NG-Science: Superficial imitation of the Western model of fundamental science is ruining domestic science. Is science needed to popularize science? The “grant plane” will not fly

Science and high technology are fruits of the same tree. What becomes the engine of science? Human laziness and war. There is another factor, although it sounds unscientific: the passage of time is becoming faster and faster, information is compressed into tight forms, people are trying to keep up with everything. It is science as a discipline, regardless of whether it is biology or physics, chemistry or higher mathematics, that, in general, helps a person move the globe.

According to data as of July 3, 2019, during flooding in Irkutsk region 20 people died, 15 are considered missing. The road infrastructure has been partially destroyed. Dozens of people were caught in the flood zone settlements. The state of emergency is in effect in six districts: Tulunsky, Chunsky, Nizhneudinsky, Taishetsky, Ziminsky and Kuitunsky. Thousands of people were left homeless. More than 3,000 houses remain flooded. Almost 2,600 people were evacuated from flooded areas, and hundreds sought medical help. More than a billion rubles of damage (the exact figures are still being established). The water level rose to almost 14 meters. How did this happen?

In the publication by A.G. Vaganov’s “Science Loves Counting” talks about the new format of one of the leading scientific journals in Russia. Currently, 22 journals are registered in the Russian Science Citation Index. The history of the publication began in 1999, when the journal “Naukovedenie” appeared. In 2004, the presentation of the magazine and its name changed - the almanac “Science. Innovation. Education". Increased interest on the part of readers in the results of scientific research had an impact on the editorial board of the journal. A decision was made to change the format of the publication and the frequency of its releases (from 2 to 4 issues per year) while maintaining the name. I would like to especially note that scientific traditions in reporting research results, starting from 1999, have been supported by high level editor-in-chief of the magazine, Doctor of Philosophy, professor, honorary worker of science and technology of the Russian Federation, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Evgeniy Vasilyevich Semenov.

N. Dobretsov,
Academician, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Chairman of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

October 18 this year in the thematic supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta - "NG-Science" (No. 9) the article "Academic reform is inevitable" was published. The author, hiding under the pseudonym Ivan Petrov, heads a laboratory in one of the academic institutes of the humanities. The harsh tone of the publication and the severity of the problems posed evoked many responses.

"NVS" publishes the response of Academician N. Dobretsov, which he also sent to the editorial office of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta".

Over the 277 years of its existence, the Academy of Sciences in our country has been reformed several times. A few examples from the past century. So only on May 15, 1917 Russian Academy Sciences gained independence, and it had its first elected president - Academician A.P. Karpinsky. More recently, in May 1959, N.S. Khrushchev put forward the idea of ​​reorganizing the USSR Academy of Sciences by splitting it into several academies. The result is known: the reform of the Branch technical sciences and transfer of most institutions to the system National economy. The idea of ​​closing the Academy of Sciences arose several times. The same Nikita Sergeevich, in connection with the opposition of the USSR Academy of Sciences T.D. Lysenko at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee on July 11, 1964, proposed: “... if the Academy of Sciences interferes, we will disperse the Academy of Sciences to hell, because the Academy of Sciences is for us is not needed, because science should be in the branches of production, there it is more useful, this was necessary for the bourgeois Russian state..." (quoted from V.Yu. Alfiani, S.S. Ilizarov, VIET, 1999, N 1, p: 167).

Change is truly needed. If the system does not evolve and gradually adapt to the changing environment, it may die. But revolutionary changes no less often destroy the system. Tsars came and went, social systems changed, but the Russian Academy of Sciences continues to exist.

Repetition of what has been covered

The anonymous author in NG demands revolutionary changes. However, there is nothing new in what it offers. We already heard all his motives, arguments and proposed ways of reforming science in the first years of perestroika from the lips of the Secretary of the Central Committee A.N. Yakovlev, who was then elected as an academician to the USSR Academy of Sciences. They were even implemented in the field of industrial science, and today everyone clearly sees that nothing good came of it.

I would like to remind you what A.N. Yakovlev proposed to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.S. Gorbachev in a letter dated November 5, 1991 (quoted from the text of the speech of the Vice-President of the RAS, Chairman of the SB RAS, Academician V.A. Koptyug at the General Meeting of the RAS 29 October 1997): “... firstly, ... it is not at all necessary to equate concern for the development of science with the preservation of the Academy of Sciences and the creation of conditions protected from the market for it.

