Document

The collection of signatures under the letter of scientists in the Council of the RFFI has begun. Its initiators are members of the recently created public organization - the Society of Scientists. Signatures are accepted until March 28, 2012 on the page http://goo.gl/cm8kq . Such a short period for collecting signatures is caused by the fact that on March 29 a meeting of the RFFI Council will be held, whose members will be transferred. At 21:00 on March 26, 600 people signed under the appeal. Among them are several members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, many experts and members of the expert councils of the RFFI. The list has more than 230 doctors of sciences and more than 200 candidates and PhD.

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Appeal of scientists to the Council of the RFFI

Copies: Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation to the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Science and Scientific Technologies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Science of the Federation Council

The Russian fund of fundamental research (RFFI) is a unique tool of financial support for advanced science in the country, based on transparent and democratic competitions and a qualified examination of projects by best specialists. More than ten thousand scientists, regardless of their departmental affiliation, annually receive the support of their research, the results of which are the main array of the country's scientific publications.

For the development of fundamental science in Russia, the general funding of the fund as the most effective in the country should undoubtedly increase. At the same time, we, members of expert councils, experts and recipients of the RFFIF grants, representatives of the scientific community are worried about the trend of some departure from the initial principles of the Fund in recent years. We turn to the leadership of the Fund and the smoking offices with the following proposals to increase the effectiveness of the RFFI.

1. We are deeply regretted that the direct financing of the participation of Russian scientists in international conferences has been terminated, the so -called competition "Z". We believe that the arguments, in particular, about the “misuse” of these funds are insolvent, including because a similar youth contest “Mol-Z” has been preserved. This decision of the Council of the Fund has already caused a protest of two thousand scientists (see the Trv-hunger No. 98, p. 8, and No. 99, p. 3), believe that this will aggravate the isolation of Russian science. The transfer of part of the funds to other programs does not fully compensate for the loss. We hope that the Foundation Council will find the opportunity to restore this type of competition.

2. The program “Interdisciplinary oriented fundamental research”, the so-called “Official” contest, is subjected to reasonable criticism. Despite the fact that these competitions are played out by grants by an order of magnitude more than for most initiative projects (competition “A”), the “Officials” contests are not held according to the general rules guaranteeing the impartiality of the procedure. Studying a list of projects supported by the Officer contest and received significant funding bypassing the standard procedure shows that most of them are no more “interdisciplinary” and/or “oriented” than other initiative projects, so it is not clear why they are taken beyond the scope of general rules.

We propose under any circumstances not to violate the current standard competitive procedure, which provided the Fund with high authority among scientists and in society. All projects, regardless of their “interdisciplinary” and “orientation”, are required to pass the competitive procedure for all projects in thematic expert councils. In cases where the application has a distinct interdisciplinary nature, thematic tips should be involved in the review of experts from related advice.

At the same time, it is necessary to grant the sections of the expert council the right, based on expert assessments, to recommend the support of projects differentiated within a fairly wide limits in order for outstanding work to receive adequate financing. It is advisable to set the council sections only to the total amount of financing on this topic, and not the total number (percentage) of supported projects, as is practiced now.

3. The scientific community welcomes the fund's intention in the event of a refusal of financing to transfer expert reviews at their request or at least substantial excerpts from them. It is necessary to create an interdisciplinary jury inside the fund to consider motivated refusal appeal.

4. The total number of experts reviewing applications for the competition should be increased: many experts are overloaded and often forced to review the applications not quite in their profile. It is necessary to maximize the use of experts corps ( www.expertcorps.ru ) for those sciences where they are already chosen by the most qualified specialists. It is also necessary to systematically involve the Russian scientific diaspora for the examination, if only because for some specialties in Russia there simply no world -class scientists.

5. It is noteworthy that the indicated changes in the work of the Fund (the new charter, the appearance of the Official contest, the abolition of the contest “Z” and others) took place without discussion and coordination with the broad scientific community-users of the fund, and are perceived by them negatively. The growing bureaucratization of the fund also causes a negative assessment.

Meanwhile, it is thanks to the efforts of the scientific community, in particular letters to the government signed by thousands of people, rallies, articles in the media, explanatory work with officials and deputies of the State Duma, which was positive for the Russian fundamental science of movements. Including, the fund’s budget has been preserved, amendments to the Federal Law of the FZ-94 were adopted in terms of spending funds for scientific needs won by the competition.

6. Therefore, the scientific community has the right to demand from the Council of the Fund for accounting for its opinions and more democracy in work. We propose to hold regular meetings of the expanded council of the Foundation with the participation of all members of the expert councils, as well as to invite the leaders of the most successful research groups to these meetings, who have received the support of the Fund many times and give them a word. The regulations of such meetings should be developed in interaction with the scientific community. All alleged changes in the nature and work procedure of the fund and its financing should be submitted for a wide preliminary discussion and accepted at a meeting of the expanded council.

7. We recommend that you elect the leadership of the fund at meetings of the expanded council of the Fund. The selected leadership is approved by the government in accordance with the Charter.

8. It is necessary to steadily increase the transparency of the work of the fund, in particular, it is necessary to annually publish the expenses of the fund with detailed division of expenses, as was practiced in the first years of the existence of the RFFIF, and not just the summary table. It should also be posted on the Internet portal of the annotation fund of the final reports on research projects along with the list of main publications.

We are convinced that the adoption of these proposals will make the work of the RFFI a model of the distribution of budget funds allocated to scientific research, will strengthen its support by the scientific community and the government, which will achieve a significant increase in the budget of the RFFI.

Following the best international standards in the work of the fund and a significant (at times) increase in its budget is the necessary changes in order to turn the tendency of Russian fundamental science, which determines the level of education and is the basis for the country's innovative development.

Link to the document: http: // democratia2 .ru/Group/D76B9A69-416E-41FA-A0FA7-00ECB13AC059/Content (There are also the charter of the Society of Scientists, the discussion about what is to be done, etc.)

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