Apartment experiment

They want to attract young scientists to the academy with housing certificates

The re-election of Yuri Osipov to the post of head of the Russian Academy of Sciences can be considered a definitive fait accompli. “I would like to inform you that I have signed a decree approving you as president of the Academy of Sciences,” President Dmitry Medvedev told the academician at a meeting in the Kremlin on Monday. As you know, according to the new charter of the Russian Academy of Sciences, adopted last year, in order to become president of the academy, it is not enough to gain the support of the majority of colleagues - the candidacy must be sanctioned by the head of state. Mr. Osipov, who has headed the Academy of Sciences since 1991 and was re-elected to a fourth five-year term, among other things, became the first head of the Russian Academy of Sciences to receive “the highest approval.”

The main topic discussed during the meeting of the two presidents - the head of state and the head of the country's scientific community - was an issue that Yuri Osipov considers one of the most pressing and requiring an urgent solution. We are talking about providing housing for young professionals . Thus, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Dmitry Medvedev that over the past few years, about 800 scientists have come to work at the Academy of Sciences. They all need apartments, but they are not yet able to buy them.

Mr. Osipov also spoke at the recently concluded general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences that the influx of new personnel into science can be achieved only by guaranteeing these “cadres” a decent salary and inexpensive housing. Let us recall that at that time the scientists’ request was supported by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who spoke to members of the academy on May 29. “Of course, it is important to help young scientists with housing,” the head of government emphasized. At the same time, Mr. Putin announced that they had been given instructions to the relevant federal ministries to “work through these issues in detail.” Including the question of whether it is possible to use for the construction of housing for scientists those land plots that were in the use of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and will now have to come under the jurisdiction of the newly created federal Fund for Assistance to the Development of Housing Construction. The newly elected president of the Russian Academy of Sciences is confident that the academy can share some part of its “land plots,” but first of all it should use these plots for its own purposes - to build housing for young employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences and those on the waiting list in need of improved housing conditions.

Apparently, the state will really take up the solution to the “housing issue” of scientists. During yesterday's meeting, President Medvedev called the proposal of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences "quite feasible" - to allocate 1.5 thousand apartments annually to young scientists over the next five years, providing them with special housing certificates. “This step would allow us to qualitatively change the situation in a few years,” Yuri Osipov emphasized, presenting his project. “I think we can do it,” Mr. Medvedev replied. -- 1,500 apartments is not a fantastic figure. We need to create an effective partnership to solve this problem.” The President noted that the Academy of Sciences itself, the state, and business have the appropriate opportunities.”

Mr. Medvedev promised Yuri Osipov to return to discuss this issue. In the meantime, the president instructed the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences to work together with the government on a general model of the housing program. “You and the government will work some more, and then we will return to creating a common structure for solving this problem,” the head of state advised.

At the meeting in the Kremlin, they also talked about “brain drain,” which, Mr. Osipov is sure, has decreased significantly in recent years - the financial situation of scientists has improved, and those who were forced to go abroad began to return to Russia. “They understand that it’s not smeared with honey either,” Dmitry Medvedev supported his interlocutor. “But things have become much better for us - both with salaries and it has become possible to conduct experiments.” The President agreed with the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences that old personnel alone are not enough and new young personnel need to be attracted to science. Science cannot do without systematic state support, the president concluded, and, in his opinion, special attention needs to be paid to the “sciences of the natural cycle” (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology), which over the past decade have remained outside the purview of the state.

Mikhail MOSHKIN