Governor of Ivanovo Region Pavel Konkov has announced that the local government is to begin financing a programme to support gifted children, and will allocate approximately RUB 15 million to the project, Rossiya Segodnya has reported. According to Konkov, work is under way to identify and support gifted children in the region who could learn at the Sirius education centre or other similar institutions.

“Today, work will finish on developing a programme based on centres like these. We will begin to finance and implement the programme this year. For now, the budget isn’t enormous. In my view, if we dedicate around RUB 10–15 million to the programme this year, that won’t be too bad a start,” Konkov said.

A state programme of grants from the President of the Russian Federation to gifted school-leavers starting university has been in place for two years. According to media information, the Talent and Success Foundation, which operates the programme, has paid grants in the form of monthly stipends of RUB 20,000 to 1,174 students. Public subsidies on the payment of grants for 12 months of the 2015/2016 academic year amounted to RUB 107.42 million, with grants paid in the period from September 2016 to January 2017 of the academic year amounting to RUB 89.28 million.