"Today, there are over 150 strong state research institutes, centers and higher educational establishments in Russia and they make a noticeable contribution to the world and domestic science and they account for an overwhelming number of patents issued in Russia (70%) and 80% of quoted works," Putin said.

At the same time, Putin told a meeting of the Council on Science and Education that overall much had been done for science development.

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Only 10% of Russia’s state research institutes can make breakthrough developments, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

However, 150 institutes "are only ten percent of all state educational and research organizations," Putin said.

"Of course, a question arises: where are the rest of institutes, what is the situation there and how do they operate?" the head of the Russian state said.

According to Putin, "the resources allocated for science should be provided to strong research work collectives capable of creating breakthrough technologies in the most important areas for the country and competing with leading world centers."

"Precisely this logic should be used to organize research financing based on priorities of the country’s scientific and technical development," Putin said.

The Russian president demanded that the government should "develop effective mechanisms, including on a project basis."

At the same time, "serious potential has been created in the past few years for fulfilling large-scale scientific projects," Putin said.

"Science infrastructure and its personnel potential are being strengthened, the number of young scientists has risen considerably, first of all, in organizations engaged in applied and specific fundamental research," Putin said.

According to the Russian president, "the share of specialists under 39 years of age exceeds 50% today in some areas."

Also, leading higher schools, such as the Moscow and St. Petersburg Universities and federal research universities are participating ever more actively in scientific research, Putin added.

"The growing possibilities of the domestic higher education are noted by foreign experts as well because "several dozen Russian higher educational institutions are included in various international ratings and in 2015 three Russian universities were mentioned in the world’s top 100 rating in the physical sciences category," the Russian president said.

"Serious work has been carried out to create world-level domestic research centers in the sphere of atomic power engineering, aviation and cosmonautics while intellectual, personnel and material resources of leading academies have been united to form the basis for establishing federal scientific centers, which have been assigned the corresponding powers and are focused on carrying out large-scale inter-disciplinary research in genetics, biotechnologies and chemistry," the Russian president said.