may tilt Russia’s technological advantage to ICT-related fields of science, such as computer technology and information technology methods for management. In those fields Russia did not have technological strength (see Figure 5).

Russia has a technological advantage only in some of the sectors designated by the government as strategic. The Long Term Social and Economic Development Plan until 2020 of the Russian Federation (Concept 2020), identifies six sectors as strategic for the future development of the country<sup>3</sup> . Russia, however, has a technological advantage in only four of these, i.e., aviation and engine building, space industry, shipbuilding, and nuclear power. Neither is Russia particularly strong in the radio-electronic industry nor information and communication technology (ICT), also deemed strategic by Concept 2020. Moreover, the nanotechnology sector, which has been given extensive policy attention and funding,<sup>4</sup> does not show technological advantage according to the patent analysis.

The most qualified R&D personnel are concentrated in fields that, though considered strategic, receive small proportions of R&D expenditures. The most skilled researchers among R&D personnel (those with PhD and Candidate of Science degrees) are concentrated in the natural science field (Table 2). However, the strategic sectors that may intensively use these researchers (life sciences and natural resources) do not receive large shares of allocated resources (see Table 1). Both areas together only account for 12 percent of total R&D spending in strategic sectors.

**Table 2: R&D personnel b** **<u><mark>y</mark> educational attainment and field of science, 2007</u>**

|**_Field of science_**|**Total**<br>**researchers**|**%**|**PhDs**|**%**|**Candidates of**<br>**Science**|**%**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Total**|**392,849**||**25,213**||**78,512**||
|Natural|94,668|24|11,479|46|33,359|42|
|Technical|244,475|62|4,809|19|23,552|30|
|Medical|16,734|4|3,934|16|7,540|10|
|Agricultural|13,743|3|1,478|6|5,100|6|
|Public|13,740|3|1,632|6|5,008|6|
|Humanities|9,489|2|1,881|7|3,953|5|

Source: Indicators of Science (2009) – MoES, ROSSTAT and the Higher School of Economics.

The public sector is not only the main funding source, but is also the main performer of R&D. The business sector apparently “performs” 64 percent of total R&D (Table 3). However, the following categories are classified as business entities in the business sector of official Russian statistics: state owned-companies and branches of research institutes that form part of the RAS. These institutions – conduct many of the publicly financed innovation activities (MoES 2009). Gokhberg and Kuztnetzova (2010) assess using Rosstat data that the number of publicly owned R&D performing units in Russia is over 70% which in turn perform the bulk of R&D in the country.

In line with the proportion of government R&D funding, the Russian government owns around 70% percent of the around 4,000 institutions performing R&D. As of 2009, the state owned around 2,600 R&D organizations, including research institutes affiliated with the RAS and state-owned enterprises performing R&D (Gokhberg and Kuztnetzova, 2010), which are classified as business entities in official statistics (Table 3). The number of research institutes has risen in recent years, mainly as a result of splits and spinoffs rather than any increase in the country’s overall research capacity. Thus, the structure of

> 3 The sectors prioritized in the Concept 2020 development plan do not correspond one to one with the patent technological fields. However they are composed of a series of sub-fields of technology. For example ICT is composed of the following sub-fields of the Electrical field: Telecommunications, Semiconductors, Computer technology and Audio-visual technology

> 4 Though later reduced, in 2007, the government invested $5 billion into a new state corporation in nanotechnology, RUSNANO.

12