Translated material
Science in the 2011 budget
So, the budget for 2011 has been adopted. According to the press release of the Ministry of Education and Science [1], “227.8 billion rubles. provided in the 2011 federal budget for civil science, which is 32% more than in 2010 and 100 billion rubles. more than in 2008." Most scientists will probably be very surprised by these figures, since they have not noticed such a large increase in research funding. And they will be right: by civil science, the director of the Department of Organization of the Budget Process and the Introduction of New Organizational and Economic Mechanisms of the Ministry of Education and Science, Valery Yurkin, whose words are quoted in the press release, understands all the costs of research and development. A noticeable increase in research and development expenditures in 2010 was associated, as stated in a press release from the Ministry of Education and Science a year ago, with the support of “high-tech industries and scientific and technical innovations, including within the framework of the development of aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding, instrument engineering, nanotechnology, electronic component base, space and nuclear complexes.” The same line will be continued this year: “Compared to 2010, federal budget expenditures on fundamental research will increase by 9%, and expenditures on applied scientific research will increase by 50%.
Data on the financing of scientific research in various departments can be found in the law “On the federal budget for 2011 and for the planning period of 2012 and 2013” presented on the website of the Ministry of Finance [2]. Funding for state academies of sciences in 2011 will be slightly increased. The Russian Academy of Sciences (including all regional branches) will receive 55.9 rubles. for fundamental research (with a total budget of 62 billion rubles), the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences - 6.4 billion rubles, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences - 5.6 billion rubles. The federal budget also sets spending on basic research at the country's two main universities, which have a separate line in the budget, and they will also be increased. Moscow State University will receive 1.4 billion rubles “for science”. (with a total budget of 10.6 billion rubles), St. Petersburg State University - 545 million rubles. (with a total budget of 5.4 billion rubles).
What about the scientific funds, the financing of which scientists have expressed concern about? According to Valery Yurkin, “11 billion rubles, 600 million rubles more compared to 2010, will be used to finance state funds for supporting science - the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Humanitarian Foundation and the Fund for Assistance to the Development of Small Innovative Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere.” Moreover, funding from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Humanitarian Foundation will be left at the level of 2010, and in 2012 and 2013. It is planned to significantly reduce the funding of these funds. Thus, if in pre-crisis 2008 and earlier the RFBR received 6% of expenditures on civil research and development, then last year the fund received 3.5%, and in 2011 it should receive a little more than 2.6%... Which is mild speaking, it does not fit with the words of the Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko, who has recently stated more than once that he supports the opinion expressed in the Address to the President of the Russian Federation by 2,200 Russian scientists that the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Humanitarian Fund are very effective tools for supporting scientific research and should be supported Firstly.
However, the Ministry of Education and Science is making certain efforts. On December 3, 2010, the activities of scientific foundations were discussed at the Presidium of the Government of the Russian Federation, and on December 20, Andrei Fursenko spoke about scientific foundations in Zelenograd, at a meeting of the government commission on high technologies and innovations [3]: “Now just a few words about the financing of scientific foundations. When foundations were created in the 1990s, the amount of their funding was correlated with the total amount of funding for citizen science. And this has its own logic. Since funds are the breeding ground for the vast majority of large scientific innovation projects (and I can say that both the projects that are supported by Rusnano and the projects that are supported within the framework of the Russian Venture Company, within the framework of the Skolkovo project) are projects which to one degree or another were supported at the initial stages within the framework of the listed funds) - so in order to avoid a “bottleneck” anywhere, the ratio between the amount of funding from the funds and the amount of funding for citizen science as a whole was determined. This ratio was more or less maintained until the beginning of the crisis, when the total amount of funding for citizen science (including as one of the anti-crisis measures) not only remained the same, but also increased, and the amount of funding from foundations stopped. Moreover, there were questions about possibly reducing funding for funds. But there was a decision of the Government then (in general, it was agreed upon by the Ministry of Finance) to maintain the volume. And we maintained the same volume for 2011. Today in the draft budget for 2012-2013. funding has been reduced. We came up with a proposal to at least maintain and, in general, preferably increase the funding of the funds. I want to say that we have an understanding with the Ministry of Finance on this topic, we agreed to return to this issue when we look at the correction of the three-year budget in 2011. But nevertheless, I consider it necessary to mention this. It seems to me that it would still be extremely important for the funding of funds to grow, at least within the framework of inflationary problems (and preferably faster). Why is it so important to increase funding for foundations? Today it is dangerous to lend direction to research through foundations, because it is these exploratory studies that sometimes make it possible to obtain qualitatively new results where they were not expected. But if we maintain the range of research, then this leads to the fact that the volume of grants begins to decrease. For example, today the average grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research is 400 thousand rubles, from the Russian Humanitarian Fund - 350 thousand rubles, from the Assistance Fund - less than 1 million. And in some cases this is not enough to start groundwork. If in some works of a purely theoretical nature this is enough, then in works where there is an experimental component, this money is not enough. Therefore, I would really like for us to gradually increase the volume of funding for the funds, taking into account the existing economic realities.”
Increasing funding in accordance with inflation is, of course, not at all what should be done if you really consider the grant principle the most convenient for competitive funding of scientific research. But still, at least some movement in the right direction seems to be emerging, so it is necessary to push all the involved departments in every possible way in the right direction so as not to let words remain just words.
Evgeniy Onishchenko
1. http://mon.gov.ru/press/reliz/8162/
2. Section of the website of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dedicated to the federal budget - www1.minfin.ru/ru/budget/federal_budget/