2023-04-21 08:43:15
We managed to get answers last Wednesday, during a press conference dedicated to the solemn signing of a cooperation agreement between the institute and the Roscongress Foundation. Mikhail Kovalchuk, as well as adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Anton Kobyakov, was at the event as an honored guest.
All those present noted the great importance of the agreement signed by the directors of the fund and the institute – Alexander Stuglev and Marat Kambolov. According to Mikhail Kovalchuk, the role of joint projects between Roscongress and the Kurchatov Institute should increase in connection with Russia’s developing ties with the countries of Latin America, “where American influence has long been shaken,” as well as Africa and Indochina. “Those countries that depended on America and were afraid to utter a word understand that a new center of power has appeared,” Kovalchuk said.
The President of the Scientific Research Center boasted of the first development of domestic yeast, so necessary for winemakers, which was grown on the basis of the fungus of the Saperavi grape variety, as well as research in the field of biodegradable materials.
In the final part of the press conference, Mikhail Kovalchuk answered the questions of the MK observer related to the February decision of the government to transfer to the Kurchatov Institute a number of natural science institutes, such as the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds, the Institute of Silicate Chemistry, the Crystallography and Photonics Research Center, Research Institute for System Research, Institute for Design Problems in Microelectronics, Institute of Superhigh-Frequency Semiconductor Electronics. V. G. Mokerova, Institute of Physics and Technology K. A. Valieva. Recall that their transfer took place quite unexpectedly – so much so that the directors of some scientific organizations learned about the transition “under Kovalchuk” as a fait accompli only from the press … Especially no one explained anything to the general public.
– Tell us more about the purpose of the Kurchatov Institute gathering under its roof institutes that belonged to the Ministry of Education and ScienceI asked the speaker.
– Since it bothers you so much, I will answer, starting with the events of the time when the Soviet Union collapsed.
A deep digression into history was unexpected, but it was interesting to listen to an extended version of the reform of domestic science from Mikhail Kovalchuk: after all, this is the same person who is close to the president and who is one of the initiators of the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which began in 2013. Recall that as a result of the reform, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences were attached to the big RAS. All of them lost their academic institutions, which came under the control of FANO (Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations), and after its liquidation in 2018, under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
Salvation was required for institutions, but universities supported
But first, let’s go back to the 90s. The head of the Research Center recalled that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, our country suddenly lost most of its science with national academies that fell away from it: “The best spectroscopy was in Estonia, chemistry in Latvia, excellent lasers and semiconductors in Lithuania. It was a partial, point science, but it was a continuation of the Leningrad and Moscow scientific schools,” said Kovalchuk. There is nothing to say about Belarusian and Ukrainian science: there, according to him, there were many strong areas of their own. As, however, in Moldova, and in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia …
“We lost all this science and found ourselves in a dangerous situation,” said the president of Kurchatnik, “there were 8-10 centers left in the country, a dozen bombing attacks would be enough to completely disable the entire scientific potential. And I must say that at that time an unprecedented decision was made – to replace the science that had actually fallen out, which we had lost. The face of those decisions was Minister Fursenko (Andrey Fursenko is now an adviser to the President of the Russian Federation. – Auth.)».
Saving Russian science, according to Kovalchuk, was then decided at the expense of universities. Since academic institutions, due to the lack of orders from the military and industry, were not in demand, many of them depended only on Western grants, they relied on universities that were still working.
“Although our model of science is academic, it was decided to sharply strengthen universities,” said Mikhail Valentinovich. – First, two universities were strengthened by presidential decree: Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then 10 federal universities were created by the decision of the government.<...> In addition, on a competitive basis, the ministry selected 29 more research or innovative universities, such as Baumanka, Polytech, MEPhI, Tomsk Polytech and others. In this way, a stronghold of nearly 40 universities throughout the country was created in a short time. And then a program was adopted to finance the infrastructure of these universities, huge amounts of money were pumped in.”
Reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Then the conversation turned to the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2013. The decision to hold it, according to Kovalchuk, was made by the President of the country at the suggestion of the Prime Minister. Here it is appropriate to recall that at the June government meeting in 2013, several key ministers: Sergei Shoigu, Sergei Lavrov, Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Fedorov expressed their fear or outright disagreement with the hastily adopted reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences (a copy of the transcript of this meeting is available in the editorial office ). But, according to Kovalchuk, everything went according to plan:
“She (the reform) had several goals, of which two were achieved. The first is the unification of three natural science academies. Breakthroughs have always been at the intersection of sciences … We had academies of agricultural, medical sciences and a general one. Imagine you have genetics – combine it with medical topics, and instead of competition, you will have the most powerful potential for a breakthrough and competitiveness in the market.”
In some ways, one could probably agree with Mikhail Valentinovich, but the fact remains: 2-3 years after the reform, by a special order of the guarantor, the leading medical research institutes were nevertheless removed from the Ministry of Education and Science and transferred to the Ministry of Health. The directors of the National Research Center of Oncology named after N.N. N.N. Blokhin, Scientific Center for Cardiovascular Surgery. Bakuleva, National Medical Research Center for Neurosurgery. Burdenko and the Center for Pediatrics, if they wrote a letter asking to be translated. Literally last year, 11 agrarian research institutes also “left” to the relevant ministry. It turns out that practice itself has shown that the convergence that Kovalchuk spoke about did not benefit everyone?
Consider now the second “achieved goal” mentioned by the president of the Kurchatov Institute:
“Institutions were taken away from the management of the Academy of Sciences. The Russian Academy of Sciences, in fact, has turned into a club … But it has not just turned into a club, but into the main scientific organization of the country, which brings together two thousand egg-headed people (sorry for the jargon), and in this sense it is sublimated, as it were, intellectual elite. And then this system was instructed to deal not with the management of institutions, not with economic activity, but with ideology. In the first place – expertise and forecasting, prediction of where to go and what to do. That is, those functions that were previously inherent in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR were returned.
Yes, in the former academy, scientists also did not bother thinking about brushes and buckets, but as for the withdrawal of institutes, one could argue with Mikhail Kovalchuk. Because, reviewing the work of the academy throughout the years after the reform, I have not met a single scientist, from a junior researcher to an academician, who would be happy to separate academic institutions from the academy, turning it into an empty frame left over from a big house once filled with life. Ideology, of course, remained with the academy, but what is the use of it if money and all other levers of control are in the hands of officials, and they are often not inclined to listen to scientific people?
Time to gather…institutions
Now, Kovalchuk himself began, in his words, “to collect stones”, that is, institutions.
“No one specifically managed them globally,” Kovalchuk said, explaining to me the reason for the recent transfer of a group of institutes under the control of the Kurchatov Institute. – That is, what is happening – the Bible says: there is a time to scatter stones, and there is a time to collect. There was a time to sharpen thousands of institutions when the Soviet Union collapsed <...> Many gathered on business, but the cases disappeared. And it turned out that these institutions “sagged”, like the whole of science. But now there is a trend for specific things, a program has appeared, a strategy for the development of nature-like technologies <...>. Two programs were launched by presidential decree: on genetics and on the synchrotron. Immediately a breakthrough: the Kurchatov Institute was appointed the head scientific organization by decree of the president and government. To implement these programs, it is necessary to collect potential. This potential is easier to collect if it is specifically formed in one place.
And now we have been instructed by the Prime Minister to also participate in the development of microelectronics. And seven more institutions have joined us by direct decision of the Prime Minister.<...> We are gathering powerful potential for a new “atomic project”. Here is the answer for you: he turns around and hits so that no one will seem small.
– You do not set yourself the goal of “rebuilding” the Academy of Sciences under the Kurchatov Institute? I asked Mikhail Kovalchuk after the press conference.
No, of course we don’t need it. We rebuilt the academy in a different way. I wrote a letter together with the new president of the Academy of Sciences (Gennady Krasnikov. – Auth.) and with the minister (Valery Falkov. – Auth.) Prime Minister. We asked to raise the role of the Academy of Sciences. <...> A government decree was issued, according to which the academy now exercises scientific and methodological leadership over the Kurchatov Institute. What happened in Soviet times. We are raising the role of the RAS. It has the role of a think tank, not the management of institutions, and we (the Kurchatov Institute) are a specific, successful operator who created nuclear weapons. That’s what it’s all about.
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