Total misunderstanding

On Monday, November 14, a press conference of scientists was held, at which they briefly summed up the results of the protest rally that took place a month ago (see TrV-Nauka, No. 90, 10.25.2011). The results are disappointing: at the moment, the situation with the allocation of funds for science has not changed, except for the promises of several deputies to contribute and try.

The demands of scientists have remained unchanged for several years now: to increase the share of the scientific funds of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Humanitarian Fund in the total funding of research, to repeal or amend Federal Law 94, which turned routine purchases of equipment for laboratory needs into an obstacle race, and to at least slightly raise salaries for graduate students and research assistants. Although scientists rarely mention the last demand, fearing that their protests will be perceived by society and officials as a banal begging for money.

The scientists’ concerns are well founded: at that same press conference, one of the listeners shrewdly asked the speakers whether they considered their position to be dependent? They say, instead of appreciating the education that the country gave them for free, and working tirelessly in laboratories for the benefit of the state, they organize rallies and knock on the doors of ministries, begging for additional money for foundations with functions that are incomprehensible to the general public.

The scientists tried to object to the listener that serving the Motherland is, of course, good, but sometimes researchers also want to eat. This desire occurs especially often among graduate students, whose official scholarship is 2.5 thousand rubles. per month (sic!). From the small grants of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the heads of the labs manage to carve out 15-30 thousand a year for future candidates of science (just in case - we are talking about rubles) and thus save them from immediate death by starvation. Without this help, ridiculous in absolute terms, but vital for graduate students, the number of university graduates who would prefer to gnaw on the granite of science beyond one-sixth of the landmass will predictably increase.

The mention of possible emigration caused righteous anger in the right-wing opponent: “Leaving is cowardice,” he was indignant and immediately refuted his previous question, adding that scientists need to fight, not leave. Neither purely materialistic arguments that after defense a young candidate loses his hostel and, if he is not accepted for a position (which rarely happens), he is physically unable to rent an apartment, nor more abstract considerations that scientists do not owe anything to the state just because they were born and studied here - rather, on the contrary, this country needs researchers who will create new technologies and train “applied specialists”, it seems, the patriotic citizen was not convinced.

The position of a stubborn listener could easily be considered purely personal if it did not reflect the mood of many representatives of society. Screams about scientists who have forgotten their duty, who have gone abroad for a “long ruble”, and their remaining slacker colleagues wandering around rallies in the hope of “ripping off” easy money are a typical reaction to reports of a new protest action or another open letter to a high official. And it seems that the main blame for such a total misunderstanding of the role of scientists in the life of society lies with the media (since the state has withdrawn itself from the role of educator, considering grandiose but one-time projects and physical education teaching to be more important tasks). The trouble is that future journalists will graduate from the same schools as the rest of the country’s citizens, so it seems that scientists cannot expect much help from them.

Iryna Yakutenko