Belarus will create additional stimuli to build up innovation efforts, Igor Voitov, Chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology of Belarus, told the international scientific and practical conference “20 years of the Commonwealth of Independent States” on 28 September.

Measures to improve the legal base for R&D and innovation efforts will be taken this year, he said. In particular, the Committee has prepared a draft law on the state innovation policy and innovation activities in Belarus. The bill is supposed to lay down the framework for a state innovation policy and innovation activities in the country. It will also determine the main conditions for regulating relations in the area of innovation efforts. The Council of Ministers is now revising the document.

More legal acts will be adopted to build up on the bill. According to Igor Voitov, 2011 will see bills on copyright and allied rights, commercial secrets, decrees on encouraging innovation efforts, on measures to enable more effective protection and use of intellectual property, on venture companies, on setting up the scientific and technological park Biograd.

These legal acts will allow the government to encourage innovation efforts and will contribute to creating a non-contradicting system of legal acts to regulate R&D and innovative efforts in Belarus, concluded Igor Voitov.