On the issue of the strategy of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation

Ageev Vyacheslav PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Linguistics; National Research University "MEI" 111250, Russia, Moscow, Krasnokazarmennaya str., 14 ageev_fksu@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The key trend in the development of the modern domestic and global economy is the fact that productivity growth is more based on the accumulation of human capital, on the capital of human knowledge. The turnover of high-tech products in the global market demonstrates high growth rates. In these conditions, the level of socio-economic development of Russia largely determines the scientific and technological development of the country, and a high level of such development ensures the technological sovereignty of the state. Ultimately, the well-being of the country and its citizens depends on the full development and effective use of human resources and its own scientific potential.

The subject of this article is the recently adopted Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, which was approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 145 dated February 28, 2024 (hereinafter referred to as the 2024 Strategy). The importance of the research is determined by the fact that the experience of reforming various spheres of activity of the state and society has shown that the successful development and functioning of a particular sphere is impossible without planning, forecasting and program-oriented regulation. An important condition for state regulation of any field of activity is the functioning of an effective strategic planning system. The above has determined the subject and relevance of this study.

The legal basis of this article is the following normative legal acts: Federal Law No. 172-FZ dated June 28, 2014 "On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation" (hereinafter referred to as the Federal Law "On Strategic Planning"), the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated December 1, 2016 No. 642 (hereinafter referred to as the 2016 Strategy), and the aforementioned 2024 Strategy.

Many scientific works - monographs, dissertations, articles by Russian scientists from various branches of science: lawyers and economists, political scientists and sociologists, specialists in technical fields – are devoted to strategic planning, as well as issues of scientific and technological development of the country.

A monograph by R.A. Lugovskaya and T.B. Tsvetkov is devoted to various approaches to the essence of the planning process in the Russian Federation ^[1]. Yu.V. Sinchuk considers methods of building strategies and strategic analysis in his work ^[2]. T.H. Usmanova, V.V. Sutyagin analyze the problems of implementing innovative scientific and scientific-technological development of Russia ^[3]. V.V. Ivanov formulated the main strategic goals of Russia in his work ^[4]. The article by A.A. Nikonova is devoted to the study of the place and role of the state in the 2016 Strategy ^[5].

This article attempts a detailed analysis of the 2024 Strategy, which has not been the subject of scientific interest to researchers until now, most likely due to the fact that the 2024 Strategy was approved relatively recently. For the same reason, the article does not have a scientific discussion with other authors. This circumstance undoubtedly determines the relevance of this study.

The formulation of research objectives is predetermined by its subject matter and expected results. So, the tasks that the author of the article has set for himself are:

- research of the main directions of state policy in the field of scientific and technological development of Russia;

- comparative analysis of the 2016 Strategy and the 2024 Strategy, followed by the identification of the novelties of the 2024 Strategy;

- development of appropriate recommendations and suggestions.

To solve the above tasks, the author used various research methods. Systematic and functional methods were used to study the directions of state policy in the field of science and scientific technologies. Comparative analysis of strategies was carried out using general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis; the legal nature of the study led to the use of a formal legal method.

By strategic planning, researchers understand the type of planned activity of the state, which consists in the development of strategic solutions that contain goals, objectives and strategies for the development of various spheres of state activity, ensuring in the long term the most optimal functioning of the designated areas and rapid adaptation to constantly changing, sometimes aggressive environmental conditions ^{[6, p. 23]}.

The task of strategic planning, according to E.V. Borisova, is to ensure the stability and consistency of its key components ^{[7, p. 2]}.

I.B. Kardashova notes that in real conditions, when new risks, challenges and threats arise, various globalization processes, including negative ones, strategic management becomes an important defining property in the spheres of socio-economic development and ensuring national security of the Russian Federation ^{[8, p. 8]}.

Strategic planning documents were legally consolidated in the Federal Law "On Strategic Planning", which established the legal basis for strategic planning in Russia, the powers of state bodies in the field of strategic planning, and the procedure for their relations with various institutions of society.

