The winners of the second competition to attract leading scientists in Russian universities are identified

September 21, 2011 Council on Grants of the Russian Government has identified the names of 39 scientists - the winners of the second open public competition for grants of the Russian Government for the state support of scientific research conducted under the guidance of leading scientists in Russian universities.

517 leading scientists together with 176 educational institutions of higher education of Russia took part in the competition.

230 persons of the 517 participants are citizens of the Russian Federation (65 of them are now working abroad), 212 persons are foreign citizens, 75 persons have dual citizenship.

Among the winners 19 scientists have Russian citizenship (13 of them have dual citizenship). One scientist resides in Russia. Among the foreign winners 10 scientists have US citizenship (4 of them have dual citizenship), 6 of them are citizens of France, 4 - citizens of Germany.

Grants of up to 150 million rubles each are given to conduct scientific research in 2011-2013 with a possible extension of the research for a period of 1 to 2 years. The total amount of the federal budget, which the winners of the second competition will receive, is 5,56 billion rubles.

The leading Russian and foreign scientists, occupying a leading position in a particular field of science, could become participants of the competition. The are no limitation in the tender documents on citizenship and country of residence of the leading scientist. However under the terms of the tender the leading scientist must personally guide the laboratory (that means, he must present in the Russian higher school and conduct research for the full time) at least 4 months annually in 2012 and 2013.

In accordance with the requirements of the agreement (concluded between the Ministry of Education & Science of Russia, leading scientist and the university, on the basis of which scientific research will be carried out), the leading scientist undertakes to guide scientific research and present a scientific report on it, and the university undertakes to provide all necessary condition for the research. Government grants will be transferred to universities, on the basis of which the leading scientist will conduct scientific research. But to spend the grant universities can only with the consent of the leading scientist, directing scientific research.

The first competition for grants of the Russian Government for the state support of scientific research conducted under the guidance of leading scientists in Russian universities, was held in 2010.

507 leading scientists together with 179 educational institutions of higher education of Russia took part in the competition.

Council on Grants of the Russian Government for the state support of scientific research, based on its international examination, has identified the names of 40 scientists - the winners of the competition.

Taking into consideration the great interest among the world scientific community to the competition, scientific results of the winners of the competition, as well as the wishes of the Russian and foreign scientists, the Ministry decided to hold a second competitive selection process, which was announced in April 2011. Many of those who were not among the winners of the first competition took part in the second one.

Fields of science for the state support of scientific research in a new competition remained as before.

As with the first competition, the selection of winners was held in full compliance with the international standards. To carry out examination of all proposals received the competitive commission established expert groups in the fields of science identified by the Council on Grants. The expert groups were formed on the basis of proposals received from members of the Council on Grants, the American Association of Universities, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the International Department of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

The expert group included 1299 experts (most of them participated in the examination last year), of whom 609 (46.9%) are foreign experts, 690 (53.1%) – Russian experts. 21 expert groups are headed by 11 international experts.

List of winners.