The meeting was chaired by the President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rifkat Minnikhanov. Also participating were Damir Galiev, Director of the non-profit organization "Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan"; Timur Khalitov, Director of the Fund for Science and Technology of the Republic of Tatarstan; and other representatives of the organizing committee.

The organizers of the republican competition "Innovation of the Year" are the Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan.

The expert commission of the competition includes specialists in the fields of science, technology, and business.

Damir Galiev reported on the results of the first stage of the competition. He announced that in 2025, 228 applications were submitted for the "Innovation of the Year" competition. He noted that compared to previous years, the requirements for participants were tightened, and the focus shifted to higher quality and more developed projects that have a real product or technology. The largest number of applications was submitted in the "Perspective" category (75 projects). The "Student Startup" category gathered 65 applications, and "Intellectual Property" – 52.

President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan Rifkat Minnikhanov noted: "Despite the increased requirements for projects, more than 200 applications were submitted for the competition, which indicates the maturity of the republic's innovation ecosystem. The authors present to the jury not just ideas, but projects with serious groundwork and commercial potential."

Damir Galiev, Director of the Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan, added: "The republican competition 'Innovation of the Year' is becoming an indicator of the state of Tatarstan's technological environment. We see that interest in the competition is growing not due to quantity, but due to quality – more and more applications represent mature solutions, already tested on the market or ready for scaling. This indicates that the republic's innovation ecosystem is gaining a steady pace of development."

In terms of industry distribution, the leaders in the number of applications submitted were: mechanical engineering, instrument engineering and energy (60 projects), information and telecommunication technologies (55), and biotechnology with the agro-industrial complex (54 projects).

Applications came from different regions of Russia, as well as from Belarus. 157 applications were submitted from Kazan, 2 from Almetyevsk, and 14 from Naberezhnye Chelny.

During the organizing committee, the regulations for project examination were approved. The second stage of the competition will take place before the end of 2025. The winners will be announced in December.

[The goal of the "Innovation of the Year" competition is to create conditions for the introduction of innovative and import-substituting technologies into Tatarstan's economy, the development of knowledge-intensive industries, the stimulation of research activities, and the involvement of youth in the field of science to increase product competitiveness and solve socio-economic problems of the region.]