The Medvedev modernisation programme was an initiative launched by

President of Russia The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the State Council (Russia), Federal State Council and the President of Russia#Commander-in-ch ...

Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev was also President of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and Prime Mini ...

in 2009, which aimed at modernising Russia's economy and society, decreasing the country's dependency on oil and gas revenues and creating a diversified economy based on high technology and

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...

. The programme was based on the top 5 priorities for the country's technological development:

efficient energy use Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For ...

;

nuclear technology Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in s ...

; information technology;

medical technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

and

pharmaceuticals Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

; and

space technology Space technology is technology for use in outer space. Space technology includes space vehicles such as spacecraft, satellites, space stations and orbital spaceflight, orbital launch vehicles; :Spacecraft communication, deep-space communication; :S ...

in combination with telecommunications.

Announcement

Background

After the near total collapse in 1998, the

Russian economy The economy of Russia is an Developing country, emerging and developing, World Bank high-income economy, high-income, industrialized, mixed economy, mixed Market economy, market-oriented economy. —Rosefielde, Steven, and Natalia Vennikova. " ...

recovered as a result of high oil prices during the presidency of

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

, but remained heavily dependent on energy and raw material exports. In the first decade of the 2000s, global oil prices kept rising, fuelling economic growth. Medvedev later stated his belief that this was not only a boom, but also damaging to the Russian economy, saying that if the oil price is too high, "we’d never change the structure of our economy... We haven’t done anything in the last 10 years because oil kept rushing higher and higher." There had been repeated calls for a more diversified economy under Putin; already in 2005, Putin's Prime Minister

Mikhail Fradkov Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov ( rus, Михаи́л Ефи́мович Фрадко́в, p=mʲɪxɐˈil jɪˈfʲiməvʲɪtɕ frɐtˈkof; born 1 September 1950) is a Russian politician who served as Prime Minister of Russia from 2004 to 2007. An Ind ...

warned about the dependency of the economy on raw material exports, and in 2007 Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov said that without diversification, the Russian economy will sooner or later face a collapse.

, elected as president in 2008, made economic modernisation his prime presidential agenda. Medvedev's statements regarding this issue went much further than other statements by the Russian leadership. In 2009, Medvedev founded the Presidential Commission on Innovation. The commission comprises almost the entire Russian government and some of the best minds from academia and business.

"Go Russia!"

Medvedev outlined his programme in an article called "Go Russia!" that was published online in September 2009. In the article, he formulated his strategic objective of modernising Russia. He criticised Russia's economic "backwardness" and what he called Russia's "humiliating" dependency on oil and raw materials. He described the Russian society as "archaic" and "paternalistic" and said that the country can no longer rely on the achievements of the past to secure a prosperous future. In Medvedev's view, Russia should aim for a modern, diversified economy based on high technology and innovation. Medvedev criticised the previous attempts to modernise Russia—those initiated by Peter I the Great and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

—saying that the results they brought came at too high a cost, and this time modernisation must come not through coercion but via the development of the creative potential of every individual, through private entrepreneurship and initiative. Medvedev identified five key areas for economic modernisation, in which breakthroughs must be achieved: * Energy efficiency and new fuels * Medical technologies and pharmaceuticals *

Nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

engineering * Information technologies * Space and telecommunications Medvedev further discussed and publicised his programme in his second state of the nation address in November 2009, as well as in a televised speech in December 2009.

Programme structure

Efficient use of energy and resources

Global Energy International Prize - 2008

As of 2014, the

energy intensity Energy intensity is a Measurement, measure of the efficient energy use, energy inefficiency of an Economic system, economy. It is calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or some other measure of economic output. Hi ...

of the Russian economy was estimated to be about 2.5 times more than the world average.Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy: Efficient use of energy and resources
Official site. The government set an aim of 40% decrease of the energy intensity by 2020. It was estimated that the main potential of achieving this aim lies within the housing sector and the budget organisations. The following state projects were initiated to increase energy efficiency:

Nuclear technology

Nuclear power in Russia Russia is one of the world's Nuclear power by country#Overview, largest producers of nuclear energy. In 2020 total electricity generated in nuclear power plants in Russia was 215.746 terawatt-hour, TWh, 20.28% of all electric power plant genera ...

is managed by

Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom (commonly referred to as Rosatom rus, Росатом, p=rosˈatəm}), also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, (), or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian State corporation (Russia), sta ...

State Corporation. The aim of the programme was to increase the total share of nuclear energy from 16.9% to 23% by 2020. It was planned to allocate 127 billion rubles ($5.42 billion) to a federal program dedicated to the next generation of nuclear energy technology. About 1 trillion rubles ($42.7 billion) was to be allocated from the federal budget to nuclear power and industry development before 2015. The programme aimed to establish secure, cheap, and long-term nuclear energy supply in Russia as well as increase Russian exports of nuclear energy and technology abroad.Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy: Nuclear technology
Official site. Besides construction of the new

nuclear power plants A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power s ...

in Russia and elsewhere, the following major state projects were initiated in the area of nuclear technology:

Information technology

The government planned to develop the

information society An information society is a society or subculture where the usage, Content creation, creation, information distribution, distribution, manipulation and information integration, integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drive ...

in Russia and counter a shortage of IT specialists due to high demand. In 2009 Russian companies employed more than 1 million IT specialists, making up 1.34% of the country's workforce, a figure lower than in other major economies such as the United States (3.74%), United Kingdom (3.16%), and Germany (3.14%). The following major state projects were realized or planned in the area of information technology:Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy: Computer hardware and software
Official site. Medvedev and Twitter

Space technology and telecommunications

Much of the sector area still awaited large-scale commercialisation,.Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy: Space technology and telecommunications
Official site. aimed to be achieved by the combination of space technology and telecommunications. The following state projects were initiated in this area: The funding of

Russian Federal Space Agency The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research. Originating from ...

Roscosmos has almost tripled from 2007, standing at $3.1 billion in 2011. President Medvedev and the modernisation programme is credited with the increase.

Medical technology and pharmaceuticals

Despite a number of achievements, Russia was significantly behind the world leaders in

and

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

production.Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy: Medical technology and pharmaceuticals
Official site. The country produced only 20% of the drugs used domestically, while 80% is imported. The specific major state projects in the area of medical technology and pharmaceuticals were not defined or announced. The government aimed to achieve the primarily domestical production of the most needed types of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, as well as support the development and commercialization of new innovative products, especially those related to

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

, cell and

nuclear medicine Nuclear medicine (nuclear radiology, nucleology), is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactivity, radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, ''radiology done inside out'', ...

, and

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

Criticism

According to the French Institute of International Relations, the programme has failed.Russia's Economic Modernization: The Causes of a Failure, 2016
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References

External links

Presidential Commission on the modernisation and technological development of the Russian economy
Official site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Medvedev modernisation programme Economic history of Russia Dmitry Medvedev 2009 in Russia 2009 in economic history