Russian scientists and university researchers are protesting a Kremlin effort to attract scientists from overseas to work in Russia, saying the government should raise the wages it pays to Russians instead.
The primary focus of their anger is a new, $390-million program that includes generous financial awards to scientists. The so-called megagrant contest is open to all nationalities and is intended in part to entice Russian émigré scientists to return from universities and research laboratories abroad. The largest grants are for 150 million rubles, or about $5-million, an unprecedented sum by Russian standards, and include offers of equipment and laboratory assistants.
The program is part of a wider government push to encourage greater interaction between Russian academic and industry scientists and their foreign colleagues.
“The Kremlin does not trust Russian scientists any longer,” said Arkady Maltsev, a physicist and mathematician with the Russian Academy of Sciences. “They promise millions of dollars to foreign scientists, while Russian scientists make $300 to $500 a month. The Kremlin should give us half of the money, and Russian domestic science would boom.”
The government announced the grant contest in June. The competition was geared toward the foreign scientific community; Russian scientists, if they wanted to compete, were obliged to describe their projects in English, and winners would be required to spend only four months a year in Russia working at university laboratories. Last month the Russian ministry of education and science chose 40 scientists, only five of whom live in Russia, although 20 are Russian citizens.
In response, hundreds of researchers have participated in street protests in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities to criticize the Kremlin’s plan. And Internet forums in Russia have been full of frustrated comments by scientists.
“What Russian academics do not understand is why Brazil, with smaller amount of petrodollars, can afford financing its own science and Russia cannot,” Irina Samakhova, a political analyst, said in an interview.
Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin official responsible for the modernization of science, said at a recent meeting with rectors of leading Russian universities that recruiting foreign scientists will also improve the situation for Russian scientists by attracting more foreign students. Such moves, he said, would help Russian institutions in global university rankings and lead to greater investment by businesses and others.
“Perhaps we will not make any profit in the first 20 or 30 years,” he said. “But we shouldn’t think so rigidly.”
‘A State Mission’
The president of Russian Academy of Sciences considers the decision to attract foreign minds a “temporary solution.”
Last spring, before the recent grant announcements, 40 scientists signed a letter addressed to Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, calling attention to their low pay and poor working conditions. “The importance of science and education is not understood by the majority of the population, and even by a significant portion of government employees,” the letter said. There has been no formal response from the government.
At least one prominent scientist from Russia has refused to help reach the Kremlin’s new goals. Andre Geim, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics this year and works at the University of Manchester, in England, scoffed at the Russian government’s effort to bring back scientists.
“Do they believe that if they have a bag of gold, they can buy everybody to work for them?” he asked the Russia News Service in an interview.
Last year the entire Siberian branch of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, which includes nine scientific centers, 70 scientific and educational organizations, and 30,000 members, received 12 billion rubles, or about $400-million, in government support. It was hardly enough to cover the salaries for scientists, said Alexander Aseyev, chairman of the academy’s programs in Siberia. “The budget we have for all Siberian scientific centers is smaller than a budget of an average American university,” he said.
While many Russian scientists doubt that the new policy is going to solve the problems they have, the Kremlin’s administrator, Mr. Surkov, urged Russian rectors to collaborate with foreign scientists. “Please treat this objective as a state mission,” he said. “Fulfill the task set by the country’s top leadership.”
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