Russia's Technological Leadership in Plant Breeding: Science and Business as a Single Organism (Results of the Roundtable Discussion on November 13, 2025 at Sirius)

The expert roundtable discussion “Russia's Technological Leadership in Plant Breeding: Science and Business as a Single Organism” was held on November 13, 2025 as part of the “Sirius. Technogenetics” Genetic Technologies Forum organized by Sirius University and attended by over 400 participants. The roundtable discussion was moderated by Irina M. Donnik, Acad. RAS, and Elena K. Khlestkina, RAS Corr. Mem. The speakers included representatives of leading research centers, which in recent years have served as the foundations for establishing specialized National genetic resources centers, world-class research centers (NCGRs), and world-class genomic research centers (CGRMs), government agencies, and participants in integrated scientific and technical projects (ISTPs) under implementation in the framework of the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Agriculture of the Russian Federation for 2017–2030. Business is involved to varying degrees in the implementation of the development programs of these centers and ISTPs, it being prompted not only by the terms of these programs but also by the logics of the technology development and implementation processes themselves. Is it easy to reach an understanding among specialists from different fields united by the common goals to rapidly transform the scientific and technological support of the domestic seed market and achieve technological leadership in this field? Does this mutual understanding require the development of R&D in biotechnology, breeding, and seed production within agricultural companies? What or who is currently missing in the industry for the effective transformation of advanced fundamental knowledge in biotechnology, genetics, genomics, and plant breeding into technologies implementable in the real sector of the economy? The opinions of the roundtable participants on these and other issues within the given topic, along with the main identified problems and proposals, are presented in this article.

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22. World-class research center “Center for Modern Breeding of Agricultural Plants” (Nauchnyy tsentr mirovogo urovnya “Tsentr sovremennoy selektsii sel'skokhozyaystvennykh rasteniy”). Federal Scientific Vegetable Center = Federal'nyi nauchnyi tsentr ovoshchevodstva: [website]. 2025b. [in Russian]. URL: https://vniissok.ru/konsorcium/ [дата обращения: 14.11.2025].

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