Conceptual Issues of Improving Legislation on Science and Scientific and Technological Development in the Russian Federation

Science and scientific and technological development are a key factor in ensuring the sovereignty, security and well-being of a State, creating conditions for a decent life for citizens. Given the historical challenges facing the country, that can only be overcome by mobilizing the country’s intellectual and resource potential, it is necessary to focus on finding approaches and solutions that would maximize the use of legal resources to stimulate scientific progress and eliminate the accumulated regulatory factors of its inhibition. This involves not just updating, but a transition to a new level of quality of legislation on science, its integration and social orientation by giving the law on science the qualities of a system-forming direct regulator of relevant relations in order to achieve a socially significant effect. The paper, designed to revive and structure the discussion regarding the prospects for the development of legislation on science, dwells on some basic, in the opinion of the author, conceptual issues, including the meaning and limits of regulatory impact in the field of science, in particular in relation to other social regulators, on the subject, methodological, structural specifics of regulating relevant relations, organizational and managerial, financial and other elements of state policy in the field of science and scientific and technological development.