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President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Krasnikov: Mr President, thank you very much for finding the time for this meeting. I would like to report on our performance and the implementation of your instruction, and also to discuss several other issues.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ok.

Gennady Krasnikov: Mr President, 2024 was a landmark year for the Russian Academy of Sciences, as we celebrated its 300^th anniversary. It was not just a national celebration but an international event in accordance with a UNESCO decision. We have held over 150 major events and hundreds at the level of regions and scientific organisations.

Major events included a gala meeting at the State Kremlin Palace, and a general meeting held at the end of May 2024, which was attended by many foreign delegations. It is notable that after that we held a meeting of the BRICS countries’ academies, which was attended by all heads of the academies from India, Brazil, Egypt, Iran and South Africa. During these meetings, which were held in a cordial atmosphere, we coordinated our future cooperation.

Last year, four Academy members became full cavaliers of the Order for Services to the Fatherland, three were awarded the title of Hero of Labour, and one member received the gold star of Hero of Russia. Altogether, 500 members of the Academy received state decorations. We appreciate this as the recognition of our scientists’ achievements for the benefit of our country.

I would like to speak now about one of our priorities, which is expert activity. We provide expert assessments in accordance with the law. Compared to 2022, their number has nearly doubled to 87,000.

I would like to add in this context that expert conclusions are not just taken into consideration but are accepted as significant and as a guide to action. In this connection, the number of negative conclusions we provide has increased more than tenfold because experts have at long last become aware of their importance and see that their conclusions are taken seriously. We have done this together with the Accounts Chamber, and our expert assessments are highly respected.

We have over 6,000 experts, more than 1,000 of which are members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. We upgrade our expert pool every year in terms of age, easing out those who have become inactive. This is very important.

We make long-term expert assessments for more than a thousand institutes and universities. We also assess high-tech projects, such as the 20 national projects focused on technological leadership, which were discussed at the State Council meeting last year.

We make expert assessments of roadmaps, programmes of scientific and technological development of regions, working on more than one thousand requests from agencies, as well as historical and cultural assessments.

I would like to mention several significant projects, namely, the Moscow–St Petersburg high-speed railway line, and the complicated assessments of the consequences of the fuel oil spill in the Kerch Strait.

Incidentally, we are also trusted to provide conclusions on foreign projects. Mongolia has requested our assessment of its Baikal project, where they want to build a cascade of hydroelectric power plants on the Selenga River since the Soviet era. We have coordinated the issue with the Russian Government and the Mongolian side and have established a joint commission with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences to examine this project. The decision will be binding on both countries.

Of course, I must also speak about the expert assessment of textbooks. Last August, you signed a law on the obligatory expert assessment of school textbooks by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

We have completed 346 assessments of textbooks and teaching aids to them. Moreover, we have compiled, together with the Ministry of Education, a plan for creating a single set of textbooks for general and secondary general schools in mathematics, physics, information science, chemistry and biology. That plan has been approved, and we might have new textbooks created jointly with the Russian Academy of Sciences by September 1, 2027.

I would like to say a few words about an extremely important sphere of scientific and methodological guidance. (Commenting on the presentation.) I will not comment on this table, which shows what it was like in the past. We have always had problems, and they are more or less the same as in the next slide. We usually formulate our vision of the aspects that call for serious analysis. We have examined 5,200 areas.

Under the established system we had in the past, institutes formulated their own state assignments. We examined them and only concluded if they were good or not. This resulted in the insular nature of research, with 30 percent of scientific subjects chosen for research and 70 percent left unattended. This is unacceptable; fundamental exploratory research should be undertaken along a broad front to ensure a high probability of accidental discoveries, which can hardly be pre-planned. Even if it is not us who make a breakthrough discovery, we should certainly have scientific groups that will take pick up the idea.

In general, we have thoroughly reassessed this situation and, from 2025 onwards, implemented an entirely new approach. It is now structured so that the Russian Academy of Sciences does not merely carries out assessments – it formulates state assignments based on actual demand.

We are already seeing high-demand results. These include research projects that are actively awaited by federal executive authorities. This is because regional administrations have introduced deputy head positions for scientific and technological development, there are high-tech companies, and there are our councils – all of this is consolidated within the Academy’s dedicated departments, in addition to applications received from institutes. As a result of this productive collaboration, we formulate state assignments where we identify one hundred percent of the essential work that should be completed on schedule.

Incidentally, we have adjusted the timeline accordingly – though I will not dwell on this in detail. It covers 2027 already, the process for formulating state assignments, as in September we will start receiving applications from the institutes so that we are in line with the budget cycle. Yet, this system enables precise evaluation of which institutes are leading, where the funding is insufficient, and which institutes face challenges. Previously, 30–40 institutes would be working on the same topic, and we had to choose the best from among them, which we didn’t.

This mechanism allows us to select the strongest proposals and applications, and fundamentally, to determine which institutes need more funding, while identifying cases where joint decisions with federal executive authorities and regional leadership are necessary to define an institute’s optimal role.

