MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. There is no confrontation between Russian scientists and their colleagues from other countries, as foreign countries themselves initiate cooperation, Russian Presidential Aide Andrei Fursenko said at a TASS press conference on Monday.
"As for scientific cooperation, there are definitely no signs of confrontation," he said.
As an example, he mentioned a ten-year road map related to Russian-German scientific cooperation, which is nearly completed. In this particular case, according to Fursenko, the scientific community of a European country has spoken out in favor of cooperating with its Russian counterparts.
Fursenko also pointed out that in three days, the Siberian city of Novosibirsk would host a meeting of the Presidential Council on Science and Education, whose participants were expected to discuss global scientific and technical cooperation and their key areas.
"We always had a feeling that international cooperation means working for someone else. But now we see that the global community is starting to work for Russia because we now have access to the intellectual property created by them," the Russian presidential aide noted.
Russia’s government funding of science, including applied research, is the highest in the world, and the situation needs to be changed, Fursenko pointed out.
"If we take a look at funding of civilian science, we will see that on average, around two-thirds of the funding allocated to science and applied research comes from private enterprise. However, our situation is different. If I am not mistaken, at present, we have more than 20% of budget allocations… [as far as government funding of science goes] we rank first in the world but this is not something to be proud of," Fursenko stressed.
The presidential aide emphasized that while continuing to provide funding for various research and development projects, the Russian government seeks to encourage extra-budgetary funding.