Fund of perspective researches for financing of perspective technologies of military and dual purpose

Vladimir Putin signed in October, 2012 the law on formation in Rossiifond of perspective researches, a close analog of the American Agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the agency of the advanced defense research projects).

The law on creation of Fund was adopted by the State Duma on September 28, approved by the Federation Council on October 10 and signed by the president Putin on October 16, 2012.

According to the reference of State legal department the Fund will pursue five main objectives: assistance to research and development for achievement of new results in military and technical, technology and social and economic spheres; formation of scientific ideas of the possible threats critically significant for defense of the country, reasons of their emergence and ways of elimination; determination of the main directions of research and development for the purpose of development of production of hi-tech products of military, special and dual purpose; the organization of the order for development, approbation and maintenance of the innovation scientific and technical ideas and design solutions in the development areas and productions of hi-tech products of military, special and dual purpose; bringing ideas and solutions to the level of projects and their financing.

Herbarium is a project objective not creation of the specific software product, but development of an ecosystem in which developers will be able to offer the enterprises of instrument making, mechanical engineering and other industries of defense industry complex modern software for design, designing and management of engineering data. Further Herbarium will develop as some kind of "app store" for the Russian enterprises of the machine-building and instrument-making industries which use generally import software today.

As expected, originally the Fund will be able to implement about 150 projects requiring the different amount of financing. According to the results of the first year of work of Fund the quantity and cost of projects can be specified.

The fund will be created in the form of non-profit organization. Its property will form by allocations of the federal budget and also by transfer to it of federal property. The size of a property contribution from the state is not determined.

The board of trustees, board and the CEO will become the supreme body of management of Fund. The regular personnel in the first years of activity of fund will make up to 100 people.

The intellectual property rights, received in results of work on projects of Fund, will belong to the state. Accounting of projects and a transmission order of such rights to federal agencies, state corporations and other legal entities will be assigned to the Government of the Russian Federation.

The fund will submit to both the Defense Ministry, and the Government of the Russian Federation.

Among the known projects of the American agency DARPA and its predecessor of ARPA there is a financing of a prototype of the Internet, the TCP/IP protocol, technology of mass production of integrated circuits and also fighting androids.

2017: FPI and the ITMO University will create target search laboratory in the field of IT

The fund of perspective researches and the ITMO University signed at the beginning of a year the agreement on cooperation which assumes interaction between Fund and the university on a wide range of questions. Among the main directions of cooperation there are a search, selection and ensuring implementation of scientific and technical projects, creation of conditions for involvement of talented youth to the sphere of scientific research and technology developments and also formation of scientific ideas of the possible threats critically significant for defense of the country and security of the state.

The fund of perspective researches and the ITMO University are going to create target search laboratory which activity will be aimed at the development of cross-disciplinary researches in the field of information technologies and adjacent areas. The laboratory will be created based on faculty of transmitting information technologies of the ITMO University which purposes – creation of world-class perspective technologies for the solution of the knowledge-intensive tasks in such low-formalized areas as health care, public life and others.

Target laboratories are created by Fund and the different organizations for long-term and large-format cooperation. Tasks of target laboratory include search of new scientific ideas, formation of offers on the directions of researches, development of research programs and search of collectives for their implementation. The search target laboratory determines crucial problems by a certain direction of researches, creates scientific and technical bases and concepts of their solution, collects and analyzes the relevant scientific data and develops offers on the directions, the purposes and disruptive research and development expected to results of the corresponding direction. Tasks of target search laboratory include also development of normative and technical and technology documentation on the created technologies and samples.