US experts prepared some unusual recommendations for President Dmitry Medvedev on the topic of innovation development. Certain initiatives sound fairly intriguing. The head of state, according to them, must substantiate the long-term nature of his plans to modernize the economy. At a minimum, this requires creating two high-ranking posts that report directly to the president a chief technology officer and chief information officer. Americans are, in essence, suggesting to Medvedev how he could start forming his innovation team.
The American experts will present their initiatives at the World Political Forum in Yaroslavl. This year it will be held on September
It will be presented in the session dedicated to high-tech development. The analytical work is called «Road Map for Building an Innovative Economy: the Best International Practices and Lessons for Russia». The document was prepared by more than 30 authors. Among them are also citizens of our country, and State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev was one of them.
Some of the US recommendations appear to be particularly piquant. The Russian political elite continue to readdress the fact that President Dmitry Medvedev has yet to form a team of modernizers. Apparently, Americans are no less concerned about this issue. In their report, they insist that the Russian president must provide guarantees that his plan for innovation is a long-term initiative.
To demonstrate the permanence of his strategy, they suggest that Medvedev, similar to the US experience, establishes a post of a Russia chief technology officer who reports directly to the president. The new high-ranking official will be responsible for the coordination of development and implementation of new technologies by state offices and organizations. He will have a fairly extensive list of responsibilities. The chief technology officer will manage a committee of auditors, which will need to include some world-renowned experts. This structure will annually monitor the process of implementation of technologies by state companies and offices, as well as create additional incentives for them. For example, link the bonuses paid to the top managers of these companies to the volume of new technologies which they have produced.
It is also recommended to create a research group of international experts that would report to the chief technology officer. The group would monitor the latest technological trends and develop a technology policy, necessary for development. The new official will be responsible for the work of another agency. Experts are proposing to establish structures for commercialization and technology-transfer in order to improve the operation mechanisms of the domestic innovation market and enter the foreign markets. In essence, this will be an organization of so-called technology brokers acting as intermediaries between the Russian and international markets.
Another US initiative is to establish a post of Russia chief information officer who would report directly to the president. His responsibilities will include coordination of the introduction of e-government in all state offices. «His work should mainly focus on developing the IT market in Russia, and the list of state services, offered by e-government, should be determined based on the demand of market players, similar to the US experience,» note the authors of the report. The establishment of the new posts should not be delayed, argue US experts. They suggest appointing new officials, responsible for modernization, before January 2011.
At the same time, it would not be a bad idea to establish an ongoing dialogue with the public though the Internet by creating a special website for the discussion of initiatives, implemented by state offices in the field of technologic development. Russia must also adjust its regional policy create a map of technologic development, outlining the competitive and weaker points of every constituent territory of the Russian Federation. Funding for the support of technologic development should be allocated to regions that have better chances to succeed than the others.
Also, experts are advising to create an international group for the modernization of legislation in order to stimulate innovation in the time period until the year 2011.
Another important detail mobilization of public and elite support for the change. Americans suggest creating a science and technology innovation council, which would include representatives of the government and the business sector, as well as investors and scientists from across the globe.
Apparently, the international experts are considering a fairly subtle point: a new president will be forced to implement his ideas with the current personnel, which he will have inherited from his predecessor. This turns into a catch-22. Analysts are essentially advising the president to start creating a parallel elite of innovators, which would possess no-less power than the traditional elite.
Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Center for Elite Studies, RAS, notes that the fears of the Western investors are mainly linked to the lack of guarantees of private property rights in Russia: «If the situation in which the prosecution could at any time accuse businessmen in something and take away their property to benefit the state continues to be supported, no one will want to invest in our country». The proposals, made by the US experts, are first and foremost motivated by this reasoning, says the expert. The Americans are, in her opinion, presenting an original idea to form a special management team in the Russian regulatory system, which could hardly be called efficient: «They are proposing to by-pass the corrupted structures, and create management that would directly report to the president. Thus, Western investors would be protected by personal guarantees of the head of state. Medvedev intends to create a completely new system, and it should be managed in a new way».
However, Kryshtanovskaya doubts that Russia will copy the US experience. Our country, in her opinion, has its own ideas: «Before creating new posts, certain institutions [that the new officials will be responsible for] should be created». The expert suggests not to rush in creating general federal posts, and to first test this idea in a pilot regime. For example, on the basis of the innovation city Skolkovo. Then, it will be clear as to how viable this idea is in Russia.