Secondly, recognizing our subjective status not as a superpower, but as a developing country, we must draw conclusions in terms of supporting science. We need to nurture what is competitive on the world market today and will ensure our competitiveness tomorrow. To do this, at a minimum, you need to know such topics, problems and directions...

That is, if you really think about the future of the country, the contribution of science to it, about science itself, then there can be only one conclusion: the entire organization of science in general and the system of its state support in particular must undergo profound transformations. So far, this is exactly what the USSR Academy of Sciences system is resisting.

The main directions of such transformation:

A) liquidation of the all-Union Ministry of Science in any form; complete separation of science from the state;

b) encouragement in the field of science market mechanisms, competition and competition;

c) support for specific programs and areas of scientific research, and not for certain organizations and institutions as such;

d) a complete refusal to support any institutions that would exist only at the expense of the state budget.

The Chairman of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician V.A. Koptyug, in the same speech at the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences regarding this letter from A.N. Yakovlev, asks a question and answers it himself:

“Undoubtedly, in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, as now in the Russian Academy of Sciences, there are many problems that had and must now be solved. But what is the reason for such pathological hatred of the Academy of Sciences as a system, as an organized scientific community? Why is there such a desire to fragment the Academy sciences into little connected fragments?

I believe that this is due to the understanding that a unified scientific community is a huge intellectual force that will prevent Russia from imposing the status of a developing country. And it would be quite nice if our scientific community fully realized the importance of preserving the RAS as a system, as the home of a single academic community." (V.A. Koptyug. Science will save humanity., N., 1997, p. 89).

What’s new in the article of an anonymous “fairly well-known scientist” who “heads a laboratory in one of the academic institutes in the humanities”? If we sift out the beautiful phraseology about chimeras and references (without revealing the topic) to the world's accumulated “fairly serious experience of structural reforms of complex and even unique organisms,” what will remain on the surface are the theses that were popular at the beginning of perestroika in the fight against the privileges of academicians and the apparatus of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the help of some other ministry , which will decide everything fairly. It is absolutely clear that the author does not understand the complex mechanism of the functioning of science, does not read modern scientific literature (see, for example, the serious article by S.G. Kara-Murza " Social features science in crisis" and other articles in No. 2 of the journal "Naukovedenie" for 2000), does not know the history of modern Russian science. Otherwise, he would not have written what he wrote.

How it was and is in Siberia

In 1997, it was 40 years since the creation of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding mathematician and mechanic, founder of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician M.A. Lavrentieva. We can draw some conclusions. Then, in 1957, the very organization of the first regional branch of the Academy of Sciences was a serious step in its reorganization, since for the first time it led to the actual decentralization of science in our country, bringing it closer to the regions. In addition, M.A. Lavrentyev and other founders of the Siberian Branch, using all the best from the experience of the development of domestic science, were able to lay in the scientific centers of the SB RAS such principles of organization that for many years turned out to be progressive not only for domestic science, but also for foreign ones .

The main principles of the Branch are:

Complexity (multidisciplinarity) of scientific centers and advanced development in the entire set of main areas of fundamental sciences;

Integration of science and education, widespread use of human resources and material resources of academic institutions in teaching, multi-level (starting from school) system of selection, training and reproduction of highly qualified and highly qualified personnel for science, high school and industry of Siberia;

Active promotion of the implementation of scientific achievements, primarily in the Siberian region, a variety of forms of communication with production.

These principles have stood the test of time and remain fundamental to the work of the Division. They also served as an example for the creation of other regional branches of the Russian Academy of Sciences in our country (Far Eastern, Ural), and were used in the organization of a number of scientific centers abroad (in Japan, Korea, France, Brazil, etc.).

The creation of academic towns in Siberia in the 60s fit very neatly into the development trends of world science at the end of the 20th century. The complexity of academic campuses corresponds to the new paradigm of scientific development emerging at the turn of the 21st century, which provides for a multidisciplinary approach to solving global environmental, energy, technological, civilizational and other urgent problems facing humanity.

