Rusnano will save, but invest
After the reduction of funding, the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation (Rusnano) should spend 45 billion rubles on activities and implementation of projects in 2009 instead of the 130 billion previously planned.
As reported by comnews.ru , 28.5 billion rubles will be allocated for infrastructure, production and educational projects, about 3 billion more will go to the implementation of the European X-ray Laser on Free Electrons (European XFEL) project.
XFEL will be Rusnano's first investment in a foreign project, Vedomosti newspaper writes. A 3.4 km long laser installation will be built in an underground tunnel in Hamburg, on the basis of the German research center for Elementary particle Physics DESY. The total budget of the project is 1.1 billion euros. Initially, 13 European countries were supposed to participate in it, but it was not possible to collect the required amount. Rusnano's contribution of 250 million euros is the second largest after Germany.
By the end of the year, the Supervisory Board of Rusnano must approve 50 projects that will be financed in the mode of five projects per month, starting from the third quarter of 2009. Currently, out of thousands of projects submitted to Rusnano, 12 have been approved.
In addition, due to a decrease in funding, Rusnano is reducing its own costs. According to the RIA-Novosti news agency, the head of the state corporation Anatoly Chubais said: "We have reached a reduction of 17% of the wage fund. We are reducing all types of bonuses." This, according to him, will give Rusnano about 500 million rubles of savings.