Translated material
Build bridges
Professor Alexander Viktorovich Kabanov , director of the Nanotechnology Center for the delivery of drugs of the University of North Carolina in Chapel-Hill, became the new president of RASA-the Association of Russian-speaking in America. In an interview with the TRV-HOW, he spoke about the mission of the association, work with Russia and the cultural code of Russian world-famous scientists. Talked Alexander Borisov .
- How do you determine for yourself the target audience of the association, its portrait?
-Firstly, we are by no means representing the entire Russian scientific diaspora, in principle we do not pretend to speak on its behalf. But we represent people who voluntarily, at their own request, gathered in the Association of the Russian-american science association (RASA). Now it is briefly called Rasa-america 1 , and began as Rasa-USA. The name was changed because we accept scientists from Latin America and Canada into our ranks. Our association is quite representative in scientific disciplines and in the total number of members. In addition, we are part of a broader international network. RASA initially arose as an informal unification of scientists from different countries who wanted to interact with each other. And then legally independent regional organizations were officially registered: in Europe (Paris), in America (Boston) and in Asia (Singapore). Plus, an active group of Russian -speaking scientists in Japan recently arose. These organizations are united by the International Committee, its chairman is a very large scientist with a serious reputation - Igor Efimov , dean of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of George Washington, where they adopted our conference this year. Igor was the first President of RASA in America.
In our countries, we are quite consistent people, well integrated into local life. But we are interested in communication with each other, we are united by a common cultural code and a sense of intellectual unity. Since we are the initial product of another culture, despite the deep adaptation in new countries, we have important important “cultural valencies”, some “cultural orbitals” remain incomplete. In fact, when we get together, we fill these “cultural orbitals” - this connects us and pulls us to each other. In this sense, it is important for us to get together, and I personally did not have enough such communication without association. We watched the same films, read the same books, laugh at the same jokes. We have similar approaches to solving a variety of scientific problems. I believe that the interdisciplinary approach, which I will say a little below, was always strong in Russia in its own way, and historically it is close to us. Despite the fact that we respect scientists around the world, we have general scientific authorities - people whom we simply know more, by virtue of our origin. And L. D. Landau, and S.P. Korolev, and D. I. Mendeleev (although Dmitry Ivanovich is known to every scientist in the world - at least every chemist for sure), and P. L. Kapitsa - all these people became part of our upbringing and culture. Moreover, a large number of scientists were born in Russia, but in the last hundred years they moved and successfully worked in America and other countries. About them, due to the turbulence of the history of our country, we know much less. And when we learn about their life and fate, we "find out a piece of ourselves in them." We have a natural feeling of rapprochement with these scientists of the past, because, thinking about others, we will project the situation on ourselves. In a sense, we ourselves are a continuation of Russian culture and history-after all, science is part of culture. We unite in order to preserve this part of culture in the historical perspective. That's why the association is completely outside of politics, this is not a tool for promoting Russia or someone else. The association exists in the interests of its members who carry a common cultural code.
- What are your plans as the President of the Association?
-Firstly, I will develop the general good ideas that have arisen before me-in this sense I “rely on the shoulders of giants” and my friends. This is primarily the annual RASA-america 2 conference. For America, it is quite unique - highly interdisciplinary, while it has a stable high scientific level, and this is its unconditional value. This year, the Program Committee was headed by Vladimir Shiltsev . Immediately before our usual conference, an American university in Washington held a special session dedicated to a truce in the First World War and the Russian Revolution. At the conference itself, held at the University of George Washington, in addition to the traditional historical section about the scientists of the diaspora (this year dedicated to the Pioneer of Television Vladimir Zvorykin), there was a very strong section on social sciences, economics - in addition to traditional chemistry, physics, biology, materials sciences. For us as scientists, the opportunity to listen to strong specialists of such a wide range of areas is unconditional value: in America, such events are usually not accepted, and I attribute interdisciplinary communication to the values of the Russian scientific culture. This interdisciplinaryness in conferences I, as the president, will develop and strengthen, expanding with new formats - round tables, “brainstorming”, discussions. The next conference will take place in my city, in Chapel Hill (North Carolina). In addition to my university, there are several more strong universities in the district, including the University of DUK and the University of North Carolina in the role, as well as a large cluster of Research companies Research Triangle Park. And everywhere there are many immigrants from Russia and the former USSR. Therefore, I expect that this conference will be useful for our local Russian -speaking community.
Another important tradition is the Gamov 3 Prize. This is an undertaking, the idea of which belongs to Roald Sagdeev and a number of other RASA-america members, we will also develop. The prize has been awarded since 2015. The current provision says that it can be issued to any scientist of the diaspora. In fact, the majority of those who received are so far from the USA. On the one hand, the prize is reflected by the fact that in a short historical period a wave of scientists from the former USSR appeared in the United States. On the other hand, it should take into account the features of the current situation. The world is no longer so closed. Scientists working here in the USA can safely go home or other countries, the borders are not closed. Large scientific diasporas work around the world. Deep ties with the homeland have been preserved. There were no revolutions, as at the beginning of the last century-then a lot of blood spilled, because of this, a cultural and physical, as well as a political barrier arose. The study of the World Bank, about which Yevgeny Kuznetsov spoke about at our conference, shows that scientific diasporas play a huge role in the development of science in their countries. Returning to the Gamov Prize: it received, for example, Artyom Oganov. He played a large role in the formation and work of Rasa-america, and then returned to Russia. I think that in the future, the winners of the Gamov Prize will not only be from the United States. The prize will develop, reflecting the evolution of the world of diaspora, its unity. In any case, I would like this award to be always awarded “in the Hamburg account”, the most worthy, and continued after I retire when I was gone. In other words, I would like the prize to be institutionalized. Therefore, it is important to build it in this way in order to make it completely independent, to ensure the mechanism of its award to worthy people not only now, but also at a long distance. We need to learn from other large awards, as is done.