Acts of strategic planning in our country began to be developed more than twenty years ago. The peculiarity of these documents is that, on the one hand, they represent a normative legal act, since they are binding, on the other hand, they are program documents declaring expected results. This, as noted by researchers, in particular D.V. Kononenko, has a prospective impact both on public relations, which are the subject of the document, and on the subsequent catalog of normative legal acts, including laws ^{[9, p. 61]}.

The Federal Law "On Strategic Planning" refers to the documents of such planning: strategies (including sectoral ones), forecasts, programs of various levels (including state ones), plans, territorial planning schemes. At the federal level, the annual message of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, as well as doctrines, are also highlighted.

It is noteworthy that in the Federal Law "On Strategic Planning" the strategies are set next after the Message of the President of Russia, which clearly indicates the high degree of importance of this program document, emphasizes the degree of significance of the identified problems. Analyzing the differences between concepts, doctrines and strategies, L.A. Kononov notes that "strategy, unlike doctrine, has a much larger scope. The strategy is an action plan for solving a large–scale public problem covering an entire sphere of public life" ^{[10, p. 60]}.

The term "strategy" was originally used in military affairs and represented the science of warfare. Later, this term began to be used in political and legal science. From the point of view of law, the strategy is a normatively fixed and binding action plan of state authorities aimed at solving any public problem of a large-scale nature and representing a set of procedures aimed at solving the problem, containing all stages of its solution, starting with legal justification, mechanisms, tools for solving, ending with sources of financing.

The need to develop a strategy for scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation was first fixed in the Federal Law "On Strategic Planning", Chapter 4 of which in 2016 was supplemented by Article 18.1. "Strategy for scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation". The main principle of the Strategy was fixed here – the fundamental close relationship with the strategies of national security and socio-economic development of Russia and the equally fundamental interdependence of such strategies for the scientific and technological development of the country. The strategy was supposed to be the basis for regulatory legal acts at all levels on strategic planning in the field of science and scientific technology development.

The 2016 Strategy was approved by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated December 1, 2016. Prior to its approval, the issue of planning scientific and technological development was regulated by federal targeted and sectoral programs.

The 2016 Strategy was a document consolidating the directions of state policy in the field of science and scientific technologies development. It outlined the main concepts – scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, major challenges, priorities of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, independence, competitiveness.

It is noteworthy that the concept of "big challenge" was first fixed at the regulatory level in the 2016 Strategy. This term, or, as it is also interpreted, "global challenges" appeared in foreign science in the mid-nineties of the twentieth century, and was used mainly in the field of high technology, then this term appeared in documents of government and public organizations. For example, in the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and in the UN Millennium Declaration, adopted on September 8, 2000, one of the Millennium Development Goals is called humanity's response to global challenges ^[11].

The 2016 strategy was approved until 2035, however, new challenges and threats necessitated a new strategy. The question arises, why was it impossible to adjust the state policy in the field of scientific and technological development by making changes to the already existing strategy? The answer to this question was given by Vladimir Putin in his report at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education on February 8, 2021. He stated that in Russia there are significant shortcomings in the field of scientific and technological development - this is unjustified duplication, dispersion of resources allocated by the state to science, lack of proper motivation and results expected by the state and society, in connection with which the President of Russia was instructed to prepare a new state program for the development of scientific and scientific-technological potential of the country. Vladimir Putin noted that it is necessary to change approaches to financing science at the expense of budgetary funds in a fundamental way, for which to create effective incentives for non-governmental companies that will allow them to participate in applied research together with scientific organizations, as a result of which private companies will have the opportunity to use domestic solutions that will arise as a result of the above-mentioned research, for updating of own production facilities and production of high-tech products ^[12].

The researchers also pointed out that the shortcomings noted by the President may be due not only to ineffective management in the field under study, but also to errors in strategic planning. In addition, another problem in the field of scientific and technological development is the problem of the obligation of strategic planning documents for all public authorities that are subjects of legal relations in this area ^{[13, pp. 35-36]}.

Thus, the emergence of a new strategy was supposed to mark an absolutely new approach of the state to the development of science and scientific technologies.

Such a strategy has been developed for three years and was approved by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on February 28, 2024.

