Science in the budget - 2012

The adopted law on the federal budget for 2012 and the planning period of 2013 and 2014 provides for a significant increase in the costs of civil science: the total amount of federal budget expenditures for civil research and development this year should amount to 323 billion rubles, or 0.55 % of the GDP. However, a noticeable increase in research and development expenses is primarily associated with the support of high-tech industries (aircraft industry, shipbuilding, instrumentation, nanotechnology, electronic component base, space and nuclear complexes) and scientific and technical innovations, but the budget does not vibulate anything good.

The State Academy of Sciences will receive a little more money this year than in the past, this is mainly due to the increase in the salaries of state employees. The Russian Academy of Sciences (taking into account all regional branches) will receive 58.8 billion rubles. For fundamental research (with a total budget of 64.1 MRLD rubles), the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences - 7.3 billion rubles. (Almost all financing of the STRA is on fundamental research), the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences - 6 billion rubles. (with a total budget of 20.9 billion rubles).

This year, the budget law does not indicate how much leading universities and scientific centers will receive precisely for fundamental research from the federal budget, only the total amount of financing is indicated. Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov will receive 11.3 billion rubles, St. Petersburg State University-11.9 billion rubles. (Compared to last year, its budget will more than double). NIC "Kurchatov Institute" will receive 7.2 billion rubles from the federal budget.

But the financing of leading state scientific funds - the RFFIF and the RGNF - will remain at the level of the past - and 2010 - years: 6 and 1 billion rubles, respectively. So far, the struggle of the scientific community for increasing the budget of the RFFIF and the RGNF has not led to an increase in their financing, it was possible only to prevent reducing their budget (a year earlier it was planned that in 2012 the funds of the funds will be cut by about 30 %). Nevertheless, active actions were not in vain-there are certain progress: it is quite possible to increase the budget of funds by at least 30-40 % already this year, during the adjustment of the budget law. In addition, a general line is planned to increase funding funds, although the growth is still proposed and insufficient. So, in the article by Vladimir Putin “On our economic tasks”, published on January 30 of this year in the newspaper Vedomosti, the only figure regarding the financing of science is precisely the alleged volumes of financing three state funds (RFF, RGNF and Bortnik Foundation) in 2018 - 25 billion rubles. (Now the total financing of these funds is 11 billion rubles).

The volume of financing of the main federal target programs of the Ministry of Education and Science-the FCP for research and development and the FCP "personnel"-after a sharp growth last year, more or less stabilized. A little more than 20 billion rubles will be allocated for the first FCP, about 24 billion rubles for the second, and almost half of this money will go to financing the development programs of research universities, which became the result of changes made in 2010 in the FCP “Personnel”.

Big funds under scientific articles of the budget will receive a federal space agency - 76 billion rubles. 22 billion rubles will be allocated for the implementation of measures related to the creation and functioning of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. Nanotechnologies will not be forgotten: Rusnano OJSC will receive 22 billion rubles. in the form of a state contribution to its authorized capital, and 10.6 billion rubles. They will go to finance the "Fund for infrastructure and educational programs for the development of nano -industrial industry using infrastructure and educational programs."

Thus, the words about the importance of fundamental scientific research, regularly pronounced by the country's leadership, are not reflected in the budget: priority is given to development and innovation, often without tangible care that the investment is given real returns.

Evgeny Onishchenko