Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the Russian Academy of Sciences to take the forefront in modernizing the country Tuesday, while scientists complained that a lack of funds meant that their contribution to scientific progress was minimal.


Putin, speaking at an annual gathering of the academy's 1,200 members, said the academy should generate fundamental scientific knowledge and act as a tool in the selection and promotion of Russia's intellectual elite.



"Definitely, the Russian Academy of Sciences and national science in general cannot stay away from the modernization agenda," Putin said, referring to President Dmitry Medvedev's ambitious plan to close a growing gap between technological development in Russia and the West.



Putin promised $1.6 billion, or $100 million less than last year, to cover the academy's needs. The amount is a fraction of the $36 billion that the government plans to spend on science, higher education and scientific research in 2010.
 


But to sweeten the pill, the prime minister said the government would allow the academy to build apartment buildings for its employees on land that it owns, including in prime locations in Moscow.



The academy's budget has been trimmed two years in a row, and the latest cut meant that some scientists would not be able to buy equipment for their research this year, said Vyacheslav Vdovin, head of the academy's trade union council. 
 


Eight percent of the money received by the academy is used to pay the salaries of its 100,000 employees across Russia, leaving the rest for scientific experiments, Vdovin told The Moscow Times.



A lack of financing for scientific work prompted protests by academy members in Moscow and St. Petersburg earlier this month. 
 


With state financing for science accounting for less than 2 percent of the country's gross domestic product, Russia's contribution to world science is among the lowest of developed nations. 
 


The contribution of Russian scientists amounted to only 2 percent of global scientific research last year, Valery Kostyuk, a senior academy member, said without elaborating at the meeting Tuesday, Itar-Tass reported. 



Vdovin said that while Putin's visit would not solve the academy's problems, it was an important step to show the government's "respect for the academy.”



In January, Boris Gryzlov, the State Duma speaker and No. 2 official in the ruling United Russia party after Putin, accused the academy of "building barriers to innovations" after the academy criticized self-styled scientist and inventor Viktor Petrik, who co-owns a scientific patent with Gryzlov.