Pushchino field of experiments

New role of the Pushchino Biological Center: if corn does not grow on the experimental field, then we will organize a Federal Research Center

There are amazing parallels in history: first the “April Theses”, followed inevitably by “How can we reorganize...”. The scale of events, of course, is different, but the seasonal coincidence and sequence of events make one think. We are talking about a story that began in April 2016 in Pushchino. Somehow it happened that the directors of six institutes, not too enthusiastically, but quite law-abidingly, heeded the convincing rhetoric of the FANO of Russia that continued existence as independent organizations was becoming practically impossible, all domestic science should be structured in the form of large centers - federal, regional, national - and decided to initiate the unification process. All the necessary formalities were observed - meetings of scientific councils were held, where, also without due inspiration, but still, appropriate decisions were made, and the process went along the beaten path, in full compliance with the “Regulations for interaction between FANO and the Russian Academy of Sciences on the creation, liquidation and reorganization of scientific organizations subordinate to FANO Russia." Work began on the necessary documents, one might even say that with some enthusiasm. Since reorganization is inevitable, it is necessary to extract maximum pleasure from this process in terms of coming up with new “integration” projects and a minimum of harm to teams and scientific areas. Representatives of all six institutes worked on the concept of the development of a new organism - the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science "Federal Research Center "Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences" (FGBI PSC RAS) and the Concept of the management system. The final editing of these documents and their coordination with the FANO was entrusted to the organizer of the entire process - the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was to this institution, which had regained the status of a scientific organization with a very small staff and a very short scientific history of its own, that the old-timers of Pushchino - IBFM RAS, ITEB RAS, IBK RAS, IFPB RAS, IFCP RAS, IBP RAS - were supposed to join. These institutes employ about two thousand employees.

This was followed by an incomprehensible gap in legislative activity (Vladimir Ilyich also hid in Razliv for some time). On September 22, from the information on the official website of the FANO of Russia, we unexpectedly learn that “ The NCC Bureau approved the concept for the development of the Federal Research Center “Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences .” All the necessary correct words were said that “ the key principle of the implementation of the program, its basic task is the organization of a modern world-class research center based on the complementarity of areas of modern biological science. The center also plans to create conditions for a qualitative increase in the level of research, development of innovation and human resources potential .”

Representatives of the institutes requested the version of the Development Concept, which was presented for consideration to the scientific coordination council of FANO Russia. It turned out that it had changed somewhat, and these changes were not agreed upon with the heads of the institutes. But it was necessary to move on, and work on the documents continued. The deeper the representatives of the institutions delved into the details of the reorganization, the more obvious became the intricate set of problems that they would have to face. The question of continuing the activities of graduate school after the institutes joined the Pushchino Scientific Center seemed completely deadlocked. If a legal entity is lost, the right to conduct educational activities is automatically lost. The federal center does not have a new license; it takes several months to obtain one, and the old one is no longer valid. Graduate students find themselves in an “interesting” situation, especially young people who now have no deferment from the army. But then what about “ creating conditions for a qualitative increase in the level of research, development of innovation and human resources potential?” "? But at the NCC we were talking about the long term; this is always somewhat easier than solving pressing, immediate problems. It is possible that some similar problems, or at least an algorithm for solving them, could have been thought out in advance, and some of them could have already been brought to practical implementation in the time that has passed since the “April Theses”.

The process of legitimizing the reorganization, meanwhile, developed in an almost automatic mode. We are now talking about approving the project at a meeting of the Russian government. Once approved at the federal level, it is impossible to stop or slow down the running mechanism. A reasonable question will arise: “What were you thinking about before, comrade scientists?” That's what they (scientists) thought. On December 8–9, meetings of labor collectives were held in all reorganized institutes. All collectives spoke out against the unification in the form in which it is currently envisaged, and in the time frame in which it is supposed to be carried out. The corresponding decision of the heads of the institutes, based on the opinion of the teams, was sent to the government of the Russian Federation, FANO of Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences. We won't have long to wait for the final verdict...

Irina Masulis