General collection of OHR

On November 6, 2018 , at the Institute of Problems of Transfer of Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPPI), the Scientific seminar “Problems of the Organization of Science and Self-Organization of Scientists” was held, organized by the Interregional Society of Scientists (ONR) and IPPI, at which A. R. Khokhlov (Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences), E. Onishchenko (Fian, Deputy Chairman of the Trade Union of RAS Workers), A. V. Kuleshova (Chairman of the Ethics Council of Henri), A. A. Rostovtsev and A.V. Zazakin ("Dissernet"). At the end of the seminar, the general collection of ONR was held. The video recording of the seminar and the ANR collection is available on the link YouTube.com/watch?v=JPB7OMC3F2K .

The ANR collection adopted the resolutions "On State Purish", and "On the RFFIF".

The meeting was approved by the ONR Council, his treasurer and auditor. Based on the results of the ONR members, a new composition of the ONR council, which included:

Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev
Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation M. M. Kotyukov
Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation A.A. Fursenko
Chairman of the Council of the Russian Federation V. Ya. Panchenko

Resolution of the ONR General Assembly "On the RFFIF"

We, members of the Society of Scientists, including managers and executors of projects supported by grants of the Russian fundamental research fund (RFFI), are extremely concerned about a number of negative trends that showed in the current policy of the leadership of this fund.

For many years, the main form of support for scientific research carried out by the Fund was grants for initiative projects (competition “A”). Even with small sizes of these grants, their significance is extremely large for Russian scientists. For many researchers, obtaining an initiative grant from the RFFIF is the only chance to implement their research plan, to form or preserve a working group. Initiative grants provided a significant increase in publications of Russian scientists in international scientific journals.

Unfortunately, the share of the funds of the RFFIA, directed to financing this most massive and democratic competition, continues to decline. Despite the almost two -time increase in the budget of the RFFF in 2018, less than 25% of the applications submitted to it were supported instead of the previous 30–33%.
This means that worthy projects of hundreds of scientific groups and thousands of scientists working at the modern world level did not receive support. Thus, serious damage has been caused to preserve the scientific environment in the country and, ultimately, the competitiveness of Russian science.

At the same time, the fund spends a large share of funds on supporting the so -called “interdisciplinary” projects. Many of these competitions are held, however, on a narrow topic proposed by members of the Council of the Fund, and their “interdisciplinary” is artificial. At the same time, the size of the grants in some of these programs is several times the size of the initiative grant “A”. It is important to note that the composition of expert councils, summing up the results of the "interdisciplinary" competitions, is often determined by the interested persons who proposed their subjects. Such a procedure causes serious fears that their winners are often determined in advance.

So, in 2018, the RFFIA Council approved new competitions on such “interdisciplinary” topics as “legal regulation of genomic research”, “models of legal regulation of international scientific and technical cooperation and international integration of Russia” and “transformation of law in the development of digital technologies”. Their “interdisciplinary” raises great doubts, since this topic fully fits into the only section 11-4 “legal sciences” of the RFFIRA rubricator. At the same time, we are talking about grants from 3 to 6 million rubles. These amounts are four to eight times the size of Grant “A”, which can be claimed by projects for genomic research itself, requiring, unlike law on jurisprudence, significant expenses for equipment and reagents.

The procedure for the distribution of Russian RFFI youth grants is also serious concern, some of which are more than eight times superior to initiative grants in size. Special contests for young scientists are certainly necessary, however, decisions on the support of their projects should be made by specialized expert councils on science. Summing up of the competitions of youth projects, however, is held without their participation: this is done by the “Youth” expert council of the RFFI, consisting of representatives of different sciences. Such a composition of the Council makes a professional collegial discussion of applications impossible, and its members receive unlimited opportunities for lobbying the interests of their and friendly groups. The very existence of such an expert council is nonsense, since there is no special “youth” science and cannot be.

Finally, contrary to the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation and the repeated promises of the leadership of the RFFIF, brief annotation reports and a complete list of publications on all completed projects of the fund have not yet been published. Thus, the leadership of the RFFIs hides from state regulatory bodies and the scientific community about what exactly it spends budget funds on.

