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The results of the federal competition for state-support subsidies for the development programs of ten world-class research centres (WCRC), carrying out R&D in priority areas of the scientific and technological development, have been published.
“Following the federal competition results, 10 WCRC have been selected. Their activities will be aimed at developing and introducing into the economy the most important knowledge-intensive technologies defined by the edict issued by the President Vladimir Putin. The subsidy for each of the selected world-class research centres will amount to 320 million rubles annually”, emphasized Dmitry Chernyshenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, noted that the applications to have been submitted for competitive selection cover all seven priority areas of research and technological development, approved by the head of the state, “In future, it is planned to assign selected research centres to the sectoral federal executive authorities. This will ensure the closest possible interaction between the parties”.
From 2025 to 2030, 1.8 billion rubles will be allocated for establishing and developing the World-Class Research Centre for Intelligent UAS on the basis of Samara University, which will develop and implement innovative technologies in the field of intelligent design, integrated safety of unmanned aviation systems (UAS), and the intelligent applications contributing to the efficient and safe use of UAS in various sectors of the economy.
The University’s partners in implementing projects of the Centre for Intelligent UAS are LLC “Transport Budushchego” (Transport of the Future), as well as Tolyatti State University, GosNIIAS (State Research Institute of Aviation Systems), and the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics.
Samara University has the multi-year experience and holds leading positions in the field of unmanned aviation and artificial intelligence, as well as its staff includes leading scientists, with academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specializing in this area, among them. Besides, the University has all the necessary infrastructure, computing power for training artificial intelligence models, photonic artificial intelligence tools and the full-cycle research and production base for creating UAS and their components.
“Our objective is achieving technological superiority in the field of unmanned aviation systems. This includes generative design, the use of artificial intelligence for controlling drones, data processing, coordination of the simultaneous work of the UAS group, energy efficiency improvement and optimal mission planning”, noted Vladimir Bogatyrev, Rector of Samara University.
The activities of the Centre for Intelligent UAS will cover all aspects of UAS design, production and operation and will be divided into three blocks. Thus, the block “Intelligent Design and Production” is aimed at achieving technological superiority in the field of UAS creation. Within the area “Integrated UAS Safety”, the tasks of end-to-end safety of the ecosystem of unmanned aviation, including hardware, software and telecommunication components, as well as the creation of a digital twin of the UAS lifecycle, will be solved. And in the area “Intelligence for Sectoral Application”, the replacement of the UAS pilot with the artificial intelligence system for solving applied tasks will be ensured.
The core activity areas for the Centre for Intelligent UAS has been selected on the basis of the instructions given by the President of Russia, following the results of the meeting dedicated to the development of unmanned aviation systems, which was held in Togliatti, at the production site of LLC “Transport Budushchego” on January 28, 2025.
