Belarus to increase funding of scientific developments by 25% in 2023

Funding of Belarusian scientific developments in 2023 will increase by 25% to exceed Br500 million, Chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology Sergei Shlychkov said in an interview to STV channel, BelTA has learned.

“The committee’s budget has been planned for the next year. We envisage an increase of financing by 20-25%, which will amount to about Br506 million. This is only budget financing. There are also innovation funds. This year they amount to approximately Br450 million,” said Sergei Shlychkov.

He also spoke about scientific cooperation with Western European countries. “Some cooperation continues, but we can see how the ties that have been established for decades are gradually degrading. Some of the projects that were implemented mostly at the initiative of the European Union are still going on. These are ongoing projects with a completion date of 2024-2025. There will be no winners here. Breaking ties between scientists shows that, as a rule, everyone suffers,” said the head of the State Committee for Science and Technology.

Sergei Shlychkov also added that Belarusian scientists are working on import substitution. “Both our state committee and the National Academy of Sciences, and all scientific organizations within the Education Ministry are fully involved in the work on import substitution. We have processed about 2,500 positions on critical imports that we received from our government bodies. For each such position, if the research was conducted in our country, we gave between five and 25 corresponding entries from the state register. We are engaged in this work, including with colleagues from Russia. In this case it is a question of developing cooperative chains within the Union State,” he concluded.