Open letter

Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich!

Let me express my sincere gratitude to you for the efforts that the country's top leadership is making to provide real support to domestic science, in particular - fundamental research in the field of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, without which neither the effective and sustainable development of high technologies nor long-term permanent growth of Russian industrial potential. It should be noted that thanks to this, positive processes are already observed in the scientific field.

At the same time, I consider it necessary to draw your attention to another one of the most important functions of science - its expert function. In recent years, pseudoscience and pseudo-scientific fraud have intensified in our country. There have been widespread attempts, often successful, to obtain budget funds for “research” and “inventions” without prior expert assessment by leading Russian and foreign scientists and specialists in this field of science. Often such “research” does not produce any scientific result, “inventions” turn out to be inapplicable at best, and “unique methods and technologies” are either long-known facts or have another, legal copyright holder.

Often, individuals who promise to make some kind of scientific “breakthrough” and are trying to obtain government funding call themselves “academics.” Today, dozens of non-profit organizations are registered on the territory of the Russian Federation, calling themselves “academies of sciences” in various phrases. But if, in order to receive the title of academician of the RAS, the applicant must first defend a candidate's and doctoral dissertation based on real scientific achievements and be elected a corresponding member, then to join the ranks of numerous clones of the RAS it is enough to pay the entrance fee. As a result, every day in Russia there are more and more “academicians” who do not have not only an academic degree and higher education, but also basic knowledge in specialized fields.

A striking example of how people from pseudoscience get the opportunity to absorb budget funds is the notorious “inventor” Viktor Petrik, an “academician” of a certain Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Sentenced in 1984 to 11 years under 13 articles of the Criminal Code, including fraud, attempted robbery, extortion, coercion to give false testimony, after parole Petrik began to apply his “talents” in the scientific field. Among the recent and most high-profile “scientific achievements” of V. Petrik is his recent statement about his development of “armor ceramics” (spinel), on which employees of the State Optical Institute and a number of USSR teams worked in the 60-80s of the last century; its first sample appeared in GOI back in 1976. How Mr. Petrik received a patent for an already existing development in 1995 is a separate question...

Since 2006, “academician” Petrik played a key role in the “Clean Water” program, where the most important element was “Petrik filters”, based, according to the inventor, on nanotechnology. According to one well-known politician who actively lobbied for this project, its total cost should have been about 15 trillion (!) rubles. I would like to emphasize that leading water treatment specialists were not allowed to discuss the Program, and the installation of filters in children's institutions in the Novgorod region at state expense as part of a pilot project was carried out without the tests required for nanotechnology products. Fortunately, the country's leadership listened in time to the arguments of scientists about the potential danger of Petrik filters for public health.

The absurdity of Petrik’s pseudoscientific claims is demonstrated by his statements, which he disseminates through the Russian media. For example, in connection with the award of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics to former Russian scientists Novoselov and Geim, he stated that these scientists performed exclusively “the work of a laboratory assistant,” and the honor of obtaining graphene belonged to him, Petrik. It should be noted in passing that the possibility of such speeches by Mr. Petrik on federal TV channels does not at all contribute to the growth of Russia’s prestige. The matter, of course, did not come to the point of challenging the results of the award in an international court, but another lawsuit developed: Petrik filed a lawsuit in the Kirovsky District Court of St. Petersburg against a number of academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who drew the attention of the Russian public to Petrik’s activities and initiated an analysis of it scientific component by an authoritative commission compiled by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Such a detailed presentation of “Petrik’s syndrome” is due solely to the fact that this syndrome, unfortunately, has become widespread. Once again I draw your attention to the fact that the activities of self-proclaimed “scientists” not only cause significant material damage to the country’s budget. It discredits both Russian science and Russia as a civilized state. Unfortunately, the format of this appeal does not allow us to fully outline the depth and relevance of the urgent problem, but if you, the Head of State, make a fundamental decision, scientists are ready to take an active part in its implementation in practice. Expressing the consolidated opinion of the Russian scientific community, I urge you to consider (including at the regulatory level) the following issues:

1) the issue of strengthening control over the allocation of budgetary funds of the Russian Federation for scientific projects, research and implementation of inventions by strengthening scientific expertise with the involvement of leading Russian and foreign scientists;

2) the issue of regulating the activities of non-profit organizations that use the phrase “Russian Academy” in their name.

With sincere respect, on my own behalf and on behalf of the RAS academicians:

Kruglyakov Eduard Pavlovich, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Advisor to the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Bureau of the Division of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Council on Plasma Physics and CTS, Chairman of the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research, laureate of the USSR State Prize;

Evgeniy Borisovich Aleksandrov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, member of the RAS Council on Problems of Physics of Atomic Collisions, member of the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research, laureate of the USSR State Prize.

Zakharov Vladimir Evgenievich, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Nonlinear Wave Processes at Novosibirsk University, Head of the Sector of Mathematical Physics of the Lebedev Physical Institute. P.N. Lebedeva, named professor of the Board of the University of Arizona (USA), laureate of State Prizes of the USSR and the Russian Federation