Translated material
Collective mind
Dear editors !
In recent years, in Russia, the process of rating and evaluation of everything and everything in both science and in education has been more confident in Russia. In general, this process goes throughout the world, and Russia simply, like in other areas, seeks to achieve a world level and surpass it. The academic institutions enthusiastically calculate the performance indicators of the scientific activity of employees, hoping to obtain a long ruble, the country monitors the rating of universities and universities with the attribution of some of them as universities with signs of inefficiency and, of course, observe the movement of our leading universities in international and Russian ratings. Is everything right in this activity, is it useful for any rating? - Here is a question worthy of the mind of the natural scientist. We will try to give an answer to it, looking back at the story and the current state of scientific activity.
For a long time, the days have long passed when a handful of highly learned husbands scattered through European universities corresponded to each other, creating science, and venerable lords burned personal diamonds from purely scientific curiosity. As in the economy, the times of such shrubs were irrevocably passed, replacing the period of industrial science. The tone is set by the commands, which is especially clearly visible in the area of a major experiment. One invents an idea, the second writes a program, the third is twisting nuts - and as a result, articles come out, hundreds of co -authors of which work in dozens of institutions around the world. Do not catch a different boson Higgs, be you at least three times Newton or Einstein. Creates and opens the collective mind today!
The industrial, collective nature of science must be taken into account with different rating procedures. The visible scientific product issued on the mountain is, as a rule, the fruit of the work of the team, and it is rarely when it is possible by any formal signs to determine the true role of a scientist in obtaining this result.
What is the conclusion from here? That's right, obvious: individual rating does not make much sense, it is necessary to evaluate the contribution to the science of groups and organizations. It is logical to evaluate the collective mind with a collective rating!
Of course, there are some problems so far. Say, Ivanov, Petrov and Sidorov send an article to the magazine and do not indicate that their institution is part of the Moscow State University or RAS. But to deal with such a shutter is simple: it is high time to abandon individual authorship - let the article sign with the whole organization, which represents it to the seal. So that it was immediately clear where the legs grow from, who got the result-not some unknown Ivanov, but RAS or Moscow State University, famous organizations with a centenary history. Then it will instantly become clear who is in which light: the scientific leader of the country is the wounds with such indicators, the scientific leader in education is my native Moscow State University with such and such indicators. Well, etc. Everything will quickly become in its place!
Of course, some readers may ask, but what about the assessment of the employees of individual institutions? The answer is simple - as usual, without any formal indicators. After all, if some researcher undergoes certification, then does his colleagues need to look at the articles that what foreign experts evaluated, compare the magazine impact factors to understand what this employee is worth it? Of course not! Colleagues know this much better than any foreign experts, therefore it is quite possible to endure the conclusion whether the employee needs to increase, lower or leave in the same position, be award or expel.
It is enough to see how the most authoritative system of individual assessment works in our scientific flagship, RAS. After all, academicians have been elected there for a long time and perfectly do without any formal tinsel, since colleagues academicians are well aware of the price of applicants. Well, not the first year in the scientific world is rotated by a person who wants to get into the number of “immortal”, so from all over they know him as flaky. How many vodka is drunk jointly, how many sidelines all discussed with a possible election and non -removal of ups and downs? This is where the real knowledge, and not in the stuffy impacts of foreign glossy magazines!
Your Ivan ECCOMS