Russian Education and Science Minister Andrey Fursenko (left) and President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yury Osipov
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Science in the Service of the GDP
// Reformers
On Wednesday, Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko and President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yury Osipov expected to tell a meeting of the administration how to raise the effectiveness of the state science sector. They were waiting in vain. They did receive the suggestion that scientists' salaries be doubled, however.
Science is supposed to double the GDP by 2010! Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov exclaimed as he opened the session. Fursenko did not dispute the task, but concentrated on the hindrances to science. We are falling behind in modernization, he explained. Soon we will not be able to stop the degradation of the sciences and the mass exodus from of by all the most promising and capable personnel. People are tired of waiting and receiving an average of no more than 10,000 rubles a month.
The Education Ministry and Academy of Sciences modernization plan could have two consequences. First, 2760 presently existing state scientific agencies (850 of which are within the purview of the Academy of Science in five branches of the academic sciences) would be cut. Stock will be issued for some of them and the state holdings will be sold. Their functions would be preserved as far as possible. Second, some state agencies will be reformed as state autonomous noncommercial organizations, which do not exists as of yet, with the goal of keeping them as state property but defunding them. Third, and most important, the scientists remaining in 2008 will receive an average of 30,000 rubles per month. There is 108 billion rubles set aside for that in the 2008 budget (as compared to 56 billion this year).
Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov and Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref did not like the plan. How will the Academy of Sciences institute scientific organizations of different legal forms? Zurabov wanted to know. Fursenko did not answer directly, but commented on the negative effect of one government body interfering with another. Gref took his cue from Zurabov, asking Academies in other countries are either clubs for the leading scientists or companies that manage scientific agencies. What is it in Russia?
Osipov could contain himself no longer at this point. Mounting the podium rapidly, he began to berate Gref in an unsteady voice. To reform a 300-year-old academy along Western lines. It's an insult! In the USA, everything is done in the Soviet manner. For 15 years, science has been tortured by people who think that they know and understand everything! he said. Gref fiddled with his glasses. The academic apologized to the prime minister for his sharp speech and continued, still addressing Gref. Every day, 10-15 false publications appear about the property of the Academy of Sciences. Who is responsible them? he asked.
Zurabov decided to join in. An analogy with medicine comes to mind, he said, and suggested that doctors also be paid 30,000 rubles per month. He cited the comedian Mikhail Zhvanetsky in reference to the proposed reforms: It hard to change things without changing anything. But we'll do it! Gref regained his composure and told Fradkov, With reformers like these, we'll never double the GDP by 2010! You tell us to feel out the ministers.' There is nothing to feel here. You can't even ask questions.
Will they let us have the last word? Fursenko asked with a laugh. Sure, even two, Fradkov answered, with equal levity, but left the last words for himself: Science doesn't need 100-percent decisions. We will now approve the basic concept for reform, and you will continue to work on it. He declared a break and went to see the president.
Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov took the chairman's seat. He introduced Minister of Industry Viktor Khristenko and Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin. They have accounts of meeting the president's requirements. It was a standard procedure that the prime minister had performed last month.
Khristenko admitted that the concept for bills to limit foreign capital in strategic spheres of the Russian economy was not ready, but is already under discussion. Their main theses were, as he put it, the limitation of limitations and complete clarity of formulation. In other words, a closed list of objects that foreigners are forbidden to invest in should be included in the law itself and procedures described exactly. It was decided to give Khristenko until September 20 and include Minister of Natural Resources Yury Trutnev in the matter, since he had independently limited foreign investments.
Kudrin stated that work on the bill to amnesty capital was nearing completion and would be forwarded to the administration on July 20. Zhukov warned him that Public discussion of the bill has already begun in the Duma. Concern has been voiced that audits of the returning capital by the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring will scare off candidates for amnesty. There won't be any financial investigation, Kudrin replied. But only tax violations will be amnestied. However, in spite of Kudrin's assurances, financial investigators will be involved in the amnesty process. Formally, he is right. The Federal Service for Financial Monitoring plays no part in his proposed legislation. But its functions are described there in detail. So that agency will have a legal basis to observe any movement of capital that it finds suspicious.
Konstantin Smirnov
All the Article in Russian as of July 01, 2005
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