Translated material
New scholarships
A competition has been announced for scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and graduate students, or they wanted the best...
On July 30, 2012, “Notice on an open public competition for a scholarship from the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and graduate students carrying out promising scientific research and development in priority areas of modernization of the Russian economy” appeared on the website of the Council for Grants of the President of the Russian Federation [1]. The competition documentation is also posted there.
The notice states that the competition “is held in pursuance of Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 13, 2012 No. 181 “On the establishment of a scholarship of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and graduate students carrying out promising scientific research and development in priority areas of modernization of the Russian economy” and the resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation Federation dated June 7, 2012 No. 563 “On the appointment and payment of scholarships of the President of the Russian Federation to young scientists and graduate students carrying out promising scientific research and development in priority areas of modernization of the Russian economy.”
Young (up to 35 years old) scientists and graduate students “carrying out promising scientific research and development in priority areas of modernization of the Russian economy” who have publications in peer-reviewed journals are allowed to participate in the competition. Only recipients of grants from the President of the Russian Federation for young candidates and doctors of science, as well as recipients of scholarships from the President of the Russian Federation for graduate students and scholarships from the Government of the Russian Federation for students are not eligible for scholarships.
Scholarships in the amount of 20,000 rubles. per month are issued for up to three years, this year it is expected to select 500 recipients. Despite the name, this competition is to a certain extent reminiscent of a project competition, since applicants are required to present a program and calendar plan for research and development (or a draft of these documents) approved by the Academic Council. It was initially assumed that applications would be accepted until August 31, but this obviously sharply narrowed the circle of potential applicants: few places have the practice of holding meetings of academic councils in August. Therefore, the deadline for accepting applications has been extended until September 28.
The evaluation of received applications will be carried out by the Grants Council of the President of the Russian Federation, i.e. it will be conducted by the same people who review applications for Presidential grants for young scientists. With one significant difference: if in the case of Presidential grants the examination is carried out in areas of science, then in the case of scholarships the examination will be carried out in priority areas (the applicant himself chooses his direction during registration).
The priority areas of modernization are:
— energy efficiency and energy saving, including issues of developing new types of fuel;
— nuclear technologies;
— space technologies related to telecommunications, including GLONASS and the program for the development of ground infrastructure;
— medical technologies, primarily diagnostic equipment, as well as medicines;
— strategic information technologies, including issues of creating supercomputers and software development.
The competition documentation does not contain criteria for evaluating applications, and, taking into account the fact that biologists, physicists, and chemists conducting both research and development can submit applications for one priority area, there is no objective organization for the “evaluation and comparison of competition documents” "in an extremely limited time frame becomes, to put it mildly, a non-trivial task. So the desire of the top to highlight some practically significant priorities with the support of young scientists will only lead to the absence of clear criteria and, possibly, arbitrariness in determining the winners.
A separate interesting question is what will happen to the payments to this year’s winners. On the one hand, money for scholarship payments for this year is provided based on the amount necessary to pay each recipient throughout the year. On the other hand, the documents do not talk about an annual amount of 240 thousand rubles, but about monthly payments of 20,000 rubles: “Scholarships of the President of the Russian Federation are set at 20,000 rubles. each and are paid monthly.” Taking into account the fact that this year, after the winners are determined, there will be at least two months left for payments, it is possible that the winners will receive 40,000 and significant “budget savings” will be created.
Evgeniy Onishchenko