Since the International Scientific and Technical Centre (ISTC) established its mission in 14 years ago, it has allocated $20.7 million to finance 89 scientific projects in , Head of the Belarusian Branch Office Alexander Klepatsky told a press conference on 6 July. 

“These projects were run by Belarusian scientific institutions. Apart from that, Belarusian scientists took part in ISTC projects implemented by Russian scientists; those projects were worth about $16 million,” the specialist said. 

In 2008 alone, 25 ISTC projects were implemented in , of them 15 were run by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB). The total amount of financing made up $2.1 million last year. 

The Belarusian institutions that were most actively involved in ISTC projects include the B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics of the NASB, Nuclear Research Institute Sosny of the NASB, Research Institute for Physical and Chemical Problems of the Belarusian State University. 

According to Alexander Klepatsky, the cooperation between Belarusian scientific institutions and the ISTC could have been broader. “Today almost every third proposal submitted to the centre receives financing. If Belarusian scientists had presented more proposals and projects, they could have gotten more funds for their research,” he said. In his words, the Belarusian science is capable of implementing a large number of projects under the ISTC support. However, the statistics reveals that , and are ahead of in terms of the number of projects financed by the organization,” he stated. 

The International Scientific and Technical Centre was founded by the EU, Russia, the USA and Japan in November 1992. Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Canada, Korea and Norway joined the agreement later. 

ISTC facilitates international science projects and assists the global scientific and business community to source and engage with Russian and CIS institutes that develop or possess an excellence of scientific know-how.

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