In 2009 the program of financing of the Russian science was launched, and the mega-grants in the amount of 30 billion rubles were provided for scientific research. The program stays active utill 2020. The initiators have set the tasks to attract the scientists from around the world (Russian and foreign) to the Russian universities and research centers and to create conditions for scientific cooperation.
On September, 19 2016 the President of Russia Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin with the scientists-winners of mega-grants for scientific research. The participants summed up the preliminary results of the program.
The participants of the grant competition passed the international examination. Among the winners, five of them are the Nobel prize winners, 78 are the foreign scientists and 82 are the Russian scientists, 57 of which live abroad. The allocated funds allowed to create 160 laboratories of international class in 25 regions of Russia with the participation of the Russian and foreign scientists. The scientific achievements of world-level were made by the recipients of mega-grants in physics, mathematics, computational biology, psychology, medicine and other fields. These achievements are already being implemented into the economy. Among the scientific achievements are the diagnostics and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
The Russian scientists expressed their opinions and wishes concerning options for the program extension. For example, it was proposed to create the international laboratory of different formats for collaboration of scientists from different countries in Russia (D. Ivanov), a national database of resources for long-term international studies (Y. Kovas) and to provide the long-term base and grant funding programs for students and pupils on an ongoing basis (S. Smirnov).
