YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Chair of the Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sports Committee of the Armenian Parliament Hovhannes Hovhannisyan says science funding must be increased in Armenia in order to ensure a leap development of the sector.

Speaking in parliament at a discussion entitled “Science Funding Problems in Armenia”, the lawmaker from the ruling My Step bloc said: “Science wasn’t sufficiently funded in Armenia in time. The main emphasis was put on program funding in both fundamental and applied sciences. But it is a well-known fact that funding is required in order to involve young people in science and make it appealing and motivating. It is clear that salaries should be high in order for young people to have the desire to enter science”.

He said that by only highlighting the IT sector the natural science area is negatively impacted. The MP says the high wages in the IT sector is attractive to young people, who do not continue scientific activities and don’t bring additional results to science.

The lawmaker reminded that the government recently allocated additional funds to the Science Committee to acquire new equipment and a number of laboratories have been restored with funds provided by the World Bank. “But I believe these are necessary but insufficient conditions to truly speak about a leap development of science in Armenia,” he said, adding that these discussions must lead to clearly outlining how and to what extent the funding must be raised.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan