The The Academic Inbreeding: A Problem Traditionally Ignored in Setting up the Personnel Policy in the Ukrainian Research System

Abstract

The article draws attention to the fact that in foreign scientific periodicals pay increasingly more attention to the problems of academic inbreeding, i. e. staffing of university cathedras by recruiting their own graduates. In support of this fact, a brief review of publications showing the scales of these practice in various countries or discussing its negative implications and methods to counteract them is given. Despite the contradictions of the existing assessments, most part of the authors conclude that the spread of academic inbreeding is a factor strengthening stagnation, inhibiting staff mobility, hampering exchange of experiences and scientific information between universities, both domestically and globally. It is stressed that almost all these publications are related to universities, while the phenomenon of academic inbreeding has become widespread not only in universities, but also in research institutes. Although considered quite natural when establishing academic schools, here it is, too, a factor of stagnation and decrease in the effectiveness of research. In this regard, attention is drawn to the fact that issues of management of the staff structure and quality, becoming even more important for the appropriate staffing of the R&D system, tend to be overlooked due to the unprecedented severity of the problems associated with the alarming dynamics of the quantitative parameters of the Ukrainian R&D system. The necessity of developing and systematizing the mechanisms of government and public influence on such processes is emphasized. Even in the current crisis situation in the domestic R&D, it would be necessary to take measures to promote the mobility of personnel, to ensure transparency and objectivity of competitions for filling the positions of researchers and university professors.