Duma vote seals fate of Russian Academy of Sciences

Dizano News – Russia’s lower house of parliament on 18 September finally approved controversial reforms to the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). More than 330 members of the State Duma voted in favour of the new law, with only 107 against, in a move critics say will deprive the 290-year-old body of its independence, and halt attempts to revitalize Russia’s struggling science system.

Storm clouds have been gathering over the Russian Academy of Sciences for months.
Quirin Schiermeier

If, as is widely expected, the upper house and President Vladimir Putin approve the law, the 436 institutes and 45,000 staff of Russia’s primary basic-research organization will in future be managed by a new federal agency overseen by the government and directly reporting to Putin. The agency will manage the academy’s $1.5 billion budget and extensive property portfolio, which includes lucrative sites in Moscow and St Petersburg, and will also have a say in the appointment of institute directors.

Outside the Duma, a group of outraged scientists protested the unpopular changes, which were first proposed in June without prior consultation of the RAS presidium.

They claimed that a number of amendments adopted in yesterday’s third reading —  that the Siberian, Ural and the Far Eastern branches of the RAS will remain under the academy’s jurisdiction, and a slight dilution of government interference compared to the initial bill, for example — do little to avert harm to science.

“This is not a reform — this is a liquidation of science in Russia,” says Alexander Kuleshov, director of the Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems in Moscow.

Since 1990, the academy has lost much of its former glory as state funding declined sharply after the demise of the Soviet Union. Its increasing inefficiency and obstinate reluctance to adopt organizational changes has prompted the Russian government to focus science spending on universities, national research centres and public–private research partnerships such as Rosnano, a multi-billion-rouble nanotechnology initiative, and the planned Skolkovo science city outside Moscow.

The academy leadership, and many Russian scientists, agree that changes are urgently needed. But they fear that transferring control of basic science to the government is counterproductive.

“The changes are pointless and ill-conceived,” says Mikhail Gelfand, deputy director of the academy’s Institute for Transmission Problems in Moscow. “The new managers have no knowledge of science. Nobody in the government has any idea of how science will work in the transition period and how long that period may last. We can certainly expect a lot of chaos whereas the real problems remain untackled.”

Over the past few weeks, the RAS leadership and formal and informal groups of Russian scientists have intensely discussed the future of the academy. Suggestions included an international review of RAS institutes and the creation of a grant-based funding system that would reward merit rather than age. A personal meeting in August between Vladimir Fortov, the president of the RAS, and Putin had raised hopes for a more science-friendly reform — but these hopes have failed to materialize.

Source nature.com

Source: Duma vote seals fate of Russian Academy of Sciences