According to Vladimir Gusakov, chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, declaring 2017 as the Year of Science is symbolic, as this year marks the 95th anniversary of opening in the republic of the Belarusian Culture Institute, on the basis of which the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus was later established. Over the past five years, the NAS scientists have prepared more than a thousand innovative projects, interdisciplinary research centers and scientific-technological clusters of research and strategic nature, created on the basis of the Belarus NAS, have started to work, scientific-production associations have been created in the most promising directions. International cooperation is actively developing as well — only in 2016 the NAS offices were visited by more than a thousand foreign delegations, over two and a half thousand foreign trips of academic scientists were undertaken, including internships in the world’s leading scientific centers, about one hundred international scientific and technical conferences were held. In his interview with the “ES” magazine the Presidium chairman of the Belarus National Academy of Sciences, academician Vladimir Grigoryevich Gusakov told about how the Year of Science in the Republic of Belarus will contribute to developing domestic scientific schools, university and branch science, to multiplying scientific potential, to supporting talented young scientists and specialists.