Translated material
New instructions
On the evening of January 15, 2014, a list of instructions was published on the website of the President of Russia following a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education on December 20, 2013 [1]. Unlike ordinary documents of this kind, this list of instructions influenced the life of scientists immediately.
One of the instructions to the Government of the Russian Federation was formulated in the following form: “In order to increase the efficiency of using budgetary appropriations of the federal budget for conducting research, to take measures aimed at changing the existing mechanism for financing such studies, providing for:
- the implementation of funding of fundamental and search research research mainly due to grants;
“The termination of funding of fundamental and search research through budgetary appropriations of the federal budget for the implementation of federal target programs.”
It is impossible not to note the bureaucratic “grace of formulations” - some researchers began to wonder if it is planned to cancel basic financing in general and transfer funding of fundamental science exclusively on a grant basis. It would be logical to indicate that in this paragraph we are talking about the competitive financing of science. But this is not the main thing.
The desire to translate the competitive financing of scientific research on a grant basis could only be welcomed: it was already said that it has been said to finance scientific research through the state procurement mechanism is completely unreasonable. There were many complaints from the scientific community in connection with the work of federal target programs (FCP): the opacity of the distribution mechanisms of multimillion -dollar contracts was actively criticized, and the decisive role of lobbying and corruption in this process.
However, it is worth noting the moment at which this decision is made. It was not accepted during the crisis, when, despite the requirements of the scientific community, the budget of the RFFIF and the RGNF was reduced, but the budget of the FCP, C - then - the financing of research work exclusively through state contracts. It was adopted after the Ministry of Education and Science passed to the grant mechanism for financing work and announced new rules for holding competitions within the framework of new versions of the FCP.
After the Government was discussed and adopted by the Government of the new versions of the FCP “personnel” and the FCP for research and development, after the government approved the rules of the competitive distribution of subsidies in the framework of the FCP on research and development and after the first, relatively massive, competitions for this FCP were declared. A little more than a week before the deadline of these competitions. Already on January 17, competitions on event 1.2 “Conducting research on the creation of the scientific and technological tuning” of this FCP were canceled, so those scientific groups that actively prepared applications spent their time in vain.
Now it is not clear when and in what form the planned competitions will be held, whether part of the money from the FCP for research and development will be transferred to the Russian Scientific Fund or the redistribution of funds between the events of this FCP will occur.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that a little earlier - and equally suddenly - the entire grant component of the FCP "Personnel" was transferred to the Russian Scientific Fund, which has not even an official website and has not yet formed a board. The financing of research work within the framework of the old versions of the FCP has ended, and when the money will go according to the new rules, no one knows. As a result, thousands of scientific groups throughout the country have neither money nor clarity when they may appear.
In general, the assignment quoted above has become another sign that from the moment the RAS reform was announced, the state scientific policy has lost even the visibility of systematicity and thoughtfulness, since the important and affecting the interests of many thousands of Researchers of the decision is not only made without a wide discussion of their expediency in general, as well as the details of their implementation, but jump out from the very tops of the state machine, like a devil from soicing.
It is unlikely that even in this way it is worth taking even the correct ones in principle, but the formation of a scientific policy on the principle of “someone managed to put paper on the table and convince it to sign” only helps to increase the critical mood of scientists in relation to the country's leadership, as well as skepticism in the issue of the future of Russian science.
Other instructions from the list under discussion are more traditional in the sense of lack of rapid effect. One of them was a documented notorious annual moratorium on serious decisions on previously subordinate state academies of science organizations: “To ensure the preservation of structural integrity, property and personnel resources of organizations under the jurisdiction of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, during the year from the day they are transferred to the federal agency of scientific organizations”.
Other instructions are devoted to how life should be organized in former academic institutions after the end of the moratorium. The president instructed the government to work out a mechanism for determining the state assignment for scientific organizations, including on a competitive basis. Here we are talking about the financing, which is called the basic one in collision - money issued to the institutions for the implementation of the state assignment, from which salaries are paid and utilities are paid.
The government was also entrusted to “submit proposals for making changes to the legislation of the Russian Federation aimed at determining the conditions for replacing the posts of heads of state and municipal scientific organizations similar to the conditions for replacing the positions of heads of state and municipal educational organizations of higher education, which, if necessary, has provided the introduction of the position of scientific director in scientific organizations”.
Apparently, if you translate from the bureaucratic language into Russian, we are talking about the introduction of an age qualification for directors of scientific institutions. In addition, the government, together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, was instructed to “submit proposals for the establishment of increased wages to certain categories of scientists who have achieved high results in scientific activity ”.
Whether some revolutionary changes will be introduced in the principles of the formation of basic financing and wages or changes will be cosmetic in nature-only the future will show. In conditions of unpredictable state policy, both the first and the second is possible.
Finally, it was instructed to submit proposals on the measures of supporting Russian scientific journals, to develop an action plan for the expert support of the Russian government of Russia to develop major scientific, technical and socio-economic programs and projects for the medium-term perspective, as well as to ensure the mechanism for the formation and adjustment of the priorities of fundamental research, providing for the procedure for discussing and consideration of these priorities by the scientific community and advice on science on science on science on science on science. and education.
Despite the fact that the probability of affecting decisions made in the current conditions, to put it mildly, is small, scientists have the opportunity to express their position. In any case, it is better to speak out now than after making decisions.