The 2024 Strategy indicates that Russian science is the basis for the sovereign development of the Russian Federation, serves to ensure the security of the country and notes the significant contribution of Russian science to the intellectual heritage of mankind.

The 2024 Strategy has significantly expanded the list of concepts used in it. Thus, the list has been expanded with such concepts as high-tech products, federal scientific and technical program, qualified customer, high-tech technologies, etc.

An important novelty of the 2024 Strategy is the consolidation of the concept of "Russian sovereignty in the technological sphere", the so-called technological sovereignty. Such sovereignty, according to the analyzed document, is not only the country's ability to create and apply high–tech technologies that ensure the independence and competitiveness of the state, but also the ability to use them to organize the production of goods strategically important for all spheres of society, in order to avoid any influence from outside, in order to avoid Russia's dependence on foreign policy and global threats.

In addition, the 2024 Strategy expanded the list of strategic planning subjects. New entities have appeared – funds to support scientific, scientific, technical and innovative activities, institutes of innovative development, as well as public law companies.

In this regard, it should be noted that in the 2024 Strategy, as in the 2016 Strategy, the main subject of planning scientific and technological development is the state, and this is not accidental, since the general attitude of the era of transition from the strict planned economy of the Soviet period to a market economy – the market will put everything in its place, practically destroyed the Russian scientific potential, provoked a "brain drain" and deprived the country of technological sovereignty. Currently and in today's conditions, only the state, represented by its bodies, is able to regulate the field of activity under study, actively involving private companies in this process and attracting private capital. The main thing that the researchers also note is that this attraction of private capital should not become decisive, so that the state does not distance itself from financing the development of scientific technologies, since science is not included in the circle of interests of a market economy. Science is initially economically unprofitable, since it cannot give "fast money", costs grow faster than the profit planned from its developments, the development of science is for the long term. The application of market mechanisms to science is unacceptable, it will simply cease to exist ^{[5, pp. 13-14]}.

The 2024 strategy enshrines the position that one of the key factors of scientific and technological development is the creation and development of its own production base for domestic developments.

It should be noted that in the 2024 Strategy, the current stage of Russia's scientific and technological development is designated as a stage of mobilization development of the scientific and technological sphere in the context of sanctions pressure.

Now science has become the basis for the sovereign development of the state, which helps to solve all the complex tasks facing the Russian state. Science has never been given such a role in the modern state.

At the same time, the 2024 Strategy also notes negative trends that lead to a decrease in Russia's competitiveness in the world and jeopardize its independence, for example, these include: inconsistency of development priorities designated by the state and means of their support at all levels; weak interaction, and sometimes even disunity of the economy with science; concentration the scientific and educational potential of the country in a very limited number of regions of Russia; unjustified "fascination" with global technological trends, which often does not take into account the needs and demands of the Russian economy and society.

The 2024 Strategy has increased the list of major threats compared to the list defined by the 2016 Strategy. And this is no coincidence – Russia in particular and the countries of the world in general, in the years since the approval of the 2016 Strategy, have faced new, sometimes unprecedented, threats. The first big challenge in the 2024 Strategy is the transformation of the world order based on the unfair inequality of the countries participating in legal relations. This transformation is characterized by the growth of global political and economic instability and unfair competition. Hybrid external threats to Russia's national security and the emergence of various infections are also considered major challenges. At the same time, it is noted that external threats to national security are becoming increasingly interconnected with internal threats.

The 2024 Strategy notes that Russian fundamental science should play a key role in preparing Russia for new big challenges. Based on the meaning of the 2024 Strategy, the list of major challenges is not exhaustive, and Russia's scientific potential should be prepared for any external challenges.

In our opinion, the 2024 Strategy shows a clear bias towards preparing science to respond to external threats and major challenges, while the country's internal problems may have no less negative consequences. In this regard, it seems that science's responses to internal threats should be given no less importance.

