The Ministry of Education and Science will hold a competition of scientific and technical developments for this year’s state order for updated procedures

Competition of scientific and technical developments on a state order this year will take place, but the Ministry of Education and Science will provide a re-examination of the submitted projects and a complete update of the composition of the Scientific and Technical Council and all sections. It provides an explanation Directorate of Science and Innovation Ministry of Education June 5, 2020.

This decision is necessary because on June 2 the Ministry of Education and Science received a message from law enforcement agencies to investigate criminal proceedings on the receipt of undue benefits by an employee of the ministry. According to the prosecutor’s office in the city of Kyiv, it is said that the representative of a state-owned enterprise illegally benefits for winning a state-order research and development project.

“We understand that now the results of the examination, and their further consideration in sections without confidence. We considered various options for resolving this issue – until the cancellation of this year’s competition in general. However, this would be unfair to thousands of Ukrainian scientists who put a lot of time and effort to go to the competition. It would also be a minus for the state, because it was this competition that allowed completing dozens of developments that are actually used today – in defense, medicine, etc.”, – explained the First Deputy Minister of Education and Science Yuri Polyukhovich.

Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Science decided to continue the competition, but introducing a number of “fuses”. Firstly, a re-examination of the submitted projects will be provided. Secondly, the composition of the sections will be completely updated. It is important that it is not MON to select the new members of the sections, but an external independent competition committee according to clear criteria.

“Unfortunately, the tender regulation did not provide for mandatory permanent rotation of the sections, but in general this is an important mechanism to ensure transparent selection of projects. Now we will conduct such a rotation, as well as provide for its need for the future. In addition, we plan to substantially revise other conditions for holding this competition”, – added Yuri Polyukhovich.

The announcement of the competition as part of the sections will soon be posted on the MES website.

We remind you that the state-owned research and development competition began on October 24, 2019. The projects submitted to it were tested for compliance with the requirements of the competition and were submitted for examination to UkrINTEI. Now the initial examination of the projects is completed.

Source: МESU