Russians believe fight against COVID-19 main scientific achievement of late, poll reveals

MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. The fight against coronavirus is the main achievement of Russian and global science of the last several years, show results of a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. "The most popular response among Russians is the fight against coronavirus and vaccine development (16%). The second most popular response is military research/military-industrial complex/new hardware. The third most popular response among Russians is development of new medicine and vaccines (8%)," the research notes. At the same time, almost one-third of Russians (31%) believe that Russian science is ahead of global research, while 34% say that it is slightly behind. Another 21% of Russians are convinced that Russian science is significantly lagging behind the global one. Lack of proper funding is stated as a reason that restrains Russian science by 56% of the respondents, while 34% say that competences of scientists need to be raised. The poll was conducted on January 30, 2021 among 1,600 respondents aged over 18. The margin of error for this sampling does not exceed 2.5% with a probability of 95%. Read more