Megagrants: Part three
Independent megagrants without discrimination
The third megagrant competition begins: one grant – 90 million rubles.,
Scientists should find 22.5 million rubles on their ownNikolay Podorvanyuk, "Newspaper.
"Grants of the Government of the Russian Federation are allocated in the amount of up to 90 million rubles, each for conducting scientific research for 3 years (2013-2015) with a possible extension for 2 years," the message published on the website of the Ministry of Education and Science says. – A prerequisite is the attraction by universities and scientific organizations of extra-budgetary funds in the amount of at least 25% of the grant amount."
The first two competitions were held under the unofficial slogan "grants to leading scientists for research in Russian universities".
This meant that a scientist working at any institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences could not apply for a mega-grant from his place of work, but had to agree with some university and represent it at the competition. Now this "discrimination" has been eliminated. The message about the competition says that its participants can be not only higher educational institutions, but also "scientific institutions of state academies of sciences and state scientific centers of the Russian Federation together with Russian and foreign leading scientists occupying leading positions in certain fields of sciences (natural and exact sciences; engineering and technology; medical sciences and sciences about health; agricultural sciences; social sciences; humanities)".
According to the terms of the competition, personal management of the laboratory is required (i.e. the full-time presence of a leading scientist at a Russian university) and scientific research conducted for at least 4 months in each calendar year. The scientific team formed by the leading scientist should include: at least 2 candidates of sciences, at least 3 graduate students and 3 students studying at the university on the basis of which the scientific research is conducted; or at least 3 candidates of sciences and at least 4 graduate students studying at the scientific organization on the basis of which the scientific research is conducted.
It is specified that the mandatory results of scientific research are the publication of an article in the direction of scientific research and (or) filing an application for a patent for an invention, utility model or industrial design after 18 months, as well as the publication of an article in the direction of scientific research, and (or) filing an application for a patent, and (or) obtaining a patent after 30 months after the start of the scientific research.
It is separately stipulated that leading scientists who became winners of open competitions in 2010 and 2011 cannot take part in the competition.
Three groups of criteria will be used to evaluate applications: scientific achievements and work experience of a leading scientist; prospects for scientific research on the project; the state and dynamics of the development of the organization, the promising appearance of the laboratory created within the project. Based on the results of the examination of applications submitted to the competition, the Grants Council determines the winners of the competition. The planned date for summing up the results of the competition is April 25, 2013.
As for the two previous megagrant competitions, the winners of which were 80 people, a competition is currently being held to analyze the effectiveness of the created laboratories in order to extend these projects. The results of this analysis will be announced in December. This was announced a few days ago by the director of the Department of Development of priority areas of Science and Technology Sergey Salikhov. "The expert community is still formulating its opinion, making visits to laboratories. These are technical issues. The results will be summed up in December," Salikhov said.
Meanwhile, this analysis has caused a mixed opinion in the scientific community. So, one of the winners of the mega-grants, a biologist working at Moscow State University, Alexey Kondrashov, about whose works the Department of Science "Newspapers.Ru" told the day before, in August he addressed an open letter to the Ministry of Education and Science, where he critically considered possible options for this analysis.
"On the one hand, all sorts of grant councils and international panels of experts will be created, which, after studying our reports, will decide how good each of us is," Kondrashov wrote. – On the other hand, according to the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 531 of May 30, 2012, the condition for the extension of the mega–grant is the extraction of extra-budgetary money for the second year of the new term - the state will give no more for the first year than it will be possible to extract for the second."
Then Kondrashov presented four arguments for which this condition was put forward by the Ministry of Finance (by the way, this is not the first example when the Ministry of Finance complicates the life of scientists – the Newspaper's note.Ru"), is a mistake (the main argument is that the topics of most megagrants are not applied), and named five possible scenarios for the development of events:
- Almost no one will get extra-budgetary funding, and the megagrant program will actually be curtailed.
- Some laboratories will receive extra–budgetary funding, while others will receive favorable expert opinions for the most part. As a result, not the best megagrants will be extended, which will be very harmful.
- At the very top, this nonsense will be canceled – after the petitioners of Livanov, mega-grant holders and the progressive public. Unfortunately, this process will be long. Even this year, my employees received their first salary on July 16, and it's scary to think what will happen in 2013.
- The problem will be solved indirectly – as the problem of co-financing of the initial mega-grants by universities was solved (no one seems to have received any living money). It would be better than the first scenario, but why fool around?
- Almost all mega-grants will receive extra-budgetary funding (from universities, oligarchs or Martians), and experts will select the most worthy ones from them. Then budget money will be painlessly saved, and I will look like a fool. I would be glad of such a development..."
But still, scientists agree that the megagrant program was a success.
"With the help of these grants, major scientists were attracted to Russian science, who successfully launched projects in many fields of science in which Russia either lagged behind or did not have any serious positions at all, since these fields of science mainly arose in the 90s and subsequent years, when Russian scientists were in a very difficult situation, – stated "to the newspaper.Ru" Alexander Kabanov, who has created a world-class nanomedicine laboratory for his megagrant at Moscow State University. – In addition, some fairly young and active Russian scientists, such as Academician Sergey Lukyanov, who, working in Russia, despite the difficulties, did work at the world level, received support with the help of the megagrant. Not all megagrant projects are equally successful, there are probably failures and there are grants that may not be worth continuing. But in general, the program was successful."
However, Kabanov also spoke critically about the principles of extending the previous mega-grants: "The extension will be given only to those collectives to whom the university will give exactly as much money as the state. If you work in a business, this is reasonable. But that's not how it works in university science, even in the USA."
Another common achievement of all megagrant laureates is their contribution to the solution of bureaucratic problems arising from scientists related to the law "On Public Procurement". In the spring of 2011, they handed over to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev an open letter from an initiative group of young scientists, which spoke about these problems. In November 2011, Medvedev signed an amendment that removed the spending of all grants and state contracts from the law.
However, as the newspaper has already reported more than once.Ru", now the scientific community is faced with new problems: despite the fact that the last month of the year has already begun, many grant holders have not yet received the funds due for 2012.
So, according to the "Newspaper.Ru", the financing under the grants of the president (the holders of which addressed an open letter to V. V. Putin) only on the eve, December 3, reached the central accounting departments of the Moscow State University and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The funds will reach their "owners" only by the end of next week, that is, around December 13-14. It is necessary to report for their use and, most importantly, for the research carried out on them by December 31.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru05.12.2012