Naturally, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences developed by trial and error. Not everything planned was successful, but the specified fundamental principles made it possible to successfully reform the Department in an evolutionary way depending on the changing situation, to maintain personnel and material potential and the effectiveness of research.

More than 40 years of experience of the Department allows us to object to almost all counts of the anonymous author’s accusations against the Academy of Sciences.

"The feudal status of the Russian Academy of Sciences (as an archaic "ministry of fundamental science"). Supreme body management in the SB RAS is the General Meeting, consisting of “chambers” of equal rights and equal in number: members of the Academy and representatives of institutes elected by collectives. The General Meeting decides all strategic issues in the life of the Department - from the adoption of the Charter and determination of priorities in areas of research and, accordingly, their financing, to the selection of directors and nomination to members of the RAS. At the same time, voting is carried out separately and if any of the chambers does not support the issue, it does not pass. This system has been in effect since 1993, and what is most interesting is that the voting results of the two “chambers” have never differed by more than 3-5% over the years. As a result, all the talk that academics act only in their own interests ended. During a joint discussion of specific problems, it became clear that there were no serious disagreements between the scientific community and its elite - members of the Academy. It is unlikely that the anonymous author of NG will be able to name at least one other structure in the country where issues of its functioning are resolved so democratically.

"The gap between basic science at research institutions and education"... In Russia, even before the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, there was positive experience in the integration of science and education (the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, the famous Physics and Technology in Moscow). The system in the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences has gone further. In Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, the university was built earlier than many institutes. This university turned out to be not only the “cheapest” in the country (most of the teachers are employees of the Academy of Sciences, and all practical classes of students take place in academic laboratories using modern equipment), but also quickly became one of the best universities in the country. The quality of training is evidenced by the fact that today in the central laboratory of Microsoft, Bill Gates, a significant part of the employees are graduates of Novosibirsk University. The university system in Novosibirsk was supplemented by a college of computer science and a school of physics and mathematics, which accepts, starting from grades 7-8, the winners of the annual All-Siberian School Olympiads held by NSU and the SB RAS.

From the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences to last years many talented scientists have gone abroad, however, the current personnel training system not only allows us to restore the personnel potential of the Department, but also to supply highly qualified specialists to universities and in the fields of industry and business.

Following Novosibirsk, universities appeared in other scientific centers of the Department, and where they were before, close ties were established through the creation of regional scientific and educational complexes, under the state program “Integration”, etc. At the universities of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Ulan-Ude, Yakutsk and others, specialized departments have been created on the basis of institutes of the SB RAS.

The institutes of the SB RAS actively interact with universities in the scientific field within the framework of integration projects (about them below) and the regional scientific and technical program "Siberia".

"...the obvious and ever-increasing dependence of the Russian Academy of Sciences on budget funding." Guided by the principle of the need for constant active implementation of scientific achievements in practice, initially the institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences were created together with pilot production. A little later, design bureaus appeared nearby.

Already in Soviet times, many scientific schools of the institutes of the Siberian branch decided whole line problems that have significantly changed the face of industries and territories of the country. Just three examples can be given:

School of Academician A.A. Trofimuk - discovery of giant oil and gas fields in Eastern Siberia;

School of Academician G.K. Boreskov - introduction of vanadium catalysts in chemical industry, which marked the beginning of a new era in industrial catalysis;

School of Academician G.I. Budker - creation and production of industrial electron accelerators to provide various types of radiation technologies for the chemical and cable industries.

In the conditions of the economic crisis and a sharp reduction in funding for science, the SB RAS has retained its scientific and technical potential, material base, and the fundamental and applied results obtained in the institutes of the Department remain in demand and are in demand in the market of science-intensive products, today, unfortunately, mainly in foreign. As confirmation of this, we can cite the fact that only according to official statistics in the export structure of the Novosibirsk region, the cost of scientific services, instruments and installations, scientific developments, new materials, chemical and microbiological products produced by institutes and firms at the institutes of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center exceeds 15 million dollars a year, in total for the Siberian branch - more than 30 million dollars.

All these years, the funds earned in the Department's budget average about 50%, and in some institutes they reach 70-80%. That is, the academic institutes of the Department have actually turned into scientific and technological companies, conducting fundamental and applied research at a high world level and producing high-tech products that are in demand on the market.

