In Russia, high technology priority areas include above all IT as a key element and the driving force of the global economy, as well as biotechnology development programmes, which is due in particular to the extensive possibilities offered by the country's natural resources.
The first area has a particular angle and is based on the idea that society has always developed through technological innovation accompanied by the incorporation of new sources of energy. Thus, the appearance of the steam engine sharply accelerated industrial production, while electrification produced qualitatively new forms of industrialisation.
In the second half of the 20th century, more progress was made by technologies of a higher level - computers and laser techniques. Information science and IT turned into an independent technological area with an impact on production. The steadily growing market of this "non-material product" suggests that a new information-based economy is emerging.
Information innovations play a decisive role in the state's military doctrine. At the same time, the implementation of military programmes often prompts the development of technologies that can undoubtedly exercise a crucial influence on the life of society. A characteristic example is the unique Internet, which has fantastic prospects in the new century, but is a by-product of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars programme and the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Yevgeny Fedosov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the head of the Research Institute of Aviation Systems, believes that aerospace defence programmes offer tremendous information potential that can be used in the economy. President Bush's proclaimed national missile defence programme is estimated to need hundreds of billions of dollars in financing. And regardless of whether or not the US solves the problem of developing this system, large-scale investment will produce new technologies and above all in the computer science sphere.
The forum's second theme - the development of biotechnologies - provides another key to Russia's future, when one considers the population's short life expectancy, which is largely due to a high disease rate in the country.
Alexander Miroshnikov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the deputy director of the Research Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry, told an international conference, "Biotechnology and Sustained Development", in Moscow in March 2003 that Russia should follow the lead of the United States and Europe in establishing a powerful biotechnological base for its own gene-engineered preparations of the latest generation. These medicines are most effective in dealing with the main diseases of our time: cardio-vascular illnesses, cancer and viral infections. Today, however, the Russian pharmaceuticals industry is all but committed to manufacturing over-the-counter medications from material imported from abroad and, as a rule, other than gene-engineered. The prices for more than 40 basic gene-engineered products developed in the US and Europe are too high for the Russian market to have an effect on the population's health.
It is pleasing to see that the Russian leadership is not only helping to organise international meetings on high technologies, but is also aware of their importance for the country. Indeed, this can be seen in legislation. The task of coordinating all work in this sphere has been given to a special division set up in the new State Duma - "Science and New Technologies". It is headed by Academician Zhores Alfyorov, the winner of a Nobel Prize for physics, and one of the most authoritative Russian academics. In his view, which he expressed at a recent press conference, the main mechanism for the development of high technologies in the country should be the establishment of major state-run techno-centres to integrate the efforts of research bodies and industry.
