And if you think about it...

As a member of the Council of the Trade Union of Employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences, I am concerned about several topics at the end of the year. I will dwell on four of them in more detail.

Salary transparency

This November turned out to be fruitful for the “Genesis of Russian Science” forum (on the website Scientific.ru ) in terms of the number of threads in which the issue of transparency of the actual structure of remuneration for scientific workers was discussed. In addition to the threads already mentioned in TrV-Nauka No. 23(92) (“What if you think about it?”), on November 15, 2011, another one appeared - “On the average wage.” One of the participants in the discussion wrote the following words: “I would really like the Russian Academy of Sciences to be obliged to post data on employees’ incomes online. So that everyone can see who gets how much. And colleagues also evaluate who pays for what, and what can be used for kickbacks. Pardon the tautology. But this is not expected yet. We don’t like to interfere with sawing.”

It’s a completely healthy desire, but the end of the paragraph in terms of this desire was not entirely solid. If you want it, then you want it! And the phrase “so that the RAS is obliged” noticeably resembles the classic “Do us good!”

Of course, the publication of information about income must be either voluntary or depersonalized (in the form of histograms, etc.) so as not to violate the Law “On Personal Data”.

In my opinion, the RAS Employees’ Trade Union, as well as other similar (university, etc.) organizations, must necessarily and fully participate in solving the problem of openness of salaries. There are difficulties here, since PR RAS, for example, is a sample that does not include all conscientiously active employees of the RAS, and of those who are included, not all show this activity within the framework of our organization.

At the same time, solving the problem of transparency is not only of “methodological” interest, since as a result of its successful solution, the positive activity of the entire organization can noticeably increase.

Creation of the Association

The forum also raised again the issue of creating an Association of Scientific Employees in the huge thread “Get up, huge country”, started on November 19. The topic of creating an Association on the forum can almost be considered “eternal”. I would like to hope that this time the attempt to create it will be successful.

I think that the Association being created may well, while maintaining its independence, coordinate some of its actions with the Trade Union of Employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences or even through its “trade union” members, legally use the capabilities of the trade union organization to resolve general issues within the scope of its activities.

On the popularization of science

As one of the typical examples of interaction between various structures based on institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it is worth mentioning here the recent All-Russian scientific conference “From the USSR to the Russian Federation: 20 years - results and lessons,” which took place on November 25, 2011 at the Institute of Oceanology named after. P.P. Shirshov RAS [1].

Noting the importance of such events, it is difficult not to express regret that the very fact of their holding and their results remain little known even in the scientific community, not to mention the general public. This is a special task, additional to purely scientific research, which is worth seriously thinking about if you strive to increase the authority of science and the Russian Academy of Sciences in Russian society.

The above example of interaction between representatives of exact and less exact sciences in the analysis of common tasks facing science and the entire country can be useful both for the founders of the Association and for the PR RAS. And one of the immediate common tasks for these structures is, in my opinion, to conduct a fairly complete analysis of the real state of the RAS and PR RAS with a public presentation of the results of this analysis, including the above-mentioned data on the distribution of income. Those who believe that this is not necessary should be reminded that achieving such transparency can be likened to bringing cleanliness and order to our home.

About bibliometrics

At the forum and in various other formats, various questions arose many times about PRND, its calculation taking into account bibliometrics and further uses of these calculations. The introduction of bibliometric data into circulation is undoubtedly an element of progress, but one should not forget about the elementary (or fundamental) truth, which I. Ilf expressed in these words: “In science fiction novels, the main thing was the radio. With him, the happiness of mankind was expected. There’s a radio, but there’s no happiness.”

Bibliometric parameters cannot, of course, be ignored, but in this case, generally speaking, it is necessary to take into account all the factors that play a role in the formation, for example, of the numerical value of the citation index. And among these factors there are those that do not reflect the real scientific significance of the article, and in some cases these factors can even become decisive.

This happened, in particular, with the so-called “leftist milieu”, with which many authors unconditionally and unreasonably associate the name of only V.G. Veselago, ignoring out of ignorance or for some other reasons not only the names of his predecessors (A. Shuster, L.I. Mandelstam, V.E. Pafomov), but sometimes also the physical content of the issue under consideration.

This has already been reported several times [2], but the pressure of inadequate citations does not dry up. And now the article “Nobel the Invisible” appears in the media (“MK” dated October 5, 2011), which opens with the words: “Russian physicist Viktor Veselago, who was the first to discover matter that hides objects, did not become the 2011 laureate: “If I had money now, maybe it would have worked out...”

Obviously, such a flow brings quite a definite benefit to someone. If someone almost became a Nobel laureate, then doesn’t he deserve to be elected corresponding member at the next elections to the Russian Academy of Sciences?

Without going further into the “traps” that arise when using bibliometric parameters, let us recall once again the undoubted importance of taking into account “natural” indicators, i.e. real scientific results. These results at the institute level can be assessed not only by bibliometrics, but also by the results, for example, of intra-institutional competitions. The usefulness of this procedure is also determined by the fact that institute employees are directly involved in it. Perhaps it would be advisable to distribute the bulk of incentive payments at the institute based on the results of such competitions? This is also worth thinking about!

1. In addition to the Institute of Oceanology, the organizers of the conference included the Center for Problem Analysis and Public Management Design at the Department of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, CEMI RAS, Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, INION RAS, Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. More detailed information can be found on the website www.rusrand.ru/conf/ .

Alexander Samokhin

2. “Scientific Community” No. 11, p. 11, 2003, No. 2, p. 13, 2005, TrV No. 1 (70), p. 15, 2011, “Applied Physics” No. 5, p.5, 2010, etc.