The general meeting of the Society of Scientists considers it necessary to draw the attention of the Council of the Fund and the heads of state institutions responsible for the development of science in Russia, including the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation and the head of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, which exercise the functions of the founder of the RFFIF, for the urgent need to change the policy of the Fund and strict compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation and the Charter of the Russian Federation.

We consider it necessary:

• To oblige the leadership of the RFFI to publish brief annotations of reports on all completed projects supported by the fund, along with the full list of all publications on the project.
• To establish the level of expenses on initiative projects of scientific groups without restricting the subject and age of the head (competition “A”) in the amount of at least 60% of the budget of the fund.
• To stop the practice of determining the winners of any contests of the fund without the participation of specialized professional expert councils in the branches of knowledge; Such tips should conduct an examination of all projects, without exception, including youth. If the project is really (and not nominally) is interdisciplinary in nature, it should be considered by several specialized expert councils.
• To stop the potentially corruption practice of conducting competitions with a narrow theme, which is formed by a limited group of persons.
• Take into account the opinion of the scientific community in the formation of the structure and conditions of new competitions.

Resolution of the general meeting of the OHR "On State Zeal"

The state task for the implementation of certain work or the provision of services is the only form of financing by budget organizations from their founder. At present, however, those funds that receive scientific institutions within the framework of state assignment do not provide opportunities for a full conduct of research. In the vast majority of cases, they only allow you to pay official salaries to employees, cover utility bills and other necessary organizations of the organization; In universities, the situation with the state assignment for research work is even worse. In fact, research work is financed from many other state sources received, as a rule, in the form of grants or contracts on a competitive basis. The difference between formal-bureaucratic and life realities gives rise to a number of problems, such as excessive reporting, the need to avoid duplication of the topics of work on the state mission and topics of grants, etc.

The General Assembly of the Interregional Society of Scientists (ONR) offers the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to conduct a critical analysis of the deficiencies of the existing system of financing scientific organizations and begin the development of the regulatory framework that allows a minimum to minimize the bureaucratic burden on scientific organizations.

OHP considers it advisable to significantly change the concept of the state assignment of scientific organizations and higher educational institutions in terms of research work, extending this concept to all the financing of science received from the state. Moreover, such a state task should be divided into two parts: “basic”, which ensures the stability of the organization’s work, and “thematic”, consisting of funds received for work on a particular topic, usually on the basis of the competition.

The basic part of the state assignment should guarantee the organization a certain amount of funds for the payment of official salaries, payment of taxes and utilities, as well as include funds for maintaining scientific and technical infrastructure. This part of the state assignment should not be attached to a specific topic of research work, its volume should be adjusted based on the results of assessing the effectiveness of the organization’s activities, which will increase the volume of basic financing of successfully working organizations and reduce the amount of financing of low-contrast organizations.

The thematic part of the state assignment of the organization should be formed from the funds received by the organization from various state bodies, scientific funds and “development institutions” of subsidies and contracts for the implementation of research work on a particular topic. The reporting on this part of the state assignment should, as at present, be submitted to those organizations that allocate funding and establish the rules for spending funds.

The determination of the special status of scientific organizations that takes into account the features of creative research activity and the change in the rules of their financing will increase the effectiveness of research work in institutes and higher educational institutions. The preservation and development of existing formal-bureaucratic approaches of the management of scientific work will lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of work due to the growth of bureaucratic load, as well as to erosion of ethical standards, which, in turn, will also adversely affect the quality of research work.

It is worth noting that the existing principles of the formation of a state assignment have repeatedly caused criticism in a scientific environment. OHR supports statements by the Council of OHR, the Council for Science under the Ministry of Education and Science, St. Petersburg Union of Scientists and Scientific Councils of a number of leading scientific organizations that expressed outrage in 2018 by the principles of the formation of state assignment adopted by the Fano of Russia. The linking of the increase in salaries with a mechanical increase in tasks on publication activity leads only to a rough profanity of scientific work.

OHR hopes that the new Ministry of Science and Higher Education will not repeat the mistakes of Fano and will take into account the opinion of scientists who well understand that scientific articles are not an end in effect of research work, but only a way to publish the scientific results.

Photo by Natalia Demina