RAS Corresponding Academician Olga Bakhmet is a member of the RAS Regional Policy Council. The questions raised at the meeting with the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences included pressing issues for the Karelian Research Centre RAS such as import substitution and inter-academy cooperation with the Republic of Belarus within the Union State framework.

The central topic discussed was the prospective opening of new opportunities for scientific organizations belonging to the Academy to carry out economic activities, either independently or in collaboration with businesses.

– There is now only one form of legal entity through which we can implement commercial activities – small innovative enterprise (spin-off). This status, however, is often clearly insufficient. Meanwhile, scientific organizations badly need the possibilities to implement and roll out the results of applied research as soon as possible, – explained Olga Bakhmet.

Karelian Research Centre RAS carries out applied research related to agriculture, trout farming, reforestation, mining, carbon, and other areas. KarRC RAS Director General emphasized that the implementation of the research results requires transparent and functional mechanisms.

Alexander Sergeev supported the idea of advancing the economic activity of the Academy’s institutions and their cooperation with business. This subject was discussed also at the meeting of federal government representatives with scientific staff on April 8th. In his talk at this meeting, RAS President remarked that the permission for institutes to create joint enterprises with the real sector of the economy will help scale up technology production.