State support of education, in particular an increase in the wages of researchers should become a priority task for the state budget for 2004. Such a statement was made on May 21, 2003, by Chairman of the Duma Committee of Education and Science Alexander Shishlov (the YABLOKO faction) to a meeting of the Committee discussing the priorities for forming the federal budget for 2004 in financing expenditures on science.

The Committee thinks that implementing the joint decision by the Security Council of the RF, the Presidium of the State Council of the RF and the Council for High Technologies and Science under the President of the RF which was approved by the President of the RF the Government should allot at least 2.21 per cent of the expenditure part of the federal budget to financing of science and research in 2004. The priority directions should be as follows: increase in wages to researchers, increase in financing for research via competitive funds to the level envisaged by normative acts, increase in expenditures for purchases of scientific equipment, development of the information base, development of university science, support for high technology innovation projects, capital repairs and construction of scientific facilities.

Deputy Minister of Ministry for Industry and Science of the RF Mikhail Kirpichnikov, Deputy Minister of the Education Ministry Yuri Shlepov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennadi Mesyats, rector of the Lomonosov State University Viktor Sadovnichiy participated in the meeting of the Committee and supported the draft decision of the Committee proposed by Shishlov. At the same time the participants of the meeting criticised the proposals of the government's commission for optimization of budget expenditures merely aimed at saving funds. In particular the Nobel prize winner Academician Zhores Alfyorov noted that "it is high time that the Finance Ministry abolished its narrow accountant's approach to science and education, as these sectors are the engines of progress."

The state is in debt before scientists, and the Government is not authorised to review the decisions of the Security Council and the State Council, noted Shishlov.

See also: