The government reduced universities financing

The Russian government reduced financing of leading universities in the Russian Federation by 12 billion rubles. The resolution is published on the official portal of legal information.

According to the past decree in 2017-2019, 14.5 billion rubles to support universities were annually allocated from the budget. The government decided to reduce this amount to 10.6 billion rubles in 2017, in 2018 10.2 billion rubles will be allocated, and in 2019 - 10 billion rubles. The expenses of universities in 2020 remained at the same level - 14.5 billion rubles.

This money was allocated to universities to "increase their competitiveness among leading world scientific and educational centers." Money was distributed as part of the project 5-100. Support for it was received , in particular, the Higher School of Economics (HSE), the first Moscow State Medical University named after I.M.Sechenov, Ural Federal University (URFU), Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU).

In January, RBC also learned about the government’s plans to reduce spending on the development programs of a scientific and technical complex by 25 billion rubles. The reduction will have to get expenses on research and popularization of science, but the costs of technical equipment of scientific and educational institutions will increase.