In the modern age when a high quality of education and the successful development of science determine not only a country’s competitiveness but also social and economic progress and the nation’s development level in general, the members of the Council consider it necessary to note the following:
1. The development conditions Russia is going through today make it particularly important to consolidate the work of the professional community, the Russian business community and the authorities in the aim of implementing the provisions of the President’s Annual Address to the Federal Assembly, carry out the major national projects and modernise sectors connected to the development of human capital. In this respect, the Council’s members – representing the education and science community responsible for the ongoing development of the country’s intellectual capital – consider it necessary at the Council’s next meeting to hold a detailed discussion of the results achieved by modernisation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other academic institutions, including with regard to the areas set out in the President’s Annual Address, namely, the energy sector, space, aircraft building, modern communications, nanotechnologies and other new technology.
2. Given that science and education are inextricably interlinked in a single knowledge-generating cycle, the Council considers it important to continue practical work on integrating science and education (by spreading the groundbreaking experience we already have in this field) and on supporting and raising the status of university science.
We also consider that without changing the quality and content of education at all levels, administrative and economic innovations alone will not bring the country and society the results we hope for. This requires the state authorities and the business community to work together with education professionals to formulate modern demands for the content of general, professional and higher education and, in accordance with these demands, to take the necessary steps that would enable us to move away from dogmatic schemes and interpretations found in teaching that do not reflect the modern reality and do not conform to the demands of Russian society today.
3. Given the difficult conditions of the transition period that have forced young specialists out of the science and education sectors and exacerbated the human resources situation in these sectors, the Council will draft and present to the President of Russia an analytical report on measures for overcoming this ‘demographic hole’ in the country’s scientific and educational corps and will request that chairperson of the working group, N.V. Polosmak, winner of the State Prize for Science and Technology, present the report’s main provisions at the congress of Russian rectors in June.
4. Aware of the full importance of developing Russia’s potential as a major exporter of intellectual services – an objective set out in the President’s Annual Address – we consider it necessary to undertake every effort to enable all Russian scientists, teachers and technology specialists, no matter where they currently live and work, to take an active part in resolving the modern challenges facing the Russian state. It is no secret that various historical and economic circumstances have resulted in our scientific resources being dispersed throughout the entire world. In this respect we must on the one hand create all the conditions needed to give our researchers broad access to world information resources and, on the other hand, we must make our own scientific, education and technological achievements open to the world and to a free and fruitful exchange of ideas.