"Creating a" list "12 years ago was a mistake"

Dmitry Bayuk , cand. physical mat. Sciences, S.N.S. Iint RAS, deputy. The editor-in-chief of the magazine “Questions of the history of natural science and technology” sent to the editorial office some clarifications to his article published in the TRV-143 [1].

Three weeks passed after the draft order was proposed to the public discussion on the formation of a new “list”. The order has not yet been signed, and thereby my forecast turned out to be erroneous, Mon did not arrange an absurd theater. As they explained to me in the Higher Attestation Commission, the new “list” will be introduced without haste: throughout the next year, the existing one will act, and it will be replaced with a new one only from January 1, 2015. The minister’s order will probably be signed this year, but he will enter only after registering it in the Ministry of Justice, and this year this year cannot happen in any way.

Thus, a softer and, therefore, less crazy way of action was chosen, although it can be assumed that in the end, all or almost all the magazines of the old list will be only only one. As I already wrote in the last issue of the newspaper, the main threat here hangs over the academic magazines, but not because they suddenly cease to satisfy the criteria proposed by the assembly, but because the RAS reform, which is carried out in the spirit of the Law of September 29, 2013, should lead, if not to close, then to a significant reduction in the Academic Publishing Center “Science”, which is why these magazines simply will not publish.

The soft replacement of the “list” is better tough, since in “good” magazines it is customary to fuss and with hard reform it is more likely to fly away. In the ideal case, all reform will turn into an expensive operation to preserve the status quo-Ant.

However, I repeat: in my opinion, the creation of a “list” twelve years ago was generally a mistake. Although the error is quite logical, lying in line with all the transformations of the state machine we observed during this period. The essence of these transformations is that the machine should more and more like a skating rink - heavy and very powerful, but clumsy and not enough for a suitable besides laying asphalt.

Its main advantage is that it is ideally able to make any thing flat and therefore possessing exactly two sides, one of which can be conditionally called the front and the other is the wrong side. Fortunately, this skating rink does not always work properly, and it does not manage to flatten everything. But efforts do not weaken from this.

If I were a sociologist, I would suggest that in our country a system formed that we could call a bureaucracy, because the ceremony rule in it, guided by simple and understandable statistical indicators. These indicators can be either above criteria, or below. Depending on this, we fall either on the front side or on the wrong side, and we get grounds for the development of either a positive or negative solution.

The advantages of the method are obvious, the solution is accepted and realized regardless of the qualifications and the cultural level and the one who accepts it, and the one who should continue to implement it. Thus, a quiet revolution in the academic certification system occurred completely imperceptibly for everyone, during which specialized scientists and expert councils became an advisory body: in assessing the qualification works of potential colleagues, they should only develop statistical indicators, and how much they correspond to criteria, others will solve.

“List” is another way to put the domestic scientific periodicals under the skating rink, to select the right to decide from scientists of the Soviets where the applicant had to publish the results of his research, and give it to those who “know better”. In other words, give it to the ceremony.

I understand that every analogy is lame, and that in a good way I should have delved into many privileges: to show how and why many quite benign domestic magazines do not shine in the near future to indexed Scopus or Reuter, why the indicators, calculated Rins, calculated, will jump and for a long time.

Why the practice of compiling a “list” will lead to empty and crazy publications, the main and only function of which, entering the “list”, collect their small crop from those who need a scientific degree in professional life. But it is unlikely that the newspaper space is appropriate for entering all these details. I think that in general they are understandable to almost everyone, and they will be said about them more than once.

1. Dm. Bayuk. "List" for the Higher Attestation Commission: New Life. http://trv-science.ru/2013/12/03/perechen-dlya-vak-novay-zhizn/