Long-term development scenarios: what they should look like

One of the events of the HSE’s XV April International Academic Conference and the ISSEK workshop “Long-term Science, Technology and Innovation Foresight: Challenges to S&T Policy” was the first in 2014 meeting of the Inter-Departmental Commission (IDC) on Technology Foresight of the Presidium of the RF Presidential Council for Economic Modernisation and Innovative Development.

Artyom Shadrin, Alexander Povalko, Gleb Nikitin, Grigoriy Andruschak

The IDC members and external experts discussed roadmaps for priority S&T development areas in the field of deep processing of hydrocarbons, and the concept for long-term macroeconomic S&T development foresight in Russia until 2040.

Opening the meeting, the first deputy minister of industry and trade of the Russian Federation Gleb Nikitin reminded that the main vector of advanced technology platforms development was set by Vladimir Putin at Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in December, 2013.

“As for applied research, it should be based around technology platforms. I propose that targeted programmes such as Research and Development in Priority Science and Technology Fields refocus their funding on supporting this kind of applied research”, Vladimir Putin told.

Green light to the “green zone” technologies

Leonid Gokhberg and Evgeniy Kovnir, director of IT Development Department of the RF Ministry of Communications and Mass Media

The first presentation to the IDC was made by Anton Maksimov, deputy director of the A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the RAS. He spoke about the two-tier roadmaps system for deep processing of hydrocarbons developed by the Higher School of Economics with RUSNANO’s sponsorship. The system covers, firstly, all subject areas of the relevant platforms (oil and gas processing, gas- and petrochemistry); secondly, priority R&D areas; and thirdly, various roadmaps for specific prospective technologies linking R&D with relevant markets.

Identifying priority development areas, the expert group kept in mind the strategic challenges the Russian oil processing and petrochemical industry was facing, the most important of them being inefficient oil refinery and low-quality oil products. Next come low gas-processing depth and insufficient processing of natural and accompanying gas. And finally, it’s lack of own technologies, and the low share of high-technology hydrocarbon-based products (including deep processing ones) in the total production output, though the latter command the highest demand both on international and Russian markets.

Anton Maksimov, deputy director of the A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the RAS

“We have a target to increase oil processing depth to 93% by 2030, plus significantly increase the output and the quality of petrochemical products. On a larger scale, the goal is to switch from exporting raw materials to the innovations- and investments-based development model — which in turn requires development and application of new technologies”, noted Anton Maksimov.

Assessing relative importance of specific technology areas, the roadmap developers divided them into “green”, “yellow” and “red” zones, in descending importance order. The recommended next steps on technology development were based on this classification.

“Yellow zone” technologies comprise Russian R&D products important to the Russian industry either a) at the current stage, or b) because relevant processes are thoroughly researched and have good market prospects. As examples of such technologies Anton Maksimov mentioned catalytic cracking (catalytic thermal processing of oil fractions to produce high octane gasoline component, light gas oil, and unsaturated gases). Currently this technology is applied at 20 production facilities in the country. Further steps on its development involve perfecting certain technological processes to increase their efficiency, and developing novel promising catalysts.

The “green zone” includes two kinds of innovations: 1) those critically important to ensuring smooth operation of the deep processing of hydrocarbon raw materials, and 2) technologies new not only to Russia but to the world, which in future will serve as a basis for creating competitive Russian oil-processing and petrochemical industries. The “green zone” technological processes may be available on international markets, but it’s very important to develop their Russian analogies to achieve the country’s technological security. Speaking about the critically important technologies, the expert mentioned hydroprocessing, hydroconversion of heavy shale oil and oil residues.

“The “green zone” technologies require a full range of R&D, from pilot testing to development of basic technologies and engineering processes”, noted Anton Maksimov, and demonstrated how a roadmap allows to manage the R&D which are required to accomplish strategic national objectives. Certain R&D results and technological processes have already been included in innovation activities programmes of Rosneft, Gazpromneft, Gazprom, Tatneft, SIBUR, Bashneft, Nizhnekamskneftekhim, and other companies. However, the expert stressed that government should also participate in providing financial support to infrastructure development. “I believe it’s also necessary to establish specialised open-access centres (this work has already begun at the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics, RAS), and to increase [the role of] petrochemical clusters in implementing the strategic roadmap development programme, first of all through setting up major testing grounds and centres”, concluded the expert.

Experimental industrial facilities should also be built together with open-access centres, stressed Artyom Shadrin, director of Department Innovative Development of the RF Ministry of Economic Development. Also extremely important is dealing with lack of engineering centres, added the RAS academician Sergey Aldoshin.

“Roadmaps development also reveals “holes” in the institutional system”, noted Valentin Parmon, director of the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the RAS. “For example, currently not a single government ministry in Russia oversees production of catalysts. And until we deal with the coordination issue, including prototype production, I’m afraid we’ll be making no progress in this area for years to come”. Responding to this comment, the meeting’s chairman Gleb Nikitin suggested that relevant proposals should be sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Synchronising all foresights

Alexander Povalko, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, spoke about synchronising the developed roadmaps with other strategic documents of various levels — federal, industrial, and corporate ones. The idea was supported by two RAS academicians: Sergey Aldoshin, director of the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics of the RAS, and Salambek Khadjiev, director of the A.V. Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the RAS.

