Oleg Karelin. No brains

No brains
Oleg Karelin

Publication date: December 29, 1999

Ushkalov I.G., Malakha I.A. "Brain drain" - scale, causes, consequences. - M.: Editorial URSS, 1999. - 176 p.; circulation 2000 copies; ISBN 5-8360-0029-8.

Reading monographs for the general reader is certainly not the most typical activity. Which is fully explained by the rather specific topic, often attractive only to professionals, the dry and boring language, as well as the possibilities of application that are obscure from the point of view of everyday life. However, even in this rather marginal field for modern book publishing (the publishing house "Editorial URSS" is worth noting as one of the few) there are books that can interest not only a specialist, but also a completely respectable layman.

Here is a relatively small book devoted to the not new problem of “brain drain”. It would seem that one can find something particularly interesting in such a boring topic, which, moreover, regularly appears not only in specialized publications, but also on the pages of periodicals of varying degrees of seriousness and caliber? However, following the logic of the book, it is enough to start with the scale of the phenomenon to understand that another facet of the truth about our country is opening before us. Not entirely obvious, more so due to the fact that the data is scattered across many sources. And the picture turns out to be not just sad, but, perhaps, scary.

It is obvious that for Russia today intellectual migration in its dominant forms is, to put it mildly, not entirely good. Moreover, in addition to those traveling abroad, the authors also consider other forms of outflow of scientific personnel, the consequences of which are no less catastrophic. This, in particular, is the so-called internal migration, which many researchers prefer to move beyond the scope of the problem posed. And completely in vain. If external migration deprives us of leaders and talented youth, then internal migration threatens the potential complete collapse of the scientific community. Already because in modern conditions, leaving the field of scientific research for a period of more than two years often means loss of qualifications.

And since a monograph, unlike a newspaper publication, tends to operate not with emotions, but with exact data - a few numbers, from which everyone can draw their own conclusions.

Today, according to the Education Commission of the Council of Europe, the damage to Russia from the departure of specialists (not only for permanent residence, but also for work) amounts to $50 billion annually. (On TV at this moment they are again broadcasting about receiving a loan from the IMF... Is it worth talking about such trifling amounts when we can easily lose even more?) The total losses of the countries of the former USSR as a whole are estimated at 60-75 billion dollars.

Losses in patent and licensing activities can hardly be called simply catastrophic. If in the best years the former USSR received over 1.5 billion dollars from the sale of licenses, with the state spending on patenting at 4-5 million dollars a year, then, for example, in 1994, foreign exchange earnings under this item amounted to 14 (fourteen!) thousand dollars. With zero patenting abroad.

But the main loss is not money. Entire scientific schools are dying in Russia. For example, the Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics is today represented in the country by only one third of its employees. All leading scientists of the Institute (including the director), in particular those involved in developments on the problem of high-temperature superconductivity, today have permanent jobs in the USA. To this we can add that the above technology is included in the newly updated list of key US technologies.

As for the reasons for the current situation, they are quite obvious to everyone living in our blessed country. This is usually called the short and painfully familiar word crisis. You can add to this, perhaps, such a figure, for example. According to the famous mathematician Academician V. Arnold, his salary is approximately one hundred times less than the salary of his American colleagues. In any case, this is quite enough for a certain understanding of the reasons for what is happening. Just as for the realization that there is simply no way out, at least given the current state of the country’s economy and the state’s attitude towards science.

This means that Russia will not only not be able to stop the flow of intellectual migrants in the near future, but will continue to train personnel “for the uncle” (for example, for Uncle Sam). If we proceed from the recently actively introduced principle of the American “flow” scientific school, it would be much more logical to pay more money to our own scientists now than to invite them from abroad later. Perhaps then Russia would not have lost such stars of domestic science as, for example, the representative of the school of academician A.I. Maltsev E. Zelmanov, who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1994 for solving Burnside’s algebraic problem posed back in 1902 (the last three years working in the USA).

The possible consequences are partly indicated by the figures given at the beginning of this text. So far, Russian science is staying afloat largely thanks to the migration of scientific personnel from the countries of the former USSR and, oddly enough, due to changes in the immigration laws of recipient countries (a separate chapter of the book is devoted to them). And amid the eternal talk about the crisis of Russian industry, it is somehow forgotten that if you do not invest money in new technologies, production will become obsolete even before it physically collapses.

And no grant system will save the country. “Good Uncle” Soros and others like him are, first of all, experienced speculators, excuse me, financiers. Of course, their activities bring certain benefits. The only question is who gets the lion's share. Let's say a simple problem, offhand. The General Electric company has established ten personalized scholarships of $1,000 each for students at Russian universities. Question: where will a talented graduate get a job?

Many sad songs have been written about the fate of Russian science. And there are also times when there is no time for them at all. According to the disappointing forecasts of the book's authors, the country has come too close to the risky brink, beyond which it is possible to remain completely “brainless.”