aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Control over Russian Academy of Sciences (Peter Finn)

[M T Znayenko <znayenko@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:01:08 -0400
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To: znayenko@andromeda.rutgers.edu
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  >
  > Russia Seeks More Control At Academy Of Sciences
  >
  > By Peter Finn
  > Washington Post Foreign Service
  > Tuesday, March 13, 2007; A01
  >
  > MOSCOW -- The historic autonomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
which has pioneered fundamental research in Russia since its founding by
Peter the Great three centuries ago, is under threat from government
proposals to bring the institution under much tighter state control and end
its academic freedom, according to academy members.
  >
  > "This is really a war," Alexander Nekipelov, vice president of the
academy, said in an interview at the institution's august administrative
headquarters, a czarist palace on Moscow's Leninsky Prospekt. "I am sure we
are going to win it, but of course we cannot help being worried by the
situation."
  >
  > Members of the academy, which in 1980 defied Soviet demands that it
expel dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, view the plan as part of a
broader trend of increased official control over key parts of Russian
society. They contend that the effort is also driven, in part, by
bureaucrats who are greedily eyeing the organization's rich portfolio of
property, which includes prime real estate in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
  >
   > "In this scheme, academic work becomes subservient to government," said
Sergey Rogov, director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies, a
wing of the academy. "The entire infrastructure of research will be
destroyed." Under the government's plan, his organization and other foreign
policy think tanks might come under the control of the Russian Foreign
Ministry.
  >
   > Government officials describe their efforts to give the academy a new
basic charter as necessary to inject some efficiency into an academic cocoon
run by an aging club of researchers too removed from the modern economy.
"The new charter should create a competitive environment, and it should
cover new mechanisms of state and public control over the academy," Dmitry
Livanov, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Education and Science, said in
a telephone interview.
  >
   > Some independent analysts agree that the academy has let itself slide
into lethargy in recent years. Older members, they say, tend to cling to
posts as sinecures; many younger ones have gone abroad in search of better
pay and opportunities. The organization has often been slow to commercialize
its scientific discoveries.
  >
   > "The academy needs reform," said Alexander Shatilov, deputy director of
the Center for Current Politics in Russia. "The question is whether it needs
the kind of reform the government wants."
  >
   > The issue will come to a head this month at the academy's annual general
assembly, when its 1,250 full and corresponding members vote on a new
charter. The document they have drawn up incorporates few of the elements
demanded by the government.
  >
  > The government has not said how it will respond if, as seems likely,
academy members reject its demands. Members, however, appear to be relying
on the belief that in an election year, political leaders will not want an
open conflict with prominent members of the country's intellectual
community, who still command a great deal of respect here.
  >
   > The academy's senior members oversee a $1.2 billion budget, 400 research
institutes and 200,000 researchers and staff members across Russia. The
institution is self-governing. The funding of research, as well as personnel
matters -- from who becomes a researcher to who enjoys the prestigious title
of full membership, "academician" -- is determined by secret ballot.
  >
  > The dispute grows from legislation that parliament passed last year
setting new standards for state academies and requiring them to enact new
charters reflecting the changes. The law also applies to academies of
medicine, agricultural science, education, arts and architecture, and
construction.
  >
   > Among other changes, the president of the science academy, now elected
by its members, would have to be approved by Russia's president.
  >
  > That caused some uneasiness, but Nekipelov, the academy's vice
president, said the organization was happy to accept the provision after
assurances from the Kremlin that it could never imagine a situation in which
the academy's choice would be rejected. The academy would also accept an
oversight committee if it has no executive functions, he said.
  >
  > In January, however, the Ministry of Education and Sciences posted a
"model charter" on its Web site and demanded that the academies accept it.
According to Nekipelov and other academics, that document goes far beyond
what was intended by the legislation and would effectively end the
independence that allowed the academy to refuse to expel Sakharov.
  >
  > During Soviet days, the academy also repeatedly denied membership to
leading Communist Party members on grounds that they lacked scientific
credentials. It has done the same concerning politicians in post-Soviet
days. Last year, the academy refused to accept prominent members of
parliament, as well as some businessmen who had petitioned to join. One of
the politicians was widely believed to want membership so he could make a
bid for the academy's presidency.
  >
  > Under the government's model charter, many decisions would be handed
over to supervisory committees, on which government appointees would hold a
2 to 1 majority. The boards each would have three academics, three
representatives from the cabinet, one representative from each house of
parliament and one from the presidential administration.
  >
   > "There is no chance the Russian Academy of Sciences will ever adopt such
a document," Nekipelov said. "Even if the leadership of the academy agreed
to it, we could do nothing, because such a document could never pass the
general assembly. We call it a mere provocation."
  >
  > The government's model charter would abolish the direct and secret
election of academy officers other than the president, including the heads
of all institutes. They would instead be nominated by the academy's
president and approved by its supervisory board.
  >
  > Just as worrying, academicians said, the new board would allocate
funding for research, which could lead to the suppression of specific
projects, particularly in the social sciences, if government officials
disapprove. The model charter would also allow some institutes to be placed
under the control of individual ministries.
  >
   > Nekipelov added that funding of basic research in areas such as physics,
where breakthroughs are often uncertain and long in coming, would be subject
to the whims of appointees who might not understand why some research can
last decades.
  >
  > "They say the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences will
determine the main themes of scientific research, but money will be
allocated by the supervisory committee. This is nonsense," Nekipelov said.
"Determining spheres of research means allocating money to them. Without
allocating money, it is just a list and nothing more."
  >
   > Nekipelov says the government has provided some help to the academy in
recent years -- increasing salaries for researchers, for instance, which
allowed the organization to recruit younger members.
  >
  > In the meantime, he said, the academy has been exploring how it can
boost the commercial exploitation of its work and integrate more with the
broader economy.
  >
  > Livanov, the deputy minister, said the academy could quickly squeeze
much more money out of its operations, particularly by exploiting its real
estate. "Not long ago, we analyzed the assets of the academy, and our
results showed us that these assets, if used efficiently, could generate 35
to 40 percent more revenue," Livanov said. "We're not changing ownership. It
is state property and will remain state property."
  >
   > "Now I hear the bell ring," said Rogov, of the U.S.-Canada institute. "T
hat academy building would make a nice trading center, and that one a nice
bank, and that one a nice mall."
  >






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