During the hearings in parliament regarding “Science as a Pillar for Safety and Development” on February 1st, the head of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Radik Martirosyan, held a speech and spoke about how much it costs to fund science in Armenia currently. “Turkey spent approximately $270 million to create one Bayraktar. That $270 million funded science in Armenia over the past ten years.”
Radik Martirosyan said that the average scientist’s salary in Armenia is 100,000 AMD, which is approximately the average salary in Armenia. “Two-thirds of the employees at the National Academy of Sciences receive minimum wage.”
The head of the NAS compared the quality of our scientists and science instruction to Russia’s and other neighboring countries’ in order to show the poor situation Armenia’s field of science is in. He presented the results of international research, which concluded that the countries that allocate less than 1 percent of their GDP to sciences cannot have any impact on their countries’ development.
Hripsime Jebejyan
