Search system for R&D equipment
Improving the R&D sector’s access to facilities and equipment is a key objective of the RF national programme “Development of Science and Technology in 2013–2020”. To regulate statistical measurement in this area, ISSEK developed R&D equipment classifier commissioned by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science — a unique product with no analogues anywhere in the world. Anton Suslov of the Centre for Statistics and Monitoring of S&T and Innovation presented this project at the conference on developing shared centres (SCs) of R&D equipment and unique research facilities (URF).
The conference took place on 3–4 June, 2015 at the St. Petersburg State University’s Science Park. It was attended by representatives of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, Federal Agency for Scientific Organisations, heads of R&D organisations and their subdivisions (SCs), and individual researchers.
Participants discussed criteria for determining the status of and requirements for SCs and URFs suggested in the draft Government regulation “On approving requirements for shared centres of R&D equipment and unique research facilities established by research and educational organisations at the cost of the Russian federal budget and/or regional budgets appropriations, and/or receiving ongoing funding from such appropriations, and on procedures for their operations”. The experts also shared their experience of providing metrological support for SCs and URFs, training R&D personnel, and networking with industrial companies, foreign R&D organisations, and other SCs.
Anton Suslov, expert at the Centre for Statistics and Monitoring of S&T and Innovation of the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, presented the draft classifier of R&D equipment developed by ISSEK, commissioned by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science in the framework of the 2014–2015 project “Integrated analytical studies to assess current state and qualitative characteristics of R&D equipment and facilities, their adequacy for obtaining competitive world-level R&D results, and development of research areas important for the country’s S&T progress”.
The speaker commented on goals and objectives of developing a specialised classification, approaches to its creation, its final structure, the main data sources, and the organisation of the project’s review by the expert community.
The R&D equipment classification will allow to structure data about research facilities, and create up-to-date information basis for making management decisions to shape and implement government policy on providing R&D equipment and facilities.
At the end of the last year, the draft R&D equipment classifier was implemented into the information systems EKNTO (the Russian federal catalogue of high-technology equipment and research facilities, in Russian) and “SC and URF” (see website “Modern research infrastructure in the Russian Federation”, in Russian). Creation of consolidated R&D equipment database in 2015 made it possible to efficiently exchange data between these previously isolated information systems.