And if you think about it?

Some believe that scientists are smart people in all respects. However, this is not entirely true, since nothing human is alien to the workers of science, including various mistakes and other errors, as well as a variegated reaction to the distinction of opinions that arise.

Here was published by M. Gelfand and D. Livanov on September 26, 2011 in the journal "Expert" article "Return the effectiveness of science" with your views on the state of Russian science and methods of reforming the Russian Academy of Sciences. The relevance of the problem, combined with some features of the article, gave rise to a long branch of the same name on the forum of the “Being of Russian Science” ( Scientific.ru ”, where the need to refute the incorrect data given in this article was immediately noted. A similar refutation appeared on October 25 in the TRV, and two weeks later M. Gelfand “explanatory note” of M. Gelfand was published there, not all.

And here on the forum such “human” manifestations were indicated, which in this case can hardly be attributed to an adequate reaction to the discrepancy between opinions and positions. Someone “Grieg” (who indicated his E-Adr) stated on November 12 that he was tearing his relationship with the TRV-HOUSE, while M. Gelfand remains in its editorial office: “In conditions when the country's leadership began military operations against science in Russia, the democratic part of the newspaper’s editorial board should decide on which side of the barricade it is located, as Gelfand was determined.”

However, Mikhail’s so decisive premises “on the other side of the barricade” seem to me simply erroneous, especially if you keep in mind the mentioned “military operations”. And if you think it should be thought, it will become more understandable and the banal truth about the need to maximize all the possibilities for coherent addition of individual heterogeneous efforts in the total effective action aimed at the desired solution of the multidimensional problems of Russian science.

In a branch begun “Grieg”, the participants in the discussion once again raised the question of the structure (distribution) of income in the scientific field. The same question after two days arose in the Dyakonov branch - at the European Academy! ", And in the branch, which had previously begun by Ivan Sterligov on November 10, entitled“ Salary of Scientists in the Russian Federation, there are, in particular, the following statements:

“Ivan, we have long known that, according to statistics, scientists are quite non -poor people. But wasn't anyone interested, maybe it is not without reason here and there (including on this forum) quite a seemingly good working professors and excitements call the figures of their salary, which are noticeably lower than all these average? After all, there are different methods at least approximately how many people actually receive, what is the portrait of typical owners of certain income levels, etc. Is the separation of statistics from the statements of specific people about their salary and the salary of colleagues associated with the averaging of competent and workers, but poor scientists with crooks of various kinds, with the inclusion of money in the salary of equipment and reagents, etc., or all these lays in reality complete hypocrisy? ”

“It would really be nice to make a salary card. Having included there the income (salaries + bonuses) of members of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as directors of institutions and their deputies. I think it would have turned out a lot of interesting things. ”

The issues of remuneration clearly fall into the sphere of the trade union, and in the RA RAS, they were also discussed many times, including in this aspect (see, for example, the Scientific Community No. 3, 2011, p. 14). However, the required result, in particular, on transparency, which, for example, is demonstrated by the sites of American universities ( www.sacbee.com/statepay/ , www.scientific.ru/dforum/scilife/1285734227 ), it has not yet been possible to achieve. It was not possible to achieve this in the trade union itself, as mentioned once again on November 15, 2011, at the conference of the Moscow Regional Organization of the RA RAS.

But this, if you think about it, is a completely solved task! You just need to make the efforts of everyone who is interested in its decision coherently. This task is much simpler than the rest of the problems of Russian science, and in the process of solving it, additional results can be obtained on the effective unification of the capable participants of the forum, readers of the TRV-hobby, employees of the institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other scientific organizations. And the presence of such an association, which uses the possibilities of existing formal structures, including PR RAS, can significantly contribute to positive changes in the state of Russian science.

As a first step, it is enough to publicly announce your income, as the deputy did, for example, did. Director Piyaf D.I. Dyakonov in the already mentioned branch begun by "Grieg". After that, you can offer to do the same thing. Everyone can receive in the institute accounting a printout of the structure and the magnitude of their income and deductions. This array of data can be presented in the form of various histograms with additional statistical characteristics (medium, medians, decal coefficients, etc.).

Similar information and its comparison with other scientific data will make it possible to make a more complete idea of ​​the state of the scientific community, which is necessary to make reasonable decisions about its possible changes. However, some interesting information may appear already when determining specific personal relationships to the proposed transparency. There will be something to think about!

PS My “pure” income (prospect. Fiz. Sciences, chief researcher), taking into account all the supplied and deductions for the calculated sheet for October 2011, amounted to 31,783 rubles.

Alexander Samokhin,
chief researcher,
Chairman of the trade union committee IOF RAS