“Komsomolskaya Pravda”: “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: We are ready to allocate money for concrete work with meaningful results”
Yesterday, cabinet of ministers and directors of the leading research institutions spoke about innovations and high technologies once again.
Opening a meeting focusing on the programme of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Center (KI), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked those present to familiarize him with a five-year plan for the KI's development and its main objectives.
President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the centre's formation last April. The Kurchatov Institute National Research Center, the St. Petersburg-based Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of High Energy Physics, and the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics are taking part in the centre's establishment.
The key organizational decisions regarding this centre have already been made. It will be directly subordinate to the government and financed from the federal budget. Putin recalled that the government has decided to allocate an additional 10 billion roubles to the centre's development in the next three years.
The funding can be further increased, but only toward concrete projects with meaningful results, Putin said, adding that Russia plans to set up 5-7 more of such research centres.
"We are not going to simply merge or consolidate a number of the already existing, major and reputable institutions... We are not after a perfunctory merger or consolidation...We will form a single chain based on fundamental studies and ending in technology, resulting in real prospects for high-tech science-intensive markets," Putin said.
In his opinion, national research centres must receive the most advanced research and development facilities with a view to attracting both Russian and foreign scientists. It is necessary to concentrate our resources on those directions which hold promise of a breakthrough.
Putin said that "research at the junction of nano-, bio-, and information technology is designed to secure substantial progress in developing artificial intelligence, super computers, hardware components for electronics, new materials with unique properties, and diagnostic medical systems."
After the meeting, Putin met with Anatoly Perminov, head of Roskosmos (the Federal Space Agency), to discuss the programme for further upgrading Stellar City. Perminov recalled that there are three stellar cities in the world - in Russia, the United States, and China. Perminov promised that our Stellar City will be the most modern of the three. He said the programme for its further development will have been drafted by April 12, Cosmonautics Day.
Putin said that housing construction and repair should be conducted at the most modern level.
"Now we have a good opportunity for resolving all of the existing problems at the modern technological level and suggested learning about the situation on the spot. "We have the organizing committee, which is in charge of preparing the celebration of the first manned flight to space. Perhaps it is worth holding another regular meeting in Stellar City, which will allow us to get first-hand knowledge of the existing problems on the spot," Putin suggested.
Putin held one more meeting with VTB Group CEO Andrei Kostin (VTB is one of Russia's biggest banks). They discussed loans to Russian companies. Although the Central Bank's refinancing rate is the lowest in the history of modern Russia, interest rates on loans are still high.
"It is necessary to proceed from economic realities, but it is also important to adjust policy to economic necessity and the positions of the Central Bank and the government," Putin insisted. Kostin assured him that the bank will take into account these requirements.
Valery Butayev
