The government has revised spending on science and promotion of domestic software.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev

The government of the Russian Federation reduces the cost of popularizing science and research and establishes a special fund to promote domestic software in foreign markets. The draft government decree on cost reduction was published on the Federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts.

The document on the reduction of financing of science was developed in the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, and the decree "On the establishment of the Russian Information Technology Development Fund" was signed yesterday by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

With its project, the ministry is reviewing the development plan for 2014–2020. According to the previous version of the document, 228.7 billion rubles were allocated for the popularization of science and research, of which 121.9 billion rubles were allocated for the financing of “civilian applied research and experimental development”. According to the text of the draft resolution, funding is proposed to reduce to 203.7 billion rubles. The financing of development will proportionally decrease. The Ministry of Education and Science proposes to spend 103 billion rubles on them instead of the previously planned 121.9 billion rubles. Total from the budget will be allocated 168.3 billion rubles. The rest is planned to attract as an investment.
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This is not the first reduction in scientific budgets. Initially, in 2013, 239 billion were pledged to science, of which 197.6 billion were planned to be allocated from the budget. If the document is adopted, the budget expenditures on science for the period from 2014 to 2020 will be reduced by a total of 29.3 billion rubles.

By the way, 10.097 billion rubles were allocated to the work of the State Duma and assistants to deputies in 2017, reports Interfax.

At the same time, in parallel with the reduction of the scientific budget, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the creation of a fund to promote domestic software.

"The fund will provide assistance to the promotion of Russian software in the domestic and foreign markets, as well as interaction with large potential customers," - said the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers.

The creation of the fund was proposed by the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media in 2016, and its budget will be about 5 billion rubles. It is planned to gain funds from the auction for the sale of LTE frequencies.