Scale of distribution grant system RFBR
Competition-based funding of researches through the Russian Foundation for Basic Research became new institute of the national science and technological policy in 1993. Individual scientists or research teams were able to win additional funding for their researches through a competition. The author collected data on all the RFBR's research grants received by scientists in St Petersburg from 1993 to 2007. The analysis of the data made possible to determine the level of the scientists' participation in the new competition mechanism, identify St Petersburg's research specialization and the research activity of individual scientists, organizations and institutional sectors (government, higher education, business, enter-prise), as well as extent and tempo of emergence of the new scientist leaders who run the grants. The analysis has suggested that since the ﬁrst years St Petersburg researchers have learned quickly how to deal with the competition-based allocation method of funding, new in Russia. The most active in getting grants are the government sector researchers and doing re-search in physics and biology.