Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the session of the Council for Science and Education that there would be 834 billion rubles allocated for the implementation of the program of basic research before 2020.
On December 20th, Putin said that Russia can not indefinitely exploit the basis of fundamental knowledge that was created during the Soviet times.
In 2013, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) underwent a major reform. The Academy has thus consolidated the functions associated with basic research. The Russian Research Foundation was then established to fund major research projects, including megascience projects - accelerators, reactors and other facilities developed jointly with foreign scientists.