This situation allowed the Department to successfully overcome difficulties and move from the stage of “survival” to development in new conditions. In 1997, the General Meeting of the Branch approved the Concept of Adaptation and Reform of the SB RAS, which is being consistently implemented.

It includes:

1) restructuring of the network of scientific institutions of the SB RAS, clarification of directions scientific research, budgetary support for main priorities, restructuring within institutions, some reduction in headcount;

2) development of integration projects, including the “humanization” of fundamental science;

3) development of a technology park system for solving applied problems based on fundamental science;

4) maintaining and developing the material and technical base of the institutes, as well as the effective use of all property and lands of the SB RAS to support fundamental and applied research;

5) support for youth through an increase in the number of graduate students and postgraduate scholarships, the creation of a “flowing system” of personnel at institutes, the construction of housing for youth, secondments for internships and the exchange of young scientists, youth “schools”;

6) balanced international cooperation, including:

a) for development basic research(grants, joint research, including within the framework of international scientific centers established in Siberia, exchange of scientists, increasing the international status of SB RAS journals, developing their bilingual publications);

b) for the development of applied research and the use of their results (through joint ventures, contracts with foreign companies, licensing agreements, etc.).

Today, the main thing has become a triangle: budgetary support for priorities (basic science, including integration projects) - technology parks - balanced international cooperation.

I would like to dwell separately on integration projects. As already indicated, institutes representing (taking into account regional characteristics) the entire spectrum of sciences are concentrated in limited areas in the scientific centers of the Department. This greatly facilitated contacts between scientists, and many outstanding results obtained by Siberian scientists and marked by prestigious domestic and foreign awards (starting with the Nobel Prize of Academician L.V. Kantorovich for the application of mathematical methods in economics) were obtained at the “junctions” of sciences.

Today, the General Meeting of the Branch found an opportunity to centralize part of the funds and distribute them on a competitive basis among scientific leaders who proposed research that requires the participation of specialists from different sciences. A 3-year research cycle has been successfully completed. The results obtained were so significant, and the interest of the scientific community was so great, that in 2000 a competition was held for a new three-year term, where the number of projects accepted for funding was significantly expanded. Today there are 89 of them.

Of all the results, we will mention only one. The school of Siberian archaeologists, founded by academician A.P. Okladnikov, received worldwide recognition thanks to a number of unique finds that proved that the culture of the peoples inhabiting the spaces of Siberia is not inferior to the most ancient civilizations. One of the most important advantages of the Siberian archaeological school is its multidisciplinary approach. Paleobotanists and paleontologists, geologists and geomorphologists, physicists, mathematicians, and biologists participate in complex research, both on expeditions and in laboratories.

The burial complexes of the Pazyryk culture of the Scythian era, found in permafrost on the Ukok plateau in Southern Altai and adding to the treasury of world science and culture, are rightfully considered a world-class discovery. As part of integration projects, an ethno-cultural, sociological and anthropological reconstruction of objects of material and spiritual culture of Pazyryk society was carried out, and a genetic analysis of the mummified bodies of men and women was performed. Together with biologists, using the methods of molecular genetics, it was shown that already in Scythian times there was an active mixing of races and peoples in Central Asia.

An interesting branch of this work was obtained by geneticists, archaeologists and ethnographers of the SB RAS. Studying, together with scientists from the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the structure of the gene pools of the ancient and modern populations of Eurasia and their predisposition to various diseases, they discovered that representatives of the Mongoloid race (Yakuts, Tuvinians, Chukchi) do not have a variant of the gene responsible for the spread of HIV infection, i.e. . they are less prone to developing AIDS.

I think this is a good example illustrating the absurdity of an anonymous person’s accusation of the chimerical nature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which unites the natural and human sciences. Other examples of successful cooperation between natural scientists and humanities can be given: the discovery by geophysicists of a city contemporary with Troy in Western Siberia, the cooperation of Mongolian linguists, physicians and biologists in the translation and publication of the Atlas of Tibetan Medicine, etc.

There are also examples of successful integration of a different kind. Mathematicians and mechanics of the Institute of Hydrodynamics named after. M.A. Lavrentyev and the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics SB RAS created and put into operation a unique wind tunnel with parameters that make it possible to simulate the conditions of the upper atmosphere for a new generation of aerospace vehicles. The Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Institute of Chemical Kinetics and Combustion of the SB RAS are creating a photochemical center based on a powerful free electron laser. Its first stage will be launched in the spring of 2001.

