The number of inventions created in Russia has fallen to a minimum in 13 years

The number of inventions and know-how generated by Russian science is still declining, despite the authorities’ demands to replace Western technologies as soon as possible and to ensure “technological sovereignty”.

According to experts from the Institute of Statistical Research and Knowledge Economics, at the end of 2022, Russian applicants filed 18,970 patent applications.

Compared to 2021, the number of Russian inventions fell by 4% and was the lowest since at least 2010 (available period of HSE statistics).

Against the backdrop of sanctions and the international isolation of Russian scientific organizations abroad, not a single patent application from the Russian Federation has been registered, although in recent years there have been 4,000 to 6,000 of them annually.

The patent activity of Russian developers has been steadily declining for more than 10 years in a row, despite the president’s demands for a “technological breakthrough” and the national “Science” project worth 635 billion rubles.

Since 2016, the number of applications for registration of inventions and know-how in Russia has decreased by 30%, and compared to 2010 by 43%, according to HSE data.

“Despite the negative dynamics of the patent activity of the inhabitants of Russia, the technological dependency coefficient (the ratio of the number of foreign and domestic patent applications for inventions) is decreasing,” experts say. Last year it amounted to 0.42 and became the lowest data available in history.

However, this is explained by the fact that foreign developers are reducing their activities in the Russian Federation even faster than the patent activity of Russian organizations is declining. Last year, non-residents filed 7,954 applications for inventions with Rospatent, which is 30% less than the year before.

The world leader in terms of the share of inventions remains China, which accounts for 45.2% of all patent applications. The United States comes second (15%), followed by Japan (12.1%), South Korea (7.9%) and Germany (4.9%).

Russia is 19 times behind the United States and 56 times behind China. The share of Russian inventions in the world is only 0.8% and has fallen by 0.4 percentage points over the last 7 years.

The government requires scientists and business to sharply accelerate the rate of invention and know-how: by 2030, their number should increase by 140%, according to the Concept of Technological Development, which Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved on Thursday, May 25.

Researchers will have to do this in conditions of budgetary sequestration: last year, for the first time in 6 years, spending on civil science was reduced – from 626.6 to 569 billion rubles. And they do not plan to return to the previous level of power: 597.2 billion rubles in 2023 and 580.7 billion in 2024