The centers of disruptive IT researches in Russia

Initiative of the authorities

In May, 2013 during expanded board of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communicationsthe head of department Nikolai Nikiforov announced what based on the existing Russian universities and scientific research institute about 50 centers of disruptive researches in information technology field are going to create.

The volume of necessary financing of the centers of the power was estimated up to 4 billion rubles for five years, and it was offered to perform it by selection of the separate block in the IT direction in the federal target program "Personnel" calculated on 2014-2020.

According to the offer of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, the scope of researches of such centers should be defined with the participation of the IT industry, and means to be distributed according to the results of the corresponding tenders which are going to be carried out in 2013.

Offers on development of the centers of disruptive researches in the field of IT were sent for the approval in the government. The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications studied them together with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Finance according toDmitry Medvedev's order of December 24, 2012.

Requirements to programs of the universities and scientific research institute applying for financing

At the end of July, 2013 the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications announced the beginning of order taking from universities and scientific research institute for participation in a pilot project on creation and development of the centers of disruptive researches in the field of IT in 2014-2018. Collecting of requests will last till September 20, 2013.

Requests need to be sent to the address of the Ministry of Education and Science together with which the project is implemented and to attach to them the strategic program of development of the IT center. Published requirements to structure and contents of strategic programs of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications on July 30, 2013.

As it appears from the document published by department, programs of applicants should contain the description of their purposes and tasks, implementation stages on program validity period and also annual target indicators which are going to be reached during implementation of the strategic program and similar indicators of organizations for 2013.

Indicators of commercial effectiveness of the program, in particular, include the amount of funds, received from sale of the innovation products on activities of the center, the number of the created commercial IT companies which core activity is commercialization of developments and researches of the center, quantity of the new jobs created by the center and the IT companies cooperating with it.

In the field of scientific activity department recommends to specify such target performance indicators of the center as the number of the Researches and Development executed by its collective on profile subject, the number of publications in the scientific magazines indexed in the Web of Science or Scopus database and others.

In the program of applicants for development as the center of disruptive researches also justification of volume and the directions of use of financial resources from budget and non-budgetary sources for every year of program implementation and perspective of creation of piece-rate scientific and technical results in the field of IT who or correspond to the international level or exceed it and also can become the main for formation on their base of profile communities.

Besides, strategic programs of the centers should contain the description of the mechanism of management of its implementation: in particular, to contain characteristic of functions and responsibility of each governing body of the program.

Universities where the centers of disruptive IT researches will be created are defined

On November 27, 2013 announced the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications results of selection of the organizations, joint with the Ministry of Education and Science, based on which it is going to create the centers of disruptive researches in information technology field.

According to representatives of department, in total on tender more than 130 requests from universities and research institutes from which 19 winners were selected arrived. Each of the winner organizations has the known IT companies among the partners, note in the ministry.

Will be able to get priority support of creation of the centers of disruptive IT researches within a number of programs, in particular:

• Institute of problems of information transfer of RAS
• Higher School of Economics
• Novosibirsk State University
• St. Petersburg State University
• Irkutsk state university
• St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Optics Mechanics
• Kazan Federal University
• Moscow State University
• Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology
• Institute of bioorganic chemistry of RAS
• Innopolis university
• Institute of system programming of RAS
• National Research Nuclear University of MEPhI
• Skolkovo institute of science and technologies
• St. Petersburg department of Mathematical institute of V.A. Steklov of RAS
• Samara medical state university
• Ural Federal University
• Center of the artificial cognitive systems of the Tyumen state university

Scientific programs of winners cover a broad spectrum of the directions of researches, including bioinformation science, the analysis of Big Data, robotics, quantum and optical technologies, human-computer interfaces.

The Ministry of Communications notes that requests underwent strict selection by such criteria as prospects of the directions of researches of the center, presence of the qualified scientific groups and scientists with a world name, for applied developments — readiness for further commercialization.

In December, 2013 the description of mechanisms of support of winners within the actions of programs of the Ministry of Education and Science should be developed, and in the second quarter 2014 are a separate action of Ministry of Communications for support of the centers of disruptive IT researches.