Lukashenko appoints new SCST Chairman
The Head of State appointed Sergei Shlychkov, former Deputy Head of the Digitalisation and Innovative Development Department of the Office of the Council of Ministers, as new Chairman of the State Committee on Science and Technology (SCST)
“As far as I am informed, you are a person familiar with the area that you will have to manage. It is the most important thing to create a system in this industry,” stressed Aleksandr Lukashenko. “Meanwhile, it is important for the state that you clearly define together with your colleagues the area of action: those state programmes that need to be supported. We will finance them while you should provide the most severe control. You are, probably, aware of the main disadvantages of the SCST. It seems that there are programmes and money is being allocated. Maybe we are creating something, but I don’t see any particular results.”
The Head of State said that the set task is an ‘earthly’ one, “It is necessary to get and put it, as I say, on the table so that it can be seen that the money has been spent and there is a result.”
“This is a very high trust, and I will make every effort to justify it,” Sergei Shlychkov underlined in an interview with journalists. “The field of activity is familiar to me. The Head of State has set very clear and understandable tasks. First of all, it is important to get the effect from our research, development and innovative activity. It is also necessary to increase the effect of the use of intellectual property objects. Some countries have positive experience that can be borrowed.”
Moreover, the new Chairman of the State Committee on Science and Technology stressed that innovative development in some countries is, actually, a separate type of economic activity, “It is assessed in the same way as any other type of economic activity (for example, the agro-industrial complex or industry): from the point of view of its contribution to the economy. We are in a very good place in the world, despite all those difficulties. If we talk about quality indicators in the development of science, sci-tech activities and innovative development, then we are on a par with such countries as the Russian Federation.”
Sergei Shlychkov concluded that we have a very good potential for such a development in the country and we now need to increase its efficiency.
