Kuzbass is the best-developed industrial region of Siberia, a main supplier of power station and coking coals and one of the largest centres of chemical and metallurgic industry of the Russian Federation. Kuzbass depths store about 725 billion tonnes of black coal. However, high concentration of industry results in deteriorating effect on the environment and population health.

The Kemerovo Science Centre was founded in 1990 on the basis of research departments of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences that used to work in the territory of the Kemerovo region. Today the Kemerovo Science Centre comprises the Institute of Coal and Coal Chemistry, the Kuzbass Botanical Garden and a number of laboratories and sections at the Presidium of the Centre.

The major objectives of studies by scientists in the Centre are to provide theoretical basis for the fuel and energy supply and social strategy of the region, for re-structuring of the coal industry. They are deeply involved in development of new coal provinces and high-technology mines, control and monitoring of the stressed state of the coal massif and gas dynamics of rocks, design of mining equipment and elaboration of original technologies for coal extraction and processing. They solve environmental problems, monitor the environment conditions of coal- mining areas and provide scientific support for recultivation of eroded landscapes. The latter issue is the most important among the activities of the Kuzbass Botanical Garden. Photo shows: In the Museum of Coal of the Kemerovo Science Centre".