Blitzkrieg

So, Minister Livanov took the long-planned step of transforming the Academy of Sciences from a parallel “ministry of fundamental science” into a “club of scientists.” It will be possible to discuss the substantive details and nuances after the publication of the draft law, but the main thing is already visible.

For the sake of paradox, let's start with the optimistic. In the presentation of the project at a government meeting, as well as in subsequent interviews, many correct words were said about the fact that the operating unit should be a scientific group, that half of the funds allocated for science should be distributed through competitive mechanisms, and the establishment of a system for examining projects and evaluating units .

At the same time, the proposed solution has a lot of disadvantages. A gathering in one academy of not only academicians strictu senso, but also academicians (members of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences) with academicians (members of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences) - apparently due to the renaming of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences to RAO that happened some time ago - and so, the resulting meeting will not be at all what it was said Minister Livanov at a briefing after a government meeting, “a single authoritative scientific community,” but it will be a community extremely skewed in areas and professionally weak. If there were still islands of resistance in the current RAS (say, let’s remember the recent non-appointment of M.V. Kovalchuk as director of the ICAN by the department of physical sciences or his repeated failures in academic elections), then now they will be swept away by a tsunami of conformists from the medical and agricultural academies, the vast majority not representing nothing meaningful - the term “vast majority” in the new academy will take on a literal meaning. Secondly, the very procedure for joining the new academy is surrounded by a rather humiliating need to write a handwritten application - with a simultaneous multiple increase in academic salary and automatic upgrade of corresponding members. I suspect that a non-zero number of the brightest academics with a strong sense of self-worth will not do this. By the way, it is completely unclear where, in fact, the newly created academy will live - on space rented for a nominal fee from the agency being created? Or will they still be left with the habitable premises of the presidiums and even be allocated independent funding for their maintenance? Let us recall, by the way, that in Western countries, the experience of which the minister referred to when presenting the project, there are often more than one national academies of sciences (for example, in the USA there is a separate respected academy of engineering sciences), and their budget is made up of membership fees: academic scholarships are currently being increased - this is the legacy of precisely that “archaic system” from which the departure is announced. In a word, a simple mechanism of negative selection has been launched, and all that remains is to observe the result of its work.

Secondly, it is not clear how the property of the former academy will be managed, mainly, of course, land and buildings. Here it is instructive to recall the story of another reformer - Defense Minister Serdyukov, who was called upon to carry out the reform and, in particular, to implement the absolutely sound idea that managing housing and communal services, laundries, sanatoriums, etc., etc. is not the job of the army. However, the removal of the property complex from army control was accompanied by no less monstrous abuses than those that occurred under this control. TrV-Nauka has repeatedly written about various kinds of outrages committed by academic authorities - it is not at all clear in the existing political conditions how the minister hopes to avoid much greater outrages.

Finally, thirdly, the ministry has never yet proven its ability to organize a normal examination. The relatively decent results of the latest mega-grant competition are balanced by anecdotes about the ranking of universities and the half-assembled “Map of Science”, the creation of which was planned for March. Who will conduct this examination, who will prepare regulations and lists of potential experts? I am afraid that a significant number of bright, insightful and trusted scientists will not want to have anything to do with the initiatives and projects of the ministry for a long time.

Because the psychological impact - not even of the project itself, but of the way it was prepared and announced - is completely destructive. The project was prepared in deep secrecy not only from the reviled academics, but also from members of various councils created under the ministry. The reasons for this are clear: secrecy is the main thing when preparing a military operation, but at the same time, everyone who tried to influence the policy of the ministry was given a clear signal: “Judge, my friend, no higher than the boot.” As a result, those who called for establishing interaction with the ministry and supporting certain progressive trends in its work found themselves in a rather stupid position, but the triumphant “we told you so” can be heard at all levels. Moreover, by replacing the hard, systematic work of winning the trust of the scientific community with an administrative and bureaucratic trick, the ministry risks finding itself in a situation where reforms will have to be carried out with the active resistance of those being reformed, even those of them who could benefit from these reforms.

In an article two years ago in Expert magazine [M. Gelfand, D. Livanov. Bring action back to science. Expert No. 38 (771), 09/26/2011] said: “It is necessary to take into account the colossal psychological fatigue that has accumulated in the scientific community from unsuccessful attempts at previous reforms, and distrust in any government initiatives.” The prerequisites were “a detailed preliminary explanation and broad public discussion of the stages, timing and goals of the changes.” At the preparatory stage, it was planned to “audit the scientific and personnel potential of the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the National Research Center (Kurchatov Institute), leading universities with a special status (MSU, St. Petersburg State University, federal and research universities).” It was proposed “a radical improvement in the management of foundations, in particular the replacement of scientific administrators with an ambiguous reputation with truly authoritative scientists. Improving the competitive mechanisms in the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Humanitarian Fund must be combined with a simultaneous significant increase in the budget of these funds,” etc. and so on. None of this was done.

The secrecy in the preparation of the bill was, however, accompanied by an interesting PR campaign. Over the course of a couple of weeks, there were publications about the involvement of the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences in fake dissertations and about Academician Fortov’s use of administrative resources to increase his publication list. These publications followed a well-known pattern: first, the text was uploaded to some relatively little-known Internet sites, and then published in publications such as Moskovsky Komsomolets under the signature of a journalist with a dubious or non-existent (with a pseudonym) reputation. The bill was presented at an interesting moment - when the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences was elected, but not yet approved by the President of the Russian Federation. There is no doubt that this will also be used as an element of pressure on the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Judging by the fact that the government immediately approved the bill, it has no doubt that it will successfully pass through the Duma. Chairman of the Science Committee Vyacheslav Nikonov told RIA Novosti: “As for assessing the reform, it is difficult to talk about this yet, since we have not yet seen the text of the bill. With a certain political will, there is a possibility of its adoption in this (spring) session.” This is all the more ridiculous because just a little over a month ago, the Duma members - including United Russia - unanimously demanded the resignation of the minister. The list of those who voted in accordance with the “political will” may turn out to be a document worthy of Dostoevsky’s pen. It is clear that the source of this will is not in the White House, but in the Kremlin. Rumors about a possible merger of the three academies appeared a couple of years ago, and then this idea was attributed to M.V. Kovalchuk - after the final failure of all attempts to become an academician, he allegedly decided to reset the score and start the game over. Indeed: after the automatic upgrade to academics, he will only have to add “agro” and “honey” to the nano-bio-info-cogni-what-else, and distribute several for this purpose

carrots, and the presidency of the new academy will be guaranteed to him. Then we will finally receive, as the minister promises, “a single authoritative scientific community representing all areas of scientific research,” whose role “in making the most important government decisions - not only in the field of science, but also in the implementation of the most important projects in the field social development, economy - will be significantly increased.” Who would doubt that.

Mikhail Gelfand

PS This text was written before the publication of the bill. But, as it turned out, this publication does not change anything - it is a dummy that does not answer key questions.