Will this be possible if the proposals of the anonymous author of "NG" are implemented? I think no! What would happen in this case to the unique scientific facilities of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to the infrastructure of the scientific centers of the SB RAS? Without centralized management and budgetary support, they would quickly fall into disrepair, and with them national science would collapse. Today foreign scientists come to work on our unique installations, and tomorrow we will beg around the world.

The main thing that the anonymous “NG” does not take into account is the national characteristics of our science, which has been formed over centuries of its development and has basic institutions and hospitals over a vast territory, and the fact that its role for Russia in an era of crisis and man-made disasters is significantly increasing.

“Science in Russia has already accumulated a large, although not yet sufficiently formalized, knowledge about the behavior of technological, social and cultural systems at a turning point, during large-scale transitions “order - chaos”. The development and formalization of this knowledge, which poses many fundamental questions in a completely new way , is important for Russia itself, but no less so for the world community." (quoted from S.G. Kara-Murza, Scientific Studies, No. 2, 2000, p. 44).

The Russian Academy of Sciences today is perhaps the only scientific structure in the country that has this knowledge. The role of national science in an era of crisis is primarily in supporting the self-awareness and education of the nation, and not only special secondary and higher education, but also in a broader sense - the ability to think logically and scientifically. The loss of this quality will throw our country not only into the category of developing countries, but even further.

Photo from the Nauka Publishing House website

As NG learned, at today's meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences the issue of the situation with the publication of academic journals at the Nauka Publishing House may be considered. The fact is that the acting director of the publishing house, Sergei Palatkin, issued an order to transfer all employees of all magazine editorial offices to fixed-term (annual) employment contracts.

“Publishing house “Nauka” is the only full-cycle state academic publishing house with the main mission: to become a standard in the field of book publishing and scientific periodicals for all scientific publishing houses in the country, to implement the strategic state task of ensuring
barrier-free exchange scientific information for all members of the scientific community,” notes the official website of the publishing house. Now it publishes 155 scientific and popular science academic journals (in addition to book products). Among them, for example, are such authoritative publications as “Questions of Philosophy”, “Nature”, “Questions of the History of Science and Technology”, “Man”, “Energy: Economics of Technology Ecology”...

And so, by October 20, all employees of these magazines were required to sign a letter of resignation of their own free will and a fixed-term employment contract. According to NG information from the head of one very famous scientific journal, “no one did this, and it turned out that with 455 employees of 155 magazine editorial offices, things don’t work out that easily; no one wants to show off to their superiors.”

The same source reported that editorial staff “...on their own managed to remove the following type of nonsense from the draft agreement: all employees of all magazine editorial offices were supposed to have a probationary period of indefinite duration every year (and who will check the qualifications of everyone - the personnel department?), editorial staff are responsible for the safety of the property of the Publishing House's clients (a jacket went missing in the wardrobe, the dacha burned down - and who took responsibility for the safety of property?), in clothing we must comply with the corporate standard, about which we know nothing.

But even after our editing, the Publishing House does not want to introduce into the contract (and its understanding) the concept of the editorial office and the editor-in-chief, whose competence is the certification of employees, assessment of the quality of their work and full responsibility for the preparation time and the quality of filling the original layout of the issue, no, all this will be control the HR department and incompetent managers.”

At the same time, from the first half of 2018, the price of both one issue of magazines and the price of subscription will increase. For some publications – by 20%. “And it is impossible to explain that such an unjustified increase in price will not lead to an increase in income - the number of subscribers will simply collapse,” emphasizes the NG source.

As a result, from 2018, RAS journals will most likely be divided into two groups. One of them will be published by the International Academic Publishing Company “Nauka/Interperiodika” (MAIK “Nauka/Interperiodika”). This company was founded in 1992. Its founders are the Russian Academy of Sciences and the American company Pleiades Publishing, Inc. and the publishing house "Science". Thus, MAIK undertakes the publication of only those RAS journals whose English versions are profitable. The rest - according to some estimates, from a third to a half of the journals translated - are more likely to be published in English language will not.