16 May 2013 

Source: HRO.org (info)

• Employment rights 

Foreign philanthropic and academic foundations working with Russian researchers and academic institutions will be obliged to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Education & Science.

Grani.ru, citing the newspaper Vedomosti, reports that a government decree lays down this demand.

Grantmakers henceforth must present the Ministry with their founding documents and information about the research project for which money is being provided. Moreover, they must give the officials their own bank details and the numbers of the bank accounts of the grant recipients. All these documents must be translated into Russian.

The officials can refuse the philanthropists if they consider that the goals of the research conflict with the Russian legislation or do not correspond with the established priorities for the development of science and technology. The right to work without the permission of the Ministry of Science & Education is retained for 13 organizations, including six agencies and organizations of the United Nations, particular European and intergovernmental associations (the Council of Ministers of the Northern Countries, the Council of States of the Baltic Sea) and the Intergovernmental Foundation of Humanitarian Cooperation of the CIS.

Earlier, academic institutions had been removed from the list of organizations affected by the law on ‘foreign agents.’ This government decree now puts academics receiving financing from abroad on an equal footing with organizations registered as ‘foreign agents.’ Experts asked by HRO.org said that they expect that prosecutors will visit academic institutions that are recipients of grants, and that there will be more prosecutions of academics.