Key indicators of Russian science in 2005-2007

Russian R&D: Three-year dynamicsIvan Sterligov, OPEC.ru
The Higher School of Economics, together with Rosstat and the Ministry of Education and Science, has prepared the collection "Indicators of Science: 2009".

The collection gives a very detailed picture of the state of Russian research and Development in recent years. Since the amount of information offered is huge, the OPEC editorial board has identified the key parameters characterizing the state of Russian R&D and brought them into a single table.

The most significant trend reflected in the figures published below is a strong increase in science funding, amounting to 371 billion rubles in 2007. At the same time, the share of GDP going to R&D remained virtually unchanged, i.e. spending on science grew in parallel with the growth of GDP and the state budget. The growth of funding in absolute figures was primarily due to budget allocations, the share of state funds in total R&D expenditures increased to 62.6% by 2007.

A steady increase in funding has not yet been accompanied by an increase in productivity, measured in the number of patents and publications in scientific journals. These indicators remain unchanged from year to year. But revenues from the export of technologies and technological services are steadily growing. However, in 2007 they accounted for only 14% of the similar income of Norway and 1.8% of the income of Germany (see the continuation after the table).

Key indicators of Russian science in 2005-2007
(Indicators of Science: 2009. Statistical Collection. – M.: Higher School of Economics, 2009)

The figures for the number of state organizations in the R&D industry do not yet allow us to talk about structural optimization. The total number of such organizations in 2007 increased by 169 compared to 2006. In general, the total number of research institutes and design bureaus (including non-state ones) has slightly decreased.In the personnel field, statistics for the first time in many years record a slight increase in the number of researchers.

At the same time, the total number of people employed in science in 2005-2007 continued to gradually decrease. The number of researchers of the Russian Academy of Sciences was also decreasing - the reason for this was a pilot project to increase salaries in 2006-2008, one of the conditions of which was staff reduction. The average salary in the sector remained low, only slightly exceeding the national average. The number of graduate students grew from year to year, but not the number of dissertation defenses.

At the same time, the number of graduate students in the Research Institute has been steadily decreasing. Considering that institutes account for the lion's share of publications of domestic authors in international journals, this indicates the planned separation of postgraduate studies from science.Another trend in the world of postgraduate education is the dominance of representatives of socio–humanitarian specialties in it, most of whom study at graduate schools of universities.

In 2005-2007, the number of dissertation defenses stabilized, and the rapid growth of defenses in economics, history, political science, sociology, etc. slowed down or stopped. Apparently, this is due to the actions of the Higher Attestation Commission to control dissertation councils. Nevertheless, the production of new scientists, even if they are often such only according to documents, significantly exceeds the needs of academic science and does not correlate in any way with the structure of government spending on its various branches. Most of these expenses fall on the RAS, in which representatives of socio-humanitarian specialties are traditionally in the minority.In general, statistics demonstrate the presence of serious structural imbalances in Russian R&D, which do not allow large-scale cash injections into the industry to be quite effective.

Therefore, the statistics for 2008 and 2009 will be fundamentally important, which will more clearly show the degree of impact of increased funding on the R&D sector.Indirect indicators, for which statistics are already available, indicate some positive effect.

So, in 2008 there was a surge in the number of scientific publications from Russia in the Web of Science database. It exceeded 30,000 – an increase of 10% compared to 2007.Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru

15.07.2009