The Memorandum to A.V. Parubiy, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, “The Need for Urgent Measures for Rehabilitation of the Scientific Potential in Ukraine”

Abstract

It is argued that the unprecedented reduction in the research system of Ukraine, especially its financing and staff, results from the long-term undervaluation of the significance of science, disregard of its minimal needs by executive power authorities, and from the inconsistence of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in its attempts to increase support for the R&D sector. Studies conducted by Dobrov Institute for Scientific and Technological Potential and Science History Studies of the NAS of Ukraine give evidence of de-intellectualization of the national legislation over 1991—2017, e.g. a declining trend even in mere mentions of R&D, technology or innovation in the texts of laws and other normative-legal acts. The Institute staff have developed a method for forecasting of various versions for the research staff evolution in Ukraine, which showed that Ukraine, in order to reach the European level of staffing R&D, needed to provide for annual 15-percent increase in the number of young researcher incoming to R&D, along with preventing heavy losses caused by quitting R&D by middle-aged researchers. Hence research results produced by the Institute confirm the need for urgent radical measures to rescue the domestic R&D sector as a premise for the innovation-driven development of Ukraine.