Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Yury Osipov: Forgive me for diverting your thoughts with the encyclopedia. Six years ago, you made an announcement, on the creation of the National Encyclopedia as a national project. At the time, few people believed it would really be published, certainly not according to plan. More that than, I can say that it is being published ahead of the plan. We have published...
Vladimir Putin: How many volumes?
Yury Osipov: We have published 13 volumes. And, very importantly, in accordance with your decision, 50,000 copies of each volume have been distributed to the regions free of charge, to various libraries, municipal libraries and higher education institutions.
As they say, the machine is running at full speed. According to the plan we are supposed to publish two volumes per year, but so far we already have the capacity to put out three or four. At that rate we will issue the whole encyclopedia by the late 2012-early 2013, and not by the end of 2018 as originally planned. Simultaneously, an electronic version of the encyclopedia is being prepared.
Vladimir Putin: That's just what I wanted to say. So things are moving ahead?
Yury Osipov: Yes, work is going ahead. Indeed, we have an idea to use the encyclopedia as the basis for a knowledge portal so that people in Russia could use it. This is the first introductory volume on Russia. And this work, the last one to be published so far, is the 12th volume, because the first volume titled "Russia" has no number. The quality of the paper is quite good. A large team of specialists is working on the encyclopedia: here is the composition of the scientific-editorial board.
Vladimir Putin: All specialists in their fields.
Yury Osipov: Allow me to inform you that it has been a fairly successful year - we have fulfilled all our plans.
Most importantly, we have basically fulfilled all the plans and the tasks you set three years ago. In December, the average salary of a research worker - its public budget part, as you were saying then - was to be 30,000 roubles. Well, it is actually 30,000 roubles, give or take a hundred roubles. The Academy has solved that budget problem.
Unfortunately, due to the current economic crisis the solution of another important problem - building houses for young scientists - has been slightly delayed. But Mr Basargin (Viktor Basargin is the Minister of Regional Development) and I are putting this problem under review and perhaps we will come up with a solution.
Vladimir Putin: Have you outlined the site belonging to the Academy where you were planning to make land available for this purpose?
Yury Osipov: We have outlined all such sites. In fact, a plan was decided upon immediately following our conversation with you. We are just a little behind schedule. But we believe it to be a crucial task and with a little more effort it will be achieved. Just to note, many young people are choosing careers in the sciences. There has been a complete transformation here.
Vladimir Putin: What about the research equipment?
Yury Osipov: We have experienced some problems with equipment due to issues regarding funding. We obtain equipment from two sources. Governmental funding for purchasing imported equipment has not changed; it has been increasing year after year. The other source has been proceeds from the lease of space. These proceeds were mainly used for utilities services, the purchase of equipment and maintenance of buildings.
You may remember that I had requested Rosimushchestvo (Federal Agency for State Property Management) to keep the issues of lease within its purview. It issues permits for the lease of space. Our institute does not receive the money; the money goes into the treasury and comes back in the shape of additional budget financing. That money is used for the purchase of equipment and for the maintenance of buildings. But an economic crisis is a crisis. We understand that.
Vladimir Putin: What about the training of human resources?
Yury Osipov: In this respect everything is fine. The personnel training programme is being fulfilled, all the postgraduate vacancies at the Academy of Sciences have been filled. Every year more than a thousand young people stay on at the Academy after finishing their postgraduate studies. This is very important to us.