Before delivering the report, KarRC RAS Director General, Corresponding Academician Olga Bakhmet called attention to the new documents and directions for the development of science adopted within government policy.
- The Decade of Science and Technology continues. We are constantly told that among other things science should carry out research of applied nature. Our target is active technological development of the country, - the leader emphasized.
The country's technological leadership is the objective of the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of Russia and of the national development goals. Modernization of the real economy is at the top of the agenda. Thus, scientists need to take into account the applied perspective when planning their research.
Speaking about the staff composition of the Karelian Research Center RAS, Olga Bakhmet drew attention to the increasing share of young employees under the age of 29. Last year a new youth laboratory, for Integrated Arctic Studies, was set up. The Center received a subsidy for its establishment from the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education after a competitive selection process.
Presiding Olga Bakhmet, KarRC RAS Director General, and Natalya Fokina, KarRC RAS Secretary for Science
According to the report, the Center conducted studies on 217 research themes during 2024, of which 36 were implemented under state assignment to KarRC RAS. In addition, scientists conducted research within projects under grants from the Russian Science Foundation, other competition-based and international projects. The results were published in 560 articles in scientific journals, eight monographs and three study books.
The most important research results were submitted to the relevant departments of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In particular, geneticists of the Institute of Biology for the first time demonstrated a downregulation of the transcriptional activity of the metalloproteinase 2 gene and the content of the protein it encodes in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the simple steatosis stage with simultaneous activation of pro-inflammatory cascades. This is important for developing minimally invasive methods of diagnosing the disease.
Participants of the meeting
A digital bathymetric model of Lake Onego has been created at the Northern Water Problems Institute. It is used for reconstructing the evolution of the lake in the post-glacial period and has already produced new estimates of morphometric characteristics of the lake and its individual regions. Also, an information and analytical system for assessing the state and predicting the dynamics of the lake-catchment system was created for the first time using Lake Onego as the example - it is the only prototype of such a system for large lakes in Russia.
Geoscientists have discovered a new Neoarchean stratotectonic association represented by polymictic conglomerates in the axial part of the Kostomuksha greenstone belt. It shares some features with the Timiskaming gold association located on the Canadian Shield. Staff of the Forest Research Institute have created the basis for the preservation and replication of unique genotypes of spruce and pine trees growing at the Petrozavodsk forest seed plantation. The cell lines generated there will be used to create a collection of unique genotypes of conifers. In the future, they can serve for reforestation in the North European Russia.
Director of the Institute of Geology KarRC RAS Sergey Svetov asking a question
Researchers at the Institute of Applied Mathematical Research KarRC RAS have proposed a new hybrid nonlinear model of hydrogen thermodesorption from structural materials. It describes the dynamics of atomic hydrogen concentrations through a system of low-order ordinary differential equations. The Institute of Economics has developed a factor model of demand segmentation in the tourist services market of the Republic of Karelia. The study of the situation with domestic tourism is considered as a significant sphere of the economic development of the regional system, especially nowadays, when the northern border belt of the Russian Federation has lost the advantages of socio-economic cooperation with neighboring countries.
The Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS prepared the monograph “Russian servicemen in Finland during WWI (1914-1918)”. The study showed that Russian troops had a significant impact on the socio-political and socio-economic processes during the final period of Finnish autonomy.
The Center for Biomedical Research DMR KarRC RAS conducted a screening study of healthy individuals living in Karelia to detect early homeostasis disorders. The most frequent abnormalities were detected: 78% had blood lipid disorders (a risk factor for atherosclerosis), 40% had carbohydrate metabolism disorders (a risk factor for type II diabetes), and 37% had blood monocytosis (a possible consequence of COVID-19, as these cells serve as a reservoir for the virus). The detected markers of early homeostasis disorders help assess the risk of cardiometabolic diseases in healthy individuals.
Director of the Northern Water Problems Institute KarRC RAS Yulia Lukina
The most important scientific results of applied significance include a technique for wasteless processing of Arctic brown algae; proving that schungite is effective in enhancing soil properties and increasing potato yields; creating bioactive dispersions of shungite carbon nanoparticles and testing their interactions with proteins; a technique for stone casting from stone processing wastes; toponymic and linguistic expert reviews and consultations at the request of authorities, scientific and educational organizations, and tourist firms; traffic modeling; studies of region-adapted and introduced high-yield potato varieties, and others.
Last year, KarRC RAS hosted 37 scientific events with active participation of the staff of all institutes. These include the All-Russian Conference “Forest Productivity under a Changing Climate”, the All-Russian Conference “The Basic and Applied Dimensions of Adaptation of Living Organisms to a Changing Environment in the North: Research, Innovations, Visions”, the Second International Conference “Regional cooperation within the BRICS: modern environmental and nature management issues”, the 35th Youth School and Conference “Topical Problems of Geology, Geophysics and Geoecology,” and others.
Director of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS Irina Novak
A noteworthy event was the inclusion of the Scientific Journal Transactions of KarRC RAS in RSCI core. A total of eight issues of the Transactions of KarRC RAS and four issues of the Mathematical Game Theory and its Applications journal were published. Creating a humanities research journal is being discussed.
Two inventions, 60 databases and 9 computer programs were registered with the Federal Service for Intellectual Property. A total of 27 patents for inventions and 7 patents for utility models are maintained in force by KarRC RAS.
The KarRC RAS Doctoral School provides scientific and teaching personel training curricular for 73 full-time doctoral students in 6 areas of top qualification training and 15 scientific specialties. Eight doctoral (Cand.Sci.) and one post-doctoral (Dr.Sci.) theses have been successfully defended: the Doctor of Philology degree was awarded to Irina Novak, Director of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History KarRC RAS.
KarRC RAS develops partnerships with CIS states, first of all the Republic of Belarus, countries of Central and South Asia, Africa and Latin America. There are ten active cooperation agreements with scientific organizations of Belarus, three with China and two with India.
Concluding the report and speaking about the tasks for the future, Olga Bakhmet once again emphasized: “We must be looking for our place in the areas that are currently in the focus of the state policy, and cover these areas in our studies”.
Nikolai Filatov, Corresponding Academician, Principal Researcher at NWPI KarRC RAS, takes the floor
Based on the presentation of KarRC RAS Director Olga Bakhmet, the Learned Council resolved to approve the report on the main results of scientific and science-administration activities of KarRC RAS in 2024.
Another part of the agenda was reports on KarRC RAS finance and on the work of operative and administrative units in 2024 by Svetlana Kiriy, Chief Accountant, and Lyubov Shvetsova, Assistant Director General.