- What do you want to change?
- Perhaps not to change, but to return to the origins. I remember when I held the first RASA conferences in which I participated (it was four years ago, in 2014 in Boston), there were quite a few youth around. Now - much less. And earlier there was even the RASA youth section, which actively worked. We need to understand why this reduction happened and how it can be changed and fixed. What to do for this? It is clear that youth needs to offer something important for them - we think about it. In addition, like any scientific community, RASA has expert potential, and we need to understand how at the current stage this potential is used in the best way, for example, in the field of scientific examination. The issue of scientific examination (not between the blessing, namely the examination by and large) is extremely important. Russia's scientists understand this - to take the same “disserter”, this is a very correct organization that raises the problems of plagiarism and other abuses. I think that we, as a diaspora, can help improve the quality of scientific examination: this is part of our academic activity.
- But even now, many scientists of the diasporas act as experts in grant funds in Russia. What new do you want to organize?
- This year, in Washington, we had a rather deep discussion about how the diaspora in principle can improve the quality of the Russian scientific environment, in particular in the publication field, in terms of supporting and developing Russian scientific journals. Now, on the part of organizations and funds financing Russian scientists, there are great pressure on these scientists so that they publish articles in high -rated scientific journals. On the one hand, this correctly and corresponds to the global tendency of globalization of science, of course, if the pressure is not excessive. Excessive pressure can lead to the opposite result. It must be understood that in Russia its own scientific journals have been preserved, which are translated and fall into electronic access bases along with the best world publications, primarily through the Springerlink system. Indeed, today we are looking for articles not on magazines, but on electronic databases, based on those that interest us. Say, articles in the "Bulletin of Moscow University", which during my youth were completely "buried" for the global scientific community, today "jump out" in search of articles in the best magazines. I do not want to go into details of publishing, which is widely discussed now; I want to say that the very fact of the existence of translated (essentially - international!) Russian magazines in this collection great value, and an important factor for maintaining a Russian scientific ecosystem. As a megagrannik, I know well that many scientists working today in Russia in different fields do not know how to write good articles in English, and indeed they do not know how to write articles, as expected, in international magazines. It is quite obvious that if you close all the Russian magazines or in some other way to ruin the prevailing ecosystem, then the large number of Russian scientists, including young people, will simply have nowhere to be published. A large number of "linden" magazines publish anything for money will appear immediately. And it will be pseudoscience, not science. Thanks to the international Russian scientific journals, scientists can publish their work, making them available to the world scientific community along with the best world publications. And therefore, I think, along with the stimulation of publications in prestigious high -implant international magazines, it is necessary to improve the quality of selection and examination, adopt the practices of the best translated scientific journals and thereby teach Russian scientists to play on the world scientific field. It seems to me that in this Russian scientific diaspora can help Russian scientists. Russia, unlike some other countries, is a country with a developed scientific environment, and we should maintain and strengthen what we still have. Including not to discount their strengths and “play their strength”, as they say in America.
- Are there any plans for work outside Russia?
- As I said, the “big” Rasa unites scientists from around the world. And one of my tasks as the president of Rasa-america-today the strongest regional organization is to support this world social network. Today it seems to me that the American organization is the most mature, better organized. Therefore, we want to take on the role of leaders, to help other scientists in building our bound global Russian scientific world. The world is changing. For 8-10 years that have passed since the moment I received a megager and opened the Russian laboratory, significant changes have occurred in the Russian scientific climate. I watched them directly like a megagrannik. There are also very large changes in the international arena. But times will change again, and we play for a long time, in the sense that we are united by our general cultural code, which I have already mentioned. We think about the future and save our network, our identity for it. The world is now very polarized, everyone finds points for conflict and separation. And we prefer to look for what connects us.
- Who will implement these plans?
-The core of the RASA-america association is its coordination committee. At the last conference, in addition to ten members, we elected four new ones. I am very glad that this is Konstantin Sonin , with whom, by the way, I met through joint activities in the Council of Science of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and who was responsible at our conference for a very interesting session on economic sciences. And these are three women-scientists-now there are five women in the committee. We already had Elena Atochina-Vashersman (Pennsylvania University), vice president on general issues, and Lyubov Vartikovskaya (national health institutions). And now the Committee includes Tatyana Tatarinova (La-Wern University), Karina Cardenas (National Institute of Cancer) and Tatyana Bronich (Medical Center of the University of Nepobra in Omaha). I am very counting on the support of my comrades and I am sure of this support.
Alexander Kabanov
Talked Alexander Borisov
In the center are the winners of the Gamov Prize Andrei Linde and Evgeny Kunin. Photo from the site rasa-usa.org
Full composition of the RASA CC