The priorities of Russia's scientific and technological development in the 2024 Strategy are named: countering various threats and terrorism, strengthening the country's defense capability; developing technologies that reproduce systems and processes of wildlife in the form of technical systems and technological processes integrated into the natural environment (so-called nature-like technologies); the creation of synthetic scientific disciplines created on the basis of the intersection of psychology, sociology, political science, history, etc. The innovation of the 2024 Strategy is the need to counter foreign information and psychological impact, as well as cyber threats.

As a fundamental principle of state policy in the analyzed area, the 2024 Strategy establishes the principle of an inextricable link between education, science and production, and their interdependence, and the main direction of state policy is the creation by the state of conditions for ensuring such a connection, for which a network of unique scientific organizations engaged in the development and implementation of science-intensive and high-tech products; measures have been implemented to expand the presence of scientific literature in Russian in the global information space; domestic systems for storing unique information and data have been created; artificial intelligence technologies have been integrated into science; domestic services for collecting, storing and processing scientific data should be developed.

It should be noted that the 2024 Strategies are based on the so-called dynamic approach to planning ^{[5, p. 14]}, according to which the choice of priorities in the field under study should be based on human development, while solutions should be prepared to respond to challenges that do not yet exist in modern reality, but which may come. That is, scientific and technological development should be based on the main wealth of the country - man, and its level should be such that it could respond to any challenges, both internal and external.

The result of the implementation of the 2024 Strategy should be an effectively functioning scientific and technological system that provides the basis for the sustainable development of the country and its technological sovereignty.

The 2024 strategy does not determine the deadline for the implementation of the measures planned in it, but nevertheless, by 2030, it is planned to restructure the management system in the field of science and technology in the conditions of a strict mobilization regime, which is associated with the expected long-term nature of the sanctions imposed against the Russian Federation; transition to a completely new training system necessary for the implementation of state policy in the field of scientific- technological development of qualified personnel; maximally accelerated development of technologies independent of imports; advanced development of new scientific and technological solutions.

As a tool for its implementation, the 2024 Strategy introduces into legal circulation a new policy document – strategic initiatives of the President of Russia, which is a model of his direct participation in the strategic planning process. This model has already successfully proven itself in various spheres of government activity – the President actively takes initiatives in the field of social support for various groups of the population, in the socio-demographic sphere, various strategic initiatives are voiced, and then take the form of a normative legal act in the President's Messages. Thus, the role of the President of the country is not limited to the management of public policy in the field under study, he can be the author of transformations in it.

It should be noted that public financing of Russia's scientific and technological development should reach at least two percent of gross domestic product, and the level of private investment by 2035 should not be lower than the state.

The analysis allows, in our opinion, to formulate the following conclusions and suggestions:

- The 2024 strategy indicates that Russian science is the basis for the sovereign development of the state and ensuring the security of the country;

- The 2024 Strategy has significantly expanded the list of concepts used in it, the list of subjects of strategic planning in the field of scientific and technological development, the list of major threats;

- one of the significant changes made to the 2024 Strategy was the provision that one of the key factors of scientific and technical development is the creation and development of its own production base for domestic developments;

- as a fundamental principle of public policy in the analyzed area, the 2024 Strategy establishes the principle of an inextricable link between education, science and production, and their interdependence, and the main direction of public policy is the creation by the state of conditions for ensuring such a connection;

- the implementation of the 2024 Strategy should be aimed at correcting previous mistakes in strategic planning in order to avoid the main mistake – insufficient provision of technological sovereignty;

- public authorities need to ensure the effectiveness of management at the stage of implementation of the 2024 Strategy;

- the provisions of the 2024 Strategy should be mandatory for all entities with the tools to achieve their goals;

- it is necessary to continue improving the legislation on strategic planning and management in order to make it a real mechanism for ensuring the technological sovereignty of the state.

In conclusion, it should be noted that in Russia, the full-fledged development of science and technology is limited by the predominance of the so-called raw materials business, the purpose of which is to quickly make huge profits from the extraction and processing of resources, and hence the disinterest of this business in new technologies.

Efforts aimed at achieving a high level of development in the field of science and scientific technologies will provide the state with a level of competitiveness that allows it to independently determine foreign policy, without allowing outside forces to interfere in it.