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President of Russia met with foreign scientists

Taking part in the discussion with Dmitry Medvedev were scientists from universities in the USA, Japan, Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and other countries, who were among the winners of the Russian Education and Science Ministry’s first tender for organising and carrying out research and development work at Russian universities. There was also scientific adviser LCSS, Ronald Inglehart.

Taking part in the discussion with Dmitry Medvedev were scientists from universities in the USA, Japan, Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and other countries, who were among the winners of the Russian Education and Science Ministry’s first tender for organising and carrying out research and development work at Russian universities. There was also scientific adviser LCSS, Ronald Inglehart.

На встрече с учеными – победителями первого конкурса Министерства образования и науки России на проведение исследований и разработок на базе российских вузов. Фото Пресс-службы Президента России, 23 мая 2011 года.
Photo: the Presidential Press and Information Office, May 23, 2011.

"Most of you have already started your work in the new laboratories set up at universities in Moscow, St Petersburg, Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk, and several other cities. I want to say from the outset that I have every interest in ensuring that these universities offer decent working conditions. I imagine that today there are still improvements to be made, but we are fully intent on doing everything necessary to ensure that our scientists and their colleagues from abroad have the conditions that will allow them to be as productive as possible. This will at the same time create better opportunities for exchanging and commercialising ideas, getting them used in production, and developing modern, high-technology business," the president said (a full transcript of the event  on the link eng.kremlin.ru).

Professor Inglehart about the meeting:

“It was a positive meeting. There were more that 30 people present. First of all, when we met with a president we thanked him for this very brilliant program. I can compare it to the Peter the Great reforms to modernize Russia and I am proud to be a part of it. I’m glad to be doing university research project, but I’m also rather proud this is part of Russian history. I think it could if we do our job well. And I think we will be doing probably the most advanced research on modernization if anywhere in the world. For the next couple of years we gonna have some leading people in that field and I think we will be bring important work in that field. And I hope it continues. But if you invest in a program like this 2 years is not really enough and this is the other obvious consideration everyone of the grantees felt.   I think within 2 years it might be the leading research on modernization and cultural changes in people’s attitudes in the world. But it will be shamed just go, I promised I will back, I will go back. And I hope that 5-10-15 years on now this will still be one of the leading centers in the world. And this point was made by the President as well. My impression was he’s very supportive. I would say the President convincingly indicated his interest. I believe this is what he said: this is an important program, he wants it to succeed, he knows this is new and there’re bureaucratic obstacles, he is well aware of Law 94 which is terrible and we’ve discussed its’ complex process of submitting different documents.  The President said if he had a chance to abolish it he would do it. But the law has a very important function to prevent corruption. So the President is receptive to making the law easier, but he can’t just strike it out. So, his general attitude was: I know that there are problems, we gonna make this progress work, you’re the first, so you’re discovering what’s wrong, and I will like to hear about it. He was really supportive and he made a very good impression. It was quite a long trip to make for a one hour meeting, but that’s life, if you meet with the president you come when he wants, not when you want”.