Interfax: Putin: Future Research Fund should look over horizon, avoid rainbow chasing

Artist's Conception of Nanotechnology Components

TULA. Jan 21 (Interfax) – The Future Research Fund should not chase rainbows and have scientific and technological illusions in the selection of projects it will support, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

He added that the Fund “should be looking over the horizon.”

“It is important to avoid straight repetition of even promising solutions in the selection of projects. As a rule, it is not efficient to spend resources on following the path someone has already traveled. We need our own non-standard ideas and propositions. Although the goals must be ambitious they also must be realistic,” the president said at a Tula conference dedicated to the Future Research Fund’s activity.

“There must no rainbow chasing, scientific and technological illusions and dreams based on nothing,” he said.

“We cannot spend money on unrealistic or unwanted projects. We realize that such works unavoidably have some leftovers but its percentage has to be minimized,” Putin said.

This is why the Fund should maintain close contacts with the leading scientific organizations and industries of the country, he added. Putin stressed that the Fund should not duplicate the state armament program. “The Fund has to operate outside of its [program’s] planning horizon and conduct the long-range search for technologies, which will secure our defense capacity in the future and become a breakthrough,” the president said.

The Fund is expected to deal with dual-use technologies capable of giving an impetus to the national industries and economy. The Fund administration is aware of that, Putin said. “I very much hope that this will secure Russia’s leading positions in a number of innovative areas,” the president said. He urged the Fund to be more active in using the potential of civilian science.

The allotted resources should contribute to the national security and defense, as it was done by the Academy of Sciences in the past decade, the president opined. This is why it is important to develop interaction between the Future Research Fund and the newly established Russian Scientific Fund, to engage Fund specialists in cooperation with Russia’s leading universities and institutes and to use the potential of the center for the collective use of scientific equipment, which has been actively developing its network in the country, he said.

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