Academics revolt

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Russia's State Duma is to discuss today a draft law on the reform of state academies in the first reading. Yesterday protests were held in major Russian cities by scientists who stood against the reform of the Academy of Science. According to them, it will seriously damage the Russian science and strategic interests of the country. In St. Petersburg several hundred workers of the RAS demanded a halt to discussion of the reforms and reorganization of the RAS. In Moscow scientists urged the society to hold all-Russian protests on July 27th. Opponents of the reform will organize a demonstration in Moscow's Gorky Park on July 5th.

The Council on Science and members of the Public Council under the Ministry of Education and Science made a joint statement which was explained by Alexei Khokhlov, academic of RAS. “When we received the government’s suggestion, we were shocked. It was obvious that it would lead to the destruction of the Russian Academy of Science; and it would lead to significant disorganization of the whole process of scientific research in the country. All institutes which were managed by the RAS would actually be taken under control of a new department. Heads of institutes, rules of working in institutes will be determined by this state managing body. It means that institutes of the Russian Academy of Science will be managed by bureaucrats, not scientists. We note that this organization of science usually leads to disorganization, especially under our conditions.

Science is structured in such a way that the last word should be said by the scientific society. The management of scientific organizations is provided through self-organization of the scientific society. If it is not so, there would be no big achievements. They suggest taking the RAS and merging it with two more academies – the Academy of Medical Science and the Academy of Agricultural Science - titling it the Russian Academy of Science, cancel the status of a corresponding member and maintain only academics. Thus, we will have more than 2, 000 academicians. It will cause significant devaluation of this status. It is obvious. Moreover, there will be a disproportional share of medical scientists and agricultural scientists,” Khokhlov thinks. According to him, “the way which they suggest for doing it is unprecedented. There were no such examples when no elections were held, but those who were elected corresponding members automatically became academics.”

“We have intensively worked on development of the reform since April,” Khokhlov emphasizes. “We stated a lot of comments useful for organization of Russian science, from our point of view. We stand for changes, for making organization of our science modern. But when the reform is imposed on the scientific society, it wouldn’t lead to anything good. That is my analysis of reactions in the scientific environment. Actually everybody has united against the reform – from radical reformers to radical conservatives.”

The efforts by the scientific society were not in vain. Yesterday at night the State Duma Committee on Science and Knowledge-Intensive Technologies recommended the chamber to reject the governmental draft on reforming the RAS in the first reading.