The The Reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences: How It Began in 2013 (Personnel Acpect)

Abstract

 It was on June 23, 2013 that the draft law on reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) was introduced to the State Duma of the Russian Federation for consideration. The article contains results of the author’s review (made from science policy perspective) of the theses extracted from the report of O.Yu. Golodets, the deputy chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation on social issues, supposed to give evidence to ineffectiveness of the RAS personnel: «of 95 thousand research personnel employed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, those engaged in R&D are only 45 thousand»; «today, our youth is dissociated from the Academy of science system: of the employees performing R&D, more than the half of researchers are in pension age or older»; «according to our official statistics, nearly two thousand of young researchers flee from the Russian Federation each year, in order to conduct R&D in foreign institutes»; «the Academy of Sciences has to create the conditions required to develop R&D and implement the potentials of people seeking to prove themselves in the field of research». It is concluded that interim results of the RAS reform have ambiguous and contradictory character, being intensively criticized by the scientific community, whereas the authorities continue to ignore multiple comments and proposals on the reform of Academy R&D.