Separately, I would like to highlight the sixth subprogramme – focused on fundamental and exploratory research for national defence and security. We launched it at the end of 2023 after a prolonged absence of such an initiative. We consider it highly effective. I can confidently state that it has been designed correctly: all research is demand-driven and coordinated with approved chief arms designers and chief technologists.

For 2025, we note a high volume of applications from research institutes. However, we select only one in four applications for project financing. I will report separately on the outcomes of the sixth subprogramme, as it is yielding exceptional results in hypersonic technology and other areas.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

Gennady Krasnikov: There is something I cannot fail to mention, and that is the special military operation. At present, many members of the Academy – in addition to doing defence-related research work – almost half of them donate their personal funds towards the SMO effort. We create support funds and use our monthly academic benefit as contributions that we transfer to the fund.

In addition, the Academy of Sciences provides sponsorship to the 336^th Separate Guards Brigade.

Vladimir Putin: Of the Baltic Fleet, right?

Gennady Krasnikov: Yes, of the Baltic Fleet. A legendary brigade, holding the Orders of Zhukov, Suvorov, and Alexander Nevsky.

I wanted to report on the creation of a seamless research landscape with the Russian Science Foundation – we have streamlined the relationship with the foundation, which means the Russian Academy of Sciences now gets to approve the chairs of its expert councils.

An agreement was just reached with General Director Vladimir Bespalov and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Andrei Fursenko that all Russian Science Foundation experts will have to be approved by the Academy as well.

We have also agreed to make the foundation’s grants highly significant – a project either gets a negative assessment or it should be formalised as a state assignment. We are ready to subsequently include them in our long-term research programmes implemented by our research institutes.

The same thing is with the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects. They fall under the sixth subprogramme, so whatever positive outcomes are achieved under the sixth subprogramme, they are taken up by the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, which develops mock-ups, production prototypes, and then we include them in our R&D programme.

We have also reworked our influence on the nation’s scientific and technological development; two executive orders were enacted in this area. One created a Science and Technology Council (STC) under the Commission for Scientific and Technological Development headed by Dmitry Chernyshenko. The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences heads the STC. The other Executive Order appointed the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Deputy Chair of the Commission.

This mechanism turned out highly effective, fully restructuring the relations between the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Science and Technology Council. Here we fully consolidate our decision-making. For example, we considered 19 technological leadership projects – studying them carefully, making over 300 comments throughout over 50 meetings. This mechanism ensures perfect coordination.

I wanted to share some updates on regional policy. We have now established working relationships with each region, though I won’t go into all the details here. Together with Yury Trutnev, we are addressing issues in the Far Eastern branch, where river floods remain a challenge. Oleg Kozhemyako and I have also set up a joint centre focused on minimising the damage. In the Siberian branch, which includes Lake Baikal and the Selenga River that I mentioned, there is another problem related to the pulp and paper mill, specifically the sludge lignin we are monitoring, and mudflows. As for the Ural Federal District and the Northwestern Federal District, efforts are also underway.

We are currently working on the St Petersburg branch.

Vladimir Putin: You have organised the work, correct?

Gennady Krasnikov: Yes, we have. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We have already discussed the issues that came up earlier.

Gennady Krasnikov: Yes, those are primarily related to regional efforts. There’s quite a bit happening: they have consolidated their efforts and set up scientific councils across various fields. This has become one of the most active areas of our work.

Regarding regional policy, we are paying particular attention to southern Russia, including two federal districts as well as Crimea, Donetsk, the Lugansk Republic, Zaporozhye, and Kherson. We have structured our work there accordingly. For example, we have established a Russian Academy of Sciences representative office in Donetsk in coordination with Denis Pushilin. Svetlana Bespalova, rector of Donetsk State University, has been appointed the Academy’s representative. We have also involved the Lugansk People’s Republic to ensure oversight and participation.

In addition, we established the Kuzbass – Donbass Research and Educational Centre (REC). This initiative addresses shared challenges in the regions, such as issues related to mines and groundwater: nobody is addressing these issues, so we witness sinkholes, soil instability, and water quality problems. These problems are similar to those faced in Kuzbass, which is why we created a unified centre to tackle them.

We also organise scientific conferences in collaboration with the Volga Federal District, especially now that the Sea of Azov has become an internal body of water. Recently, we held a major off-site council meeting in Grozny, the Chechen Republic,.

As an example of our international efforts: last year, Sirius hosted the 22^nd Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry in collaboration with UNESCO and IUPAC – the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The event brought together over 4,000 participants from 39 countries. Leading scientists came to attend and delivered reports, including a Nobel Prize-winning chemist from Israel, who delivered an outstanding lecture at Sirius. This reflects our ongoing commitment to developing international scientific cooperation.

Vladimir Putin: Scientific contacts with international colleagues are continuing, correct?

Gennady Krasnikov: Yes, they are.

Vladimir Putin: Good.

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