Russia allocates 14 bln rubles for grants to IT sector

MOSCOW. April 5 (Interfax) - The Russian government has passed a resolution to allocate 14 billion rubles to support information technology companies in the face of international sanctions and it has been published on the website for legal information.

The funds will be distributed as grants by the Bortnik Fund for the development of small businesses in the science and technology sector, the Skolkovo Foundation for development and commercialization of new technologies, and the Russian Information Technologies Development Fund (RITDF).

The RITDF will receive 10.8 billion rubles to support projects to develop and roll out Russian IT solutions under the Digital Technologies federal project of the Digital Economy national program. At least 20 projects are supposed to get support in 2022.

The Skolkovo Foundation will get 1.2 billion rubles "to support the first large-scale implementation of Russian solutions in the area of information technology." At least four projects are supposed to get support.

The additional subsidy allocated to the Bortnik Fund in 2022 to support the projects of small businesses in the field of digital solutions will total 2 billion rubles. The money is expected to be spent on supporting 107 projects by the end of the year.

The Digital Development Ministry proposed earlier to increase financing for grant programs severalfold from the 7.5 billion rubles budgeted for them for 2022, as well as to change the proportion of cofinancing from the state to 80/20 from the current 50/50, and increase the size of grants and the allowed level of wages for employees.

For some particularly important projects to develop promising domestic IT solutions, maximum grants will total up to 6 billion rubles over three years. The ministry also changed the competitive selection process. IT companies will first publicly defend their projects before the grant committee and experts and only then will prospective projects begin preparing for the formal part of the application process. Companies will be able to fill out an application for preliminary selection with a special form on the government services portal.