painstaking work ahead of us, built not on slogans and appeals, but on real deeds. At the same time, it is necessary to clearly understand that innovative development is the responsibility of all ministries and departments, regional authorities, business, scientific and expert communities without exception. This approach should become an axiom for all of us.”
The Prime Minister listed the tasks facing the government commission: to continue creating institutional and other conditions for the introduction of high technologies, including reducing administrative barriers to innovative business, more actively attracting capital into the field of scientific research and high-tech production, promoting domestic innovative products both within the country , and beyond.
Vladimir Putin noted that Russia has yet to form a full-fledged intellectual property market, for which it is necessary to create mechanisms for the dissemination of information. In particular, there should be a unified information base for R&D carried out on orders from federal authorities, open and accessible to potential investors. “I also propose to think about organizing regular publication of national reviews of innovative development in Russia. The ability to present your capabilities and potential is a necessary condition for attracting qualified investors,” the prime minister believes.
At yesterday's meeting, the government commission paid special attention to budget policy, namely the issue of the efficiency of using government resources allocated for innovative development in various areas. As calculated by the Ministry of Economic Development, in 2010, for various items on fundamental and applied science, higher education, high-tech medical care, specialized federal programs (development of civil aircraft and shipbuilding, nuclear, space and other high-tech programs), the state allocates about trillion rubles, or 11% of federal budget expenditures. “In the future, we will strive to increase the share of development items in the budget,” the prime minister noted. “But this will not bring the desired effect if we do not learn to use the available resources more clearly and more competently.”
The head of government immediately outlined possible ways to improve the use of budget money. In particular, the development of the public procurement system: “I believe that procurement programs should include a mandatory innovation component, and access to budget orders should be primarily open to those involved in innovation.” As the head of the Ministry of Economic Development, Elvira Nabiullina, said after the meeting, about 4 trillion rubles are planned to be spent on government procurement at all levels - from federal to municipal - this year.
In his speech, the Prime Minister also proposed extending innovative principles to the procurement of development institutions and large corporations. And a specific development institution - Vnesheconombank - is asked to allocate a target quota for innovative projects.
“The share of innovative projects in the loan portfolios of banks with state participation should increase,” the prime minister said. “There is an idea, in particular, to allocate a target quota to VEB for innovative projects.” Vnesheconombank itself is ready for this approach. “We consider the proposal to allocate a target quota for financing innovative projects to be relevant and timely. In the near future, relevant documents aimed at supporting innovative enterprises will be prepared for consideration at one of the meetings of the supervisory board,” Deputy Chairman of Vnesheconombank Mikhail Kopeikin told Vremya Novostey. He noted that VEB pays special attention to cooperation with such development institutions as Rusnano, the Russian Venture Company, the Fund for Assistance to the Development of Small Innovative Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere, etc. “As part of the implementation of the program for supporting small and medium-sized businesses by the subsidiary bank of the Russian Bank for Development special banking products are being developed aimed at financing small and medium-sized enterprises working in the field of innovation,” said Mr. Kopeikin, noting that VEB itself has prepared a special action plan for the implementation of innovative projects and in the near future it is planned to change the principles of project examination in order to determine the innovative component in each project.
But yesterday scientific organizations received not a carrot, but a stick. Vladimir Putin insists on profound changes in this area: “We have about 4 thousand scientific organizations and six state academies of sciences, but quantity does not translate into quality. We need to move away from funding scientific institutions on the basis of faceless estimates; we cannot afford to maintain signs behind which there is nothing but a loud name or, perhaps, a worthy past, to pay for research that is irrelevant, duplicates each other, and sometimes simply gets from the dusty closets of the last century. It’s wrong, it’s flawed, it’s costly and it’s ineffective.”
As another incentive for innovative manufacturers, the Prime Minister proposed discussing additional tax incentives, and the Minister of Economic Development recalled that this issue falls under the competence of the Ministry of Finance. Ms. Nabiullina declined to assess the likelihood of introducing benefits, but her mood was rather moderately pessimistic. This is not surprising - the Ministry of Finance’s argument that in order to receive benefits many companies will declare their supposed “innovation” sounds very plausible.