Russian Scientific Potential To Be Fully Tapped Yet

As he arrived in Stockholm to receive a Nobel Prize, Academician Alexei Abrikosov, who has long been living in the United States, said: This is probably the last prestigious prize to be awarded to Russian scientists because domestic science today gets hardly any funding at all while the best brains have already fled abroad. The other Russian Nobel Prize winner, Academician Vitaly Ginzburg, is of a different opinion: The country still has enough intellectual potential for scientific breakthroughs. How long will it be before this potential runs out? And, is it only the financial crunch that is ruining Russian science? Boris Saltykov, president of the Russian House of International Science-and-Technology Cooperation association and, in 1991-96, RF science and technology policy minister, talks about these and other problems in an interview with MN’s Tatyana Skorobogatko. So, what is the outlook for Russians winning more Nobel Prizes in the foreseeable future?

I don’t know about prizes, but I believe that Russia’s scientific potential is far from being exhausted. There are some scientific schools that are still up to the finest international research standards. Say, excellent results are being achieved in the field of thermonuclear energy and elementary particles physics. True, the number of such schools is shrinking: Their founders pass away while their talented students go to work in the West. Students of science theory know very well that the golden age of Soviet science was in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the country was awash with petrodollars. That was the time when new laboratories, research centers, and entire branches of science were emerging with young people coming to work there. A 25- year-old lab chief or a 30-year-old deputy director or even director was a perfectly normal thing then. Almost all ideas that are winning prizes today originated in those years.

The command economy is no more and the money is even scarcer, but the old principle of financing is still in place? Not only the principle of financing. The entire paternalistic command-andadminister structure of science is still alive. Say, the Academy still acts as a kind of fundamental science ministry. It manages vast state property and distributes enormous state resources between institutions under its jurisdiction. But what the science infrastructure needs is not so much support as development. In other words, the lion’s share of resources should be given to the best.

It is an open secret that the majority of the once densely populated research institute building today are half filled at best, while researchers go to work abroad. Russian scientists are in 40th position or thereabouts in the frequency of quotation in the world’s leading science journals. Should we still take pride in our fundamental science?

Clearly, Russian fundamental science is hard put to develop within the bounds of the old structure, which does not fit into a new economic system. So why is the Academy not reforming itself? The idea was aired in early 1990s. But academicians managed to persuade the political leadership at the time that reforming the Academy would be tantamount to destroying science, putting forward an interesting thesis: In Russia, two things are not subject to reform, the Church and the Academy of Sciences.

Domestic fundamental science has indeed developed mainly within the academic structure. Mainly, yes (although the most successful research programs in nuclear physics, for example, have been conducted at institutes affiliated with the Ministry of Atomic Energy). But times have changed. Today, sad as this may be, our science has been “conquered” by the West without a single shot being fired: Tens of thousands of Russian scientists are successfully working abroad. One of them quipped: “They talked about the need for global expansion of Russian science, didn’t they? So it has now come about”. Should the brain drain be lamented in the first place? If fundamental science is beyond the state’s means, perhaps it could develop elsewhere. It should be lamented, although fundamental science, unlike applied science, indeed has no commercial value. The results are published openly, immediately becoming the property of the whole mankind, even when a theoretical discovery could in the future produce tangible practical benefits. Take, for example, the human genome deciphering project: It has given a powerful impetus to a fairly “commercial” sector – medicine.

Has Russia really lost an opportunity to tap its results because it did not invest in this international project? It has not, in theory. Yet I recently talked to a biologist, a Moscow State University professor, who complained that Russia had not taken part in the project, and many specialists had gone abroad. So now we do not have a single genome textbook in Russian – how are we supposed to teach students? As a result, our undergraduate training establishments, including medical institutes, may fail to ensure effective training of specialists capable of developing genetic technology on a mass scale. Incidentally, it is not only in scientific research organization but also in formulating scientific research priorities that Russia is going its own unique way. It does not consult the taxpayer about the choice of priorities. Herein lies in fact a distinguishing feature of the paternalistic command system: The state knows better what the country and its citizens need. Elsewhere in the world, priority in the past few decades has been given to life science, designed to preserve human health and extend the human life span. For some reason, Russia continues to invest the bulk of resources in physics and earth sciences. When the Soviet Union was surrounded by enemies, the public agreed that building an atomic bomb was of paramount importance. What kind of science is society ready to pay for today? Say, U.S.

Congress allocated the National Health Institute (a network of scientific organizations conducting research projects in biology, medicine, etc.) even more money than it had asked for. True, it should be understood that gaining knowledge is far from the only function of fundamental science. Other functions – innovative, expert, social, and cultural – are just as important for society. The education function is one of the most important of these. It is being successfully performed in the United State where fundamental science is concentrated mainly at universities. There is a basic difference between American universities and ours: In America, they are not so much training establishments as powerful scientific and educational centers. Economically, they are an optimal structure – what with the dual use of the equipment and research personnel (both for research projects and for training new scientists by using the latest scientific achievements). I think that reform of our fundamental science should move in this direction. Of course plenty of problems arise here. Say, research universities should not answer to the Ministry of Education (in the West, their activity is directed by boards of guardians). Such centers should be headed up not simply by scientists but scientists/managers: There are very few such people among our scientific leading lights. There are many other problems. Yet if there is a policy decision to conduct this “velvet revolution”, organizational problems could eventually be resolved. So we should stop saying that fundamental science is a matter of national prestige?

It is indeed a matter of national prestige – a kind of a state emblem. Surely we cannot reduce everything to practical gain. Say, what benefit does the country derive from its great composers? None at first glance. But this is a matter of national pride. We should likewise we proud of our great scientists. It is important that they continue to appear here in Russia.

Moscow News #1, 2004

 

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