The Russian government’s goals for the sciences call for an update to the country’s scientific system. The goals are for R&D financing to make up 1.77% of GDP, Russian scientific publications to constitute at least 2.44% of the global total and the income of Russian scientists to be 200% that of the average in their regions of residence. Since June 2013, the system has been reforming, with the three state science academies merging. The new Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations (FANO) oversees scientific institutes. It is developing a system for supporting up-and-coming scientists and the highest-quality institutes and laboratories. The Education and Science Ministry has reported that 24 of 27 acts to establish a legal and regulatory framework for continued scientific development are complete. As of November 1, FANO has registered about 25,000 state facilities and, by 2015, aims to complete the registration and ownership process of all supervised facilities. The agency made 3,670 agreements with institutes, funding them at $1.9 billion, and has established a system for electing heads of scientific bodies.

Source: TASS