MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, on Wednesday said Russia is facing not only economic, but also a scientific blockade that restricts access to technologies and contacts with Russian researchers.
He made the comments at a meeting of the presidium of the Presidential Council for Science and Education.
"Our country is under the strongest sanctions pressure," he said. "We have been declared a blockade both in economy and, unfortunately, even science, including the restriction of access to foreign technologies and the cessation of contacts with domestic scientists."
He said "some places are seeing this manifested more evidently while elsewhere it’s less obvious, but nevertheless all these problems do exist."
Medvedev said the country is facing serious challenges related to building its technological sovereignty and creating the basis for its independence from imports. In this regard, he proposed to discuss a new procedure for the development and approval of the forecast for Russia’s scientific and technological development. The previous document, he said, was adopted a long time ago, and the situation has changed drastically since then.
The new forecast, Medvedev continued, should become a tool for setting and adjusting the priorities of scientific and technological development as part of various plans and programs. While preparing it, it’s necessary to take into account scientific possibilities, the proposals that are generated in this environment, as well as the demands of the economy and the social sector.
"It’s necessary to assess the potential of technologies to overcome the challenges we are facing and to develop a strategic document that’s not abstract, but is as specific as possible," the official said. According to him, "any strategy is still of a general nature, nevertheless, it should be tied to the needs of the day," and for this you need to build a clear goal-setting system, highlight planning horizons, link each of them to certain tasks and tools for their implementation. "The main thing is that this forecast should lead to real practical results," Medvedev said.
He also added that the government is already creating a regulatory framework that determines the procedure for developing and approving the forecast. Medvedev said "it is necessary to act faster" when handling the task. "Changes to the law on strategic planning haven’t yet been agreed upon, which is why the preparation of new rules for developing and adjusting the forecast is being postponed," he said. "Another problem is related to decisions about the allocation of budget funds for this work."
The meeting will also consider the results of an expert assessment of the works that were submitted to receive Russian government awards in the field of science and technology for 2021, and determine priority candidates for this award.