Science: Brain Drain and Underfunding. FBK’s study of How Much is Russia?

Another stage of studying under How Much is Russia: 10 Years Later was devoted to the assessment of science (Research and Development in accordance with RCOEA).
The basic problems of Russian science – the brain drain and lack of funding – though they were somewhat mitigated in the 2000-ies, turned out to be far from being solved.

The worth of domestic science decreased by 20% down to 37.2 bn roubles over the last decade. The average annual number of personnel engaged in the research and development projects reduced during the same period from 870.9 ths people in 2002 to 726.3 ths in 2012, i.e. by 16.6%.

According to the percentage ratio of the internal expenditure on research and development to GDP (1.12% in 2012 and 1.10% in 2011) Russia is still below practically all the developed countries. Out of 26 countries the OECD published the latest available data about for 2011 Russia is in the 24th place. In Israel the ratio of internal expenditure on research and development in percent to GDP is 4.38% (4 times higher than in Russia), in Finland and Sweden – over 3%, in the USA the same index is 2.77%, in Japan 3.26%, in Germany 2.84%. Less than in Russia the share of GDP was spent on research and developments in Poland (0.77%) and Slovakia (0.68%).

“For the state science was not a priority in the past decade – the Russian index of expenditure on research and development, notwithstanding the rich years, has not practically changed remaining at one of the lowest levels. That speaks about both the insufficiency of public financing of science and the inefficiency of incentives for the private sector to invest in science”, noted Igor Nikolayev, the FBK Institute of Strategic Analysis director and head of the study.

The detailed materials of the study may be seen at skolko.ru.