Analysis of the activities of science foundations, which provide support for fundamental research in Russia

This article presents the results of the scientific analysis of the foundations, which provide support to basic research and development, to be used in the development of proposals to improve their effectiveness. The object of the research is the system of science support foundations for basic research and development in Russia, which includes the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), Russian Foundation for Humanities (RFH). Among the science publications indexed in WoS 40 % were supported by the science foundations (RSF – 2.8 %, RFBR – 38.2 %, RFH – 0.13 %) and the share of science foundations in the total budget financing is about 20 %. RSF provides support for major research projects, and RFBR and RFH – mostly for small projects, not taking into account targeted competitions. Based on the analysis of foreign experience it can be stated that the system of tools to support fundamental research should be expanded in the part concerning the development of human capital (support program for postdocs), the commercialization of the results of basic research and others. The demand rating demonstrates the need for the larger funding of RFBR and RFH research projects with an average grant sum not exceeding 1 million rubles. Contests with relatively small size of the grant (up to 1 million rubles) do not attract a sufficient number of researchers and use the necessary equipment for scientific research; amount of the grant over 10 million rubles is expected to support the major competitions of scientific laboratories and complex research programs that involve substantial scientific reserve. The legal base used for regulation of relations arising in the provision of grant support of scientific research and development require improvement..