ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 16 (Interfax-AVN) - The second international conference finding ways to settle the issue of cadre training for the Russian defense industry was held in the St. Petersburg State Technical University.
"One of the most pressing problems of the national defense industry is the lack of qualified and skilful cadre," Andrei Kokoshin, chairman of the State Duma committee for CIS and relations with compatriots and former secretary of the Russian Security Council, told Interfax-AVN on Thursday.
He noted that in the 1990s a certain generation gap appeared, and now the defense industry cadre are rapidly getting old for very little fresh personnel have been employed for quite long. "Although the number of students studying technical specialties is increasing, especially as far as weapons engineering is concerned, the incentives for the academic staff, possessing a wealth of experience in this particular domain, are still far from the desired," he said.
"We often say that our faction United Russia has managed to increase bonuses for academic titles, including in defense institutions and companies. Following the results of this forum, we will lobby more measures to be taken, for instance, to increase the share of funding provided via the state defense order for the purpose of research and development, and to see to it that these assets are received by the institutes that are directly engaged into the development of systems for use in the national defense, like the Bauman University, the St. Petersburg State Technical University, the Moscow Aviation Institute, the Institute of Physics and Technology and so on," Kokoshin said.
In the USSR defense companies allocated up to 50% of the assets provided to them for research and development purposes to technical universities and schools, he added.
"Nowadays the share is much smaller, and the research and development institutes and design bureaus are quite hard up, but the defense industry and science show clear signs of revival, and in order to make this revival a success, they need personnel, willing to work, and student and the academic staff of institutes willing to study and conduct researches," he said.
According to Kokoshin, the resolutions of the conference will lay the groundwork for the proposals to be submitted to the government. "Perhaps some of them will later transform into laws regulating the asset management and allocation for research, development and education," he said.
He emphasized that the St. Petersburg Technical University, hosting the conference, is one of the most vivid examples of research and development facilities that apart from being a powerful education establishment, is yet more renowned for being a supreme development center of most advanced weapon systems.
Kokoshin also said that representatives of the leading Russian research institutes and design bureaus of the defense industry, based both in St. Petersburg and other Russian regions, attended the forum.