Putin to chair meeting on high technologies in Dubna

MOSCOW, July 5 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
will chair a conference of the governmental commission for high
technologies and innovations on Tuesday. It will take place at the
Unified Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, the Russian government's
press service reports.
"The conference on development of scientific research infrastructure
is planning to work out the basic approaches to the creation in this
country of unique world-class research centres, the so-called Mega-Science
class installations which will make it possible to reach new horizons in
fundamental science," the press release goes on to say.
The creation of this kind of infrastructure is the backlog of
competitiveness of the Russian scientific complex and an opportunity to
establish fruitful international cooperation in breakthrough areas of
research.
At present, Russian scientists are taking part in implementing four
such mega-projects: the Large Hadron Collider within the framework of the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the creation of an ITER
reactor in France as well as the development of a European free electron
lasers and heavy ion accelerators in Germany. Besides, the Russian Academy
of Science has received a number of proposals to join other international
mega-projects, the press service goes on to say.
Over the past six years state budget allocations for Research and
Development for civil purposes have gone up three times: about 230 billion
roubles were appropriated for these purposes in 2011. About 40 billion
roubles had been committed to support science in higher educational
establishments and strengthen scientific schools in leading universities
in a period until 2012. In 2010, a package of measures aimed at enhancing
innovative activities in institutions of high learning was adopted in 2010.
A pilot project to create a national research centre was launched in
2010. The centre will unite the Moscow-based Kurchatov Institute, the St.
Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics named after P. Konstantinov
(Gatchina), the Institute of High Energy (the town of Protvino) and the
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Moscow).
The creation of the national research centre the Kurchatov Institute
was the subject of a conference held by Putin on January 12, 2010, the
press service reports.