Grants will be ordered to live a long time
The system of competitive financing of scientific research is threatened with destructionEvgeny Onishchenko, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Researcher at the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences
Independent Newspaper
One of the achievements of the new Russia was the creation in the early 90s of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), designed to allocate funds to finance scientific research in the form of grants (subsidies). Subsequently, the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (RGNF), specializing in grants in the field of humanities, spun off from the RFBR. Unlike the Soviet system of departmental funding, grants are allocated directly to the heads of research groups.
The grant system originated in the scientific world in the second half of the twentieth century, it is a very important element of supporting the most effective scientific groups and relevant scientific areas. It is worth paying attention to the result of two decades of operation of this system in Russia: The RFBR budget accounts for only 6% of government spending on civilian research and development, while more than 50% of articles by Russian scientists in leading Russian and foreign scientific journals were prepared during the implementation of projects supported by the RFBR.
RFBR and RGNF have well-developed competitive procedures, the most representative body of experts in the country, including qualified scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading universities and state scientific centers of Russia, and support the best scientific groups regardless of their departmental affiliation. The scale of the funds' activities can be judged by the following indicators: last year, the RFBR supported the research work of scientific groups within the framework of about 10 thousand projects that received funding during the 2006-2008 competitions.
The Code against the Charter
However, now the future of the funds is in the fog. Whether the grant system will remain in Russia, what will happen to the funds that finance scientific research – these are the questions that concern thousands of Russian scientists now.
The fact is that in 2007 a new version of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation was adopted. According to this document, the main managers of budgetary funds (including scientific funds) can allocate budgetary allocations only to subordinate organizations, and budgetary institutions cannot receive subsidies. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that the recipients of grants are the heads of scientific groups, but the funds go to the scientific institutions in which they work. The scientific institution thus serves the grantee. Naturally, part of the allocated funds goes to cover the overhead costs of the institution, all the required taxes are paid, including payroll accruals.
Unfortunately, Russian officials interpret grants as subsidies to institutions and believe that due to the current version of the law, funds will lose the ability to allocate funds to institutions of state academies of sciences and state universities, which means the termination of the grant system. While the state scientific foundations have been given a "reprieve", it is indicated that the provisions of the new edition of the Budget Code come into force on January 1, 2010 in terms of grant financing.
There is very little time left until January 1, 2010, if we look from the point of view of the legislative process, but the clarity that was supposed to be introduced into the fate of the funds back in 2007 has not come. Amendments to the legislation that would somehow decide the fate of the funds, as far as I know, have not even been submitted to the State Duma.
Moreover, it is still unclear how the officials of the Ministry of Education and Science see the future of the funds: whether they want to keep the grant system in its current, generally workable form at least for some time or plan to arrange a "reset". Namely, to transform the funds into autonomous institutions subordinate to any federal executive authority, most likely the federal agency Rosnauka.
The latter option will probably allow the continued existence of scientific funds, as it were – their names will remain the same. However, the degree of independence of the funds and, probably, the principles of their work will undergo significant changes. RFBR and RGNF will automatically lose the status of "chief administrator of budget funds", that is, "lines in the budget", and will receive funding indirectly. It is not known whether the principle of a fixed percentage of the costs of civilian scientific research will be preserved at the same time.
Officials versus scientists
No less significant is the fact that the funds in this case will be managed by the federal executive authority, subordinate to which the relevant autonomous institutions will be located. The federal executive authority will appoint the head of the fund, create a Supervisory Board with sufficiently broad powers, which should include no more than 11 people, and at least a third of the Supervisory Board should be officials. This bears little resemblance to the current management procedure, when the fund is managed by the 26–person foundation board approved by the Russian government, the vast majority of whom are scientists.
It seems that the driving motive of many planned transformations is not reverence for the law, but the desire to eliminate any independent structures, subordinate them to the departmental vertical. Moreover, the RFBR project examination system is an order of magnitude stronger than the Rosnauka examination system, and this is annoying.
A separate conversation is the psychology of officials and the practice of Rosnauka, focused primarily on applied research and development. Rosnauka distributes funding in accordance with Federal Law No. 94-FZ of 21.07.2005 "On Placing orders for the supply of Goods, performance of Works, provision of services for State and Municipal Needs", which is unsuitable for financing scientific research. Misunderstanding of the specifics of fundamental research and adherence to the principle "an additional piece of paper with a seal is not superfluous" will have the most negative impact on the ongoing scientific research in the country.
Science against the crisis
Another problem of the funds is related to the economic crisis: according to some reports, next year the budget of the RFBR and RGNF may be almost half. Thus, the already small size of grants will become completely ridiculous.
Maybe it's not up to science in a crisis? But countries striving for technological leadership, really, and not in words thinking about the need for development, even in a crisis find opportunities to support fundamental science.
The administration of US President Barack Obama has already this year decided on the largest infusion of funds into basic research in American history, including by significantly increasing the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF), in the image of which the RFBR was created.
US President Barack Obama, speaking at the annual meeting of the American National Academy of Sciences on April 27, 2009, stressed: "The use of discoveries made half a century ago fueled our prosperity and the success of our country in the next half century. The decisions I make today to support science will fuel our success for the next 50 years. Only in this way will we ensure that the work of the current generation will become the basis of progress and prosperity in the XXI century in the eyes of our children and grandchildren. This work begins with a historic decision to support the entire spectrum of fundamental science and applied research, from the scientific laboratories of famous universities to the test sites of innovative companies."
And this is despite the fact that in the USA, unlike Russia, there is no acute problem of aging of scientific personnel. If a few more years are lost under the talk about an innovative economy and the need for technological modernization, then there will simply be no one to lay the foundation for future prosperity.
Russia does not have time to wait out the crisis, so it is not necessary to break what is an effective tool for supporting scientific research and helps attract scientific youth (the groups supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in 2008 include about 20 thousand young scientists). It is necessary to keep the funds in their current form and at least keep their financing at the level of the current year.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
24.09.2009