Does Russia need another innovation fund?
An extra organ
Olga Uskova, President of the National Association for Innovation and Development of Information Technologies (NAIRIT)
"Russian Business Newspaper", 02/15/2011
A new draft law "On State support for innovation in the Russian Federation" has been submitted to the State Duma. It is intended to legally classify all concepts and processes of innovation activity, as well as to determine the types of support that the state intends to provide to organizations engaged in the development and implementation of modern innovative technologies.
Among the positive aspects of this law, a qualitative change in the approach to the process of innovative development itself should be noted. First of all, this is due to the understanding that support should be provided not only to organizations engaged in the development of new innovative technologies, but also to enterprises that implement them at home. There is no point in just creating innovative developments, releasing them into the void. For the successful development of the innovation sector, it is required that the products of innovative technologies be in demand on the market. And for this, as world experience shows, it is necessary to create conditions under which companies actively mastering new industrial and management technologies would be in a more advantageous position compared to other market participants.
Modernization of production is an organizationally complex and financially costly process. The transition to new technologies makes it necessary to significantly change the usual and well-established production cycle, an established management system, and a system of professional training of personnel. This entails large-scale investments and constant disruptions in the operation of the enterprise, which negatively affects its economic situation in the short term. In all cases, these are serious financial risks for which management bears full personal responsibility. Even the largest international corporations are very reluctant to undertake innovative transformations, postponing this process until the last, until there is already a serious threat to their position in the market. Therefore, a commercial company or an industrial enterprise should have a serious additional motivation to decide on this step. In most leading countries, such motivation is provided by the state, significantly reducing the tax burden, and sometimes completely exempting from taxes commercial projects focused on the transition to new, more modern technologies.
The bill proposed for consideration by the State Duma includes a description of a large number of financial preferences for organizations implementing projects in the field of technological modernization. This includes the provision of tax breaks and tax deferrals, and the receipt of preferential loans, and the allocation of subsidies, grants and direct financial support. In general, everything that makes the process of introducing innovative technologies economically profitable.
On the other hand, many provisions of the new law seem redundant and irrelevant. For example, the creation of the Federal Innovation Fund of Russia, which will provide financial support to enterprises implementing innovative projects at home. There are already a sufficient number of funds and financial and investment structures in the country - RVC, Rusnano, Rosinfokominvest, Bortnik Fund, ARIP, etc. - focused on solving basically the same tasks. In addition, there are about 80 Russian and foreign venture funds operating in Russia. Large-scale investment programs are also being implemented within the framework of relevant federal ministries and departments.
At the moment, we have no shortage of investment structures financing the domestic innovation sector. But there are problems with ensuring the quality and effectiveness of their work. As we know, numerous inspections of the state corporation "Rusnano" and the Russian venture Company showed low efficiency of their work. The funds allocated for the development of innovations were not invested in projects and technologies, but at best were placed on bank deposits, at worst they were invested in foreign companies, many of which had nothing to do with the development of innovative technologies. Due to such "high-quality" management, in the five years since the official announcement of the start of the implementation of the innovation development policy in Russia, we have not been able to create any serious innovative development that could be offered to the world market. We cannot yet establish the normal work of those structures that already exist. Why should we create new ones? In addition, the system of formation and management of the fund proposed within the framework of the law looks extremely unprocessed and utopian, which raises great doubts about the effectiveness of its work.
The idea of creating a special federal structure responsible for supporting innovation also looks very dubious. Russia has a Commission under the President of the Russian Federation on Modernization and Technological Development of the Russian economy and a Government Commission on High Technologies and Innovations, which provide solutions to urgent problems of innovative development at the highest state level. There are four federal ministries in the country - the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Industry and Trade - which are directly responsible for the implementation of projects in the field of innovation development and innovation infrastructure. In fact, each of the 82 Russian governors has special committees or commissions responsible for solving such tasks at the regional level. And this is not counting the State Duma, regional legislative assemblies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, state technology transfer centers, and other state structures that also have the functions of regulating the Russian innovation industry.
In my opinion, such a structural composition is able to cover all the problems of the innovation sector. Today, the Russian innovation sector, to a much greater extent than any other economic sector, is filled with various regulatory and controlling state structures, whose actions do not bring clarity, and sometimes, on the contrary, add confusion. Then why do we need another organ? What then will be its functions and where will there be a place for it in such an overloaded innovation management system?
One of the Eastern wisdom says: "You can defeat a big enemy by making it even bigger." So that the overall picture of what is happening would no longer fit in his head, and thus he would become vulnerable. Today, there are already a lot of participants in the Russian innovation sphere - foundations, ministries, industry commissions, state corporations, etc. And this creates a huge confusion. The actions of the participants are haphazard, uncoordinated, and often simply contradict each other. If we make the number of elements in this equation even larger, we will no longer understand what is going on with us at all. For the rapid and high-quality development of Russian innovations, it is necessary to avoid this.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.02.2011