This was announced today at the enlarged meeting of the Presidium of NCE RK by the chairman of the Supervisory Board of LLP “Alageum Group” Saidulla Kozhabayev

He noted that in order to increase the competitiveness of domestic products and productivity, it is required to conduct constant search of new approaches for cost optimization and introduction of new technologies. For example, to release a new transformer in the first place you need design and technological documentation and assistance of a relevant branch of science, which is absent in the country at the moment.

"We are producing high technology products, we invest in research and development studies. At the same time, the state spends money on basic research, it funds scientific research in various sectors, but, unfortunately, they rarely reach the real manufacturers, that is, there is no commercialization. So the first thing you need for competitiveness, this is sufficient funding for innovation. Companies do not have enough of their own funds to finance innovation. Research topics are defined by the principle "top-down" by the ministries, although it would be wiser if the demand and topics for research came from manufacturing enterprises, from business, as it is common in the advanced countries", - said Saidulla Kozhabayev.

 In his opinion, a serious problem is the fragmentation of instruments of support for research and innovation. "In Kazakhstan we have several overlapping organizations. This MES, the Foundation of Science, Science Committee, the World Bank's project "NATD". Subsoil users have significant funds, which should be used in science. But our design offices do not get their orders for the developments", - said the speaker.

In this case there is no mechanism to ensure openness and transparency of issuing grants. Many businesses, according Kozhabayev do not even know about the competitions that are held. He got convinced of this by his personal experience, when he tried to participate in the World Bank’s competition. Because of the late submission of an application, it was rejected.

"We are even willing to return the money, if we can’t develop. We consider it is necessary in a situation with a deficit of funds not focus on fundamentals, but  more applied developments. There must be a concrete result - assessable, any development must be implemented in production. Production must obtain it,  introduce and produce products. Only then we will increase the efficiency of interaction between business and science directly. The best is to finance mainly the projects, where production companies are willing to bear the risks and costs themselves. Then there will be less of those, who are spending budget funds inefficiently", - expressed confidence Saidulla Kozhabayev.

He also proposed to consolidate public universities after individual industry associations and large holdings, to minimize the path from design to technology deployment.

"We started the realization of the investment project in Shymkent - the production of electric reactors and electric machines of 220, 500 kV. This is the voltage that uses a system of KEGOC. There a few enterprises of the kind in the CIS, none in Central Asia. We have no doubt that it will install the equipment. But when we have to produce, we will be faced with the lack of drawings, design and technical documentation. I therefore appeal to all universities to work in this direction", - said Saidulla Kozhabayev.

The Minister of Education and Science, who was present at the meeting agreed that the separation of science from the production has a negative impact on implementation of technologies and offered to have a detailed study in order to improve the situation. However, he stressed that today it is a time when enterprises can participate in the development, and even more so if it is willing to invest own funds.

Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Bakytzhan Sagintayev said that he knew about the complaints on the allocation of funds through the research centers. He stressed that there is a need not just to sustain groups or institutions, but jointly decide which research topics are relevant.

"To define the industry topic and to work on it. Do you want to work in these studies? Work. The economy does not need other studies. We will work on the shelf. We need to determine quickly certain topics", - said Bakhytzhan Sagintayev.

Chairman of the Presidium of NCE RK Timur Kulibayev emphasized that it is necessary to include representatives of industries and business in scientific and technical councils to determine the relevance of issues and the adoption of results.

"We understand how funding of science happens in our country. There are established scientific groups, which themselves define the topics, find funding themselves and claim their findings. I think that if there will be an applied mode of science, even a scan analysis of the technological advances that are in the world, what is applicable in Kazakhstan, and how we adapted them to our conditions, that is there is no antagonism. Antagonism one - to overcome the autonomy of research teams", - summed up Timur Kulibayev.