The Russian Academy of Sciences will begin to be modernized by the scientific community itself, Nikolai Plate, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Tass. “The academy’s structure is not ideal. It should certainly be modernized, and the small sums allocated to it from the budget should be used more rationally” he said.
“There is a waste of funds connected with the inefficient work of research institutions, and some of them are extremely weak”, he said. The vice-president said, “Over the past two or three years we have reduced some 50 institutions“. “Some of them are now under the charge of other agencies, other ceased to exist as legal entities, and their research was taken up by other institutions”.
Plate said research institutions of various branches, most of | Ads |  |
which became state scientific centres would also be reviewed. “They include centres that have learned how to survive in present-day conditions by striking deals with consumers as the state funding is clearly not enough”, Plate said. “Other institutions proved not viable”, he said.
Plate said the reform should not result in a rift between the fundamental science and applied science. “The role of the fundamental science is to set the trends for the future technologies. If we concentrate on problems of applied sciences only, we will rapidly exhaust our reserve of knowledge and will not be able adequately to respond to the challenges of the market”, the vice-president of the academy said.
MOSCOW, October 29 (Itar-Tass)
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