Participants of the IDC meeting expressed significant interest to this issue and recommended that federal agencies, organisations, enterprises with public participation, and technology platforms should consider the roadmaps for deep processing of hydrocarbons, and the Russian S&T Foresight until 2030 when they develop and implement their own strategies and plans.

Dmitriy Belousov, head of section at the Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting

The second part of the meeting was devoted to analysing the concept of long-term science, technology and innovation foresight in Russia. According to Dmitriy Belousov, head of section at the Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting, Russia is at the stage when it can no longer afford funding “everything at the same time”. “There’s a paradox in the country: on the one hand we can’t say that R&D funding is too bad (it’s on a par with developed countries’ level); but on the other, we have low returns not just from the R&D sphere, but from the cash flows too”, said the expert. In Dmitriy Belousov’s words, R&D must not be funded only by the government; private companies must be actively involved in this process, and they need clear milestones. S&T development priorities may serve as such milestones, and as a universal economic language providing general context. Hence the second conclusion: we should increase funding only for high-priority areas, which produce real results. Also, according to the expert we must solve the problem of the so-called “open-ended NIS” (national innovation system), when Russia performs early stages of new products’ development, which are subsequently marketed with Western companies’ help — thus in effect funding the competition’s S&T development. First of all, the expert believes Russia must find its place in the global division of labour. “The country which doesn’t plan its future will have to live by other people’s plans, and then only by their visible part”, stressed Dmitriy Belousov.

It’s a known fact that Russia does implement major national foresight studies. At the beginning of 2014 the prime minister approved Russian S&T Foresight 2030, whose development for many years was coordinated by HSE. Dmitriy Belousov noted that with participation of the HSE experts, methodology has been developed and scenarios for high-priority research areas built, supplemented with a set of roadmaps. Also developed was a common vision of the business sector’s situation, with estimates of possible effects in specific key industries. Now the next step should be moving on to S&T foresight 2040, said Dmitriy Belousov — even only because “major investment projects in the Russian energy industry already require territorial development strategies until 2050”.

Adopting the “global challenges” language

A very important issue is the social aspect of promoting innovative technologies. In the course of the foresight study, noted Dmitriy Belousov, it was discovered that in Russia development of purely economic priority areas such as new transport technologies generates the best economic effect, while the lowest effect produce R&D in the life sciences field. In the rest of the world the opposite is true. “In the long term we must create an adequate biomedicine system — monitoring, preventive medicine, [promotion of] healthy lifestyle, etc., potentially leading to a new quality of life”, said the expert. And Russia must find something new here, because “we no longer have a guarantied chief energy supplier position”.

Dmitriy Belousov repeatedly referred to foresight tools as a common language equally understandable to the government, the business, and the R&D sphere. In the context of his presentation’s main topic — the macroeconomic component, he urged to adopt “the language of super-long-term foresight”, i.e. “the global challenges language”.

Evgeny Kuznetsov, director of Strategic Communications department of the Russian Venture Company

Evgeny Kuznetsov, director of Strategic Communications department of the Russian Venture Company (RVC), noted he was pleased to see the evolution of the national foresight and its growing maturity in understanding the future. Speaking about its further development the expert suggested to improve the administrative aspects, specifically not to concentrate just on coming up with a regulatory document but pay more attention to building a long-term foresight culture. The RVC representative stressed that development of high-tech sectors would become increasingly decentralised, based on a distributed network structures. E.g. “pumping money into the medical market doesn’t drive its growth”; to achieve that, the whole medical industry must be rebuilt on the basis of new principles.

Gleb Nikitin, first RF deputy minister of industry and trade, commenting the RVC representative’s ideas noted that one foresight vector (production of regulatory documents) doesn’t exclude the other, i.e. building a platform for stakeholders’ cooperation.

Protocol aspects

Rounding up, Gleb Nikitin suggested that executive authorities and other interested parties should formally adopt the long-term macroeconomic S&T foresight document, while the RF Ministry of Education and Science should use the study’s results for conducting the Foresight 2040. Also, executive authorities and companies which involve relevant technology platforms should take the roadmaps into account when conducting their own industrial foresight studies, and preparing development programmes for territorial innovation clusters. They should also sent to the RF Ministry of Education and Science their suggestions on further improvement of roadmaps for S&T development in the deep processing of hydrocarbon raw materials. “Since production of equipment for oil and gas industry is a priority area, Mr Parmon’s suggestions on catalysts development will be referred to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. No less important is the issue of personnel and skills; the next foresight study on personnel development should be conducted in coordination with the S&T foresight. Another major objective for the system is supporting the already established expert networks comprising representatives of professional associations, business communities, R&D organisations, and universities”, concluded Gleb Nikitin.

By Anastasia Chumak, HSE news service

Original news at the HSE portal