Rada speaker promises protesters outside parliament to consider financing of science while amending budget in June
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Chairman Andrii Parubii has met with representatives of the scientific community who gathered outside the parliament on Tuesday demanding funding of science.
Censor.NET reports citing the press service of the Ukrainian parliament.
"The scientists demanded to fulfill the norms of the Law on scientific-technical activities, adopted last year. Under this law, the financing of science was to amount to 1.7 percent of GDP. At this point, the budget has allocated only 0.2 percent for this sphere making it impossible to pay salaries for young scientists and entailing the termination of funding for scientific programs.
In particular, according to Minister of Science and Education of Ukraine Lilia Hrynevych, "610 million hryvnias are currently urgently required to additionally fund arrears of wages in all academies" so there is urgent need to make amendments to the State Budget of Ukraine.
Being a supporter of the need to remedy the situation in the of education and science spheres, Parubii noted that the proposals on the additional funding must be included in the package of amendments to the state budget, which was scheduled to be considered in early June.
"These are not some unreal things. But it is already necessary to prepare proposals for 2017." the head of parliament said and promised to arrange a meeting of scientists with Prime Minister of Ukraine Hroisman.
