New appointments

Dear editors!

So 2012 has arrived - the year of fateful elections and the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino. People are slowly sobering up, crawling out from under the Christmas trees and going to work. Meanwhile, I continue to think about the fate of Russia and the ways of development of Russian science. And if our people, alas, do not want to change for the better, then in the sphere of governing the country, as usual, I see constant changes for the better. This, in my opinion, is the main trend of Russian statehood: our government is not at all inert and immobile, as critics say, no, it is constantly concerned about reform. Good changes to better, and best to best.

The field of science and innovation is no exception. The last visible evidence of this was the appointment of Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov as Deputy Prime Minister responsible for modernization. I greeted this decision with applause, rising from my chair: there simply could not be a better candidate for the role of the main workhorse of modernization, implementing the fundamental instructions of the president and prime minister. After all, Vladislav Yuryevich is a man for whom everything he undertakes turns out in the best possible way.

Without exaggeration, he can be considered one of the organizers and inspirers of our victories. It is he who is the ideological helmsman and architect of our great sovereign democracy, it is he who is the initiator of the breakthrough scientific and innovation project of the 21st century, the Skolkovo innovation city. Who, if not him, should have been entrusted with the painstaking work of continuously continuing and deepening the modernization processes taking place in our country?

The appointment of Surkov as duty officer for modernization is far from the only reshuffle affecting us, workers in science and education. Jahan Rejepovna Pollyeva, an assistant to the president who oversaw science and education issues in the administration for many years, left the presidential administration for the Duma. It is not yet clear who will be entrusted with overseeing our sphere in the future, but I have no doubt that it will be an equally worthy manager.

As an experienced and qualified expert, I have no doubt that changes in our field will continue. The main intrigue is who will become the relevant minister and whether the native ministry will remain the Ministry of Science and Education or will be divided.

Obviously, our national leader will make decisions on this issue after his election to the post of President of Russia. For now we can only speculate. I personally agree with most other experts who believe that Andrei Alexandrovich will not be a minister in the new government.

Of course, his services to science and education are great and undeniable: under him, a radical reform of school and college education began, under him, funding for science and development through federal target programs flourished, and under him, federal, innovative and research universities appeared.

But let us admit the obvious: the very logic of permanent modernization requires a periodic change of persons. With obvious exceptions, of course, because just as it is impossible to remove a soul from a body, it is also impossible to isolate from the political process the one who raised the country from its knees and directed it onto the path of sustainable development. Not to mention the fact that our beloved minister is not so young and it’s time to let people of a new generation, who have an even more fresh and innovative view of things, take the helm.

Another rather important personnel issue is the question of the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Again, the enormous and invaluable merits of Yuri Sergeevich Osipov as the head of the Academy of Sciences are undeniable. However, he is not at all that young, and twenty years at the head of the Academy is a very decent period, and it is quite difficult to make another powerful and innovative contribution to the development of the subordinate structure, having spent so many years in his post. Therefore, Academy members need to think about how best to respond to the challenge of the time when the time comes to elect a president. You can’t keep pace when everyone else is marching in step.

Yours Ivan Ekonomov