Valery Vasilyevich, have the academicians gotten what they wanted? Generally speaking, they have. During the past year, since the moment when the Education and Science Ministry made public its first reform concept, proposing in particular a sharp downsizing of the aggregate research staff, we have had numerous meetings with senior ministry officials. Our interaction has been far from smooth. Yet one of our basic demands was met: The RAS will be modernized by the Academy itself. We were closely involved in finalizing the draft program that was recently presented to Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately, we managed to defend our positions only insofar as concerns the Academy, not science in general.
The main change for RAS research associates is that their average wage will be raised to 30,000 rubles (approx. $1,050) a month. Where is the money going to come from?
Over the past 15 years, many problems have built up within the RAS and its affiliated institutions: low wages, poor equipment of research centers, outflow of young cadres, the brain drain, and so forth. We decided to seize on the main link in the hope of pulling out the whole chain - namely, boosting the average wage. Last year, the average wage of RAS associates was a little more than 7,000 rubles (approx. $230) a month. We believe that it should be increased to 30,000 rubles. This means that leading research associates will make about 40,000 rubles, while young associates from 15,000 to 20,000 rubles a month.
How is this going to be financed?
In 2002, a joint session of the RF Security Council and the Presidential Council on Science and High Technology discussed the development of science until 2010. It approved a spending schedule for non-military research programs with the breakdown by the years. For example, research funding in 2008 will double compared to 2005.
Our objective is to use these state budget funds in the most effective manner. This year, 45 percent of the Academy's budget has been spent on wages. Now we are asking for this spending item to be increased, up to 60 percent by 2008. Meanwhile, since overall funding is to grow, spending on equipment and other needs will also increase. At the moment we are thrashing out this plan with federal agencies because it cannot be carried out within the established labor remuneration principle - the so called unified wage tariff scale. A decision has already been made to introduce a branch-specific wage tariff system within the RAS by way of an experiment. The unified wage tariff scale, based only on academic positions, taking into account the length of service, academic degree and rank, is to be abandoned and replaced with an "intra-branch" wage tariff system. It is quite possible that this principle will soon be extended to other sectors.
Yet for wages to be really high, the Academy itself will have to cut some fat. Within the next three years we are planning to cut approximately 20% of budget subsidized positions.
How are these cuts going to be made on the practical level?
There will be a re-distribution of pay rates within the Academy structure. Funding is to be divided: Fundamental research programs will be financed from the budget, while contract projects will be paid for by the customer. We are planning to reduce 20 percent of budget-supported slots and introduce as many from "extrabudgetary," alternative sources. Within the next three years, these slots will be filled by research associates working on innovative projects. Contract re-search will be better paid than budget subsidized research, but associates engaged in the second type of projects will be protected by high pay rates and will therefore be able to focus on purely fundamental research programs.
How feasible is this division in the forms of research activity? One person can work both under contract and engage in fundamental research, and in this case today he gets money from two sources. This kind of researcher is unlikely to put up with the loss of a budget-subsidized position.
You are right: This is rather a sensitive matter. It is senseless to divide the financial flow now that budget wages are so small. But we are going to do this by 2008, when wages increase considerably.
So a scientist has a large (by Russian standards) permanent wage, and suddenly he gets an opportunity to work under contract, which is profitable both for himself and his institute. The contract work can take several months or a year. During this period the researcher is removed from his budget maintained slot and placed on a temporary contract basis. When he completes the project, he returns to his former position. But it is wrong to receive budget wages and work under contract at the same time. It is difficult to imagine that such a researcher will be able to work effectively in all areas.
Why is this difficult? A good scientist never stops his research activity. He generates ideas and supervises graduate and postgraduate projects. Finally, he thinks constantly. How can you divide all of this?
Many of our colleagues also make this argument, but we simply have to divide if we want to preserve high budget-supported pay rates. Furthermore, it is an open secret that some researchers today tend to present applied projects that they carry out as fundamental research.
Thus far it is but an idea. You should not walk away with the impression that as of January 1, 2006, Academy scientists will all of a sudden start living according to a different set of rules. I realize that this division can be rather painful at a number of institutes, but I hope that we will be able to think through all the details and show flexibility.
Presumably this also applies to foreign contracts. Last week, the Science and Education Ministry announced restrictions on the time that researchers can spend working or studying abroad.
The matter of foreign contracts has not been finalized yet. In an interview, Science and Education Ministry officials made public a plan that is still on the drawing boards. They have yet to come up with specific provisions. But the problem exists: It is well known that over the past 15 years our most active scientists and researchers have moved abroad - some on a permanent basis, others on a temporary basis. True, some have started returning to Russia now. Should the RAS-affiliated position of a researcher who has long been abroad be retained for him throughout this period? Or should it be declared vacant and filled by a young scientist? What is to be done when a researcher has decided not to come back? It is necessary to think through all of these questions and adopt appropriate regulations, in particular staffing procedure.
Researchers working abroad are sometimes of more benefit to their institute than some of those who have stayed behind: They ensure cooperation with Western colleagues, grants, association and co-authorship, the latter being very important in getting scholarly articles published in prestigious journals. Is there not a danger that the Academy could lose these contacts as a result of reform?
This is a serious problem. Very many other problems have to be dealt with in streamlining the labor remuneration system.
The heads of all laboratories at an institute of physics in China, which I visited a year ago, were lured back from the US with offers of better paid jobs, senior positions, and housing. What do you think about this experience?
I observed such practice even earlier, in Taiwan. Better conditions were provided there for scientists returning from the United States. Some of our colleagues advocate this approach. In theory, I welcome it, but I do not think that we are ready for this for purely financial considerations. Furthermore, very sharp imbalances could occur between research associates within the same institute.
You mentioned a gradual transition from budget - to project-financed positions. Are there plans for a net downsizing of research staff at RAS affiliated institutes?
There are no plans for a net downsizing of RAS associates. One of the objectives of the commission that I head is restructuring. Four years ago we already reduced the number of our divisions from 18 to nine. In June we decided to merge 40 institutes. This should happen before the New Year. Today we are analyzing the performance of each institute on a number of parameters: research subjects, the number of publications, participation in conferences, prizes and awards, average age, the number of graduate and postgraduate students, and many other things. Staff downsizing will be based on an aggregate of these parameters.
In principle, the number of institutes is not a critical indicator. Today there are 400, while in the Soviet era there were fewer, but then there were more research associates. In the early 1990s, the number of scientists began to decline as the number of institutes began to grow. As a general rule, the institutes were broken up into smaller units: At that time it was easier for mobile, flexible research group to survive. The period of stability has now ensued, so reducing the number of RAS-affiliated institutes is not an end in itself. Analysis of their performance will enable both their directors and Academy leadership to conduct a kind of stock-taking and better understand the strong and weak points of both a particular institute and the Academy system as such.
http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2005-36-20
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