SIBERIAN BRANCH OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: BASIC TRENDS OF THE POST-SOVIET TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

The main patterns of adaptation of science to constantly changing conditions of activity are shown on the example of the scientific community of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The authors divide the entire history of post-Soviet science into several periods. The first period, the most dramatic one, from the early 1990s to the early 2000s, was due to adaptation to the market under the conditions of the “shock therapy” of science. The second period lasts from the beginning of the 2000s to 2013, its main content was stabilization associated with the formation of new mechanisms and principles for the implementation of scientific activities, including planning, financing and reporting. Finally, the third period, which began in 2013, is associated with a radical reform of the academic sector of science, which involved depriving the Academy of Sciences of the status of the country’s main “scientific headquarters” and transferring the most important powers to manage fundamental research into the hands of state bodies: first, Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, and since 2018 — the Ministry of science. There were two basic models of functioning of the academic institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “federal” and “unitary”, which did not exclude the presence of intermediate options. There was also a stratification of the previously fairly homogeneous scientific community, due to the degree of adaptation to the changed conditions of life and activity, the factors of which are involvement in the processes of commercialization of science, the ability to find additional funding (grants, economic agreements), and the demand for scientific topics in the market of scientific products.