“Politicians who are not trained in science
should not meddle in our day-to-day business,
or tell scientists what’s right or wrong.”
Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, Nature, October 25, 2021.
As for the Ukrainian realities, it sounds very relevant.
I think it’s hard to deny that our lives have become quite politicized in recent years.
I do not mean the development of political science, but the fact that now any scientific field depends significantly on politics: it has become the norm, and if political structures work, to put it mildly, not flawlessly, science and education suffer from it.
Let’s take a look at how the most relevant, so-called-priority-areas of scientific research development that should be supported by the State, are determined in our country, and compare it with how it is done in advanced economies. The opinion of the scientific community and the most famous scientists, specialists in one or another science, regardless of their positions or titles, is decisive there. It doesn’t work that way in our country: scientists, of course, can express their opinions and give advice, but ultimately everything is decided in the offices of the rulers, who usually have no (at least direct) relation to science and do not work in it. We can assume that this is a small shortcoming of our, still young country, but it seems to me that it is a logical consequence of the administrative state vertical, which has passed to us from the Soviet epoch. At the same time, everything is explained by concern for science, although few of us manage to avoid the traps thinly placed by politicians in science. Indeed, “scholarship creates difficulties.”
Thus, there is a specialized scientific self-government structure in the country, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, whose conclusions, as a consolidated opinion of the best national professionals, the State leaders should listen to. But it turns out that the independent behavior of the Academy, in fact, irritates the government, which believes that funding research, it has the right to determine the main, so to speak, useful priorities or express dissatisfaction with science, although the money transferred to scientists for research does not belong to the government, but to the society through the payment of taxes. The government easily “manages” both science and scientists through the distribution of money among the priority areas of research determined by it. We can say more: all advanced countries invest in fundamental science, understanding its role and prospects, and trusting scientists and their ability to understand which areas shall be supported and to what extent, because they are convinced that professionals can draw the right conclusions.
Maybe an ordinary person will remember a famous saying and say: “What’s the difference, who determines the priority areas?”. In my opinion, the difference is very big, because officials have their own ideas of science and its task; so, for reasons known only to them, they are willing to give money for some things, and do not like to support other things. The bureaucracy usually dislike fundamental science, which is not for profit at all, although everyone knows that the USSR’s nuclear shield was based upon nuclear physics and would be impossible without it. The bureaucracy also seem to dislike physics in particular, as the External Independent Testing in this main natural science is not mandatory.
And they do not understand that without fundamental research a large detachment of academic scientists and even institutions will fall out of its priority support and will be held hostage to such a “scientific” policy of the State in the scientific sphere where our science reaches the world level of knowledge and actively participates in the most advanced research.
Intentions to reduce or not fund basic research areas are now easily traced in the MES’s attempts to amend the Law “On Science and Scientific and Technical Activities”, which are actually aimed at establishing bureaucratical control over the activity of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine. whose size of grants is comparable to foreign ones, and which became perhaps the most important factor in supporting the national science, without any exaggeration. The creation of the Foundation was highly appreciated by the scientific community, but the Ministry of Education and Science obviously did not like the freedom given to it in determining the winners (hence, in financial management). Therefore, the Ministry proposed a quota principle for the Foundation’s Supervisory Board, which should include not independent and specially elected experts with high scientific ratings (as required by law), but easily managed representatives of various executive bodies (including ministers and their deputies), rectors, presidents or vice-presidents of state academies, etc. In my opinion, it distorts the very idea of holding competitions free from administrative pressure, when scientific ideas compete, but not institutions. Moreover, the officials must determine the composition of this Board according to criteria known only to them! I will not talk about other rather inappropriate amendments to the effective Law, because if the above-mentioned change is approved, all the others will be of no significance.
World experience has not come up with anything better than allocating funds for research on grants on the basis of reviews by independent national and international experts that change from time to time. It is no less important that a real scientific unit be a department or laboratory headed by a practicing leader, rather than an entire institute with different, not always scientifically effective units. It is no secret that the role of the head of the scientific department of the institute is greatly underestimated, and it cannot be compared with the influence or capabilities of the director or even senior officials who do not conduct research at all. Have we not forgotten what the only correct doctrines and politically justified hypotheses imposed “from above” result in?!
I would like to appeal to people’s deputies not to approve “ideas” that will not benefit Ukrainian science. Although I have some doubts whether they will hear. At the same time, I do not want to be a pessimist. I am convinced that the community of scientists can decide on the subject and distribution of grant funds absolutely independently and fairly, based solely on the scientific value of the project and taking into account the interests of the State.
After all, I repeat, this global methodology works in all countries where science and scientists are an honored field of activity and an honored segment of the society.
By the way, the requirement that science should earn its keep, which can often be heard from officials, it can fulfill only when it is understood by the majority of society, which is unable to do so. Therefore, the only way is to allow science to develop according to the laws that determine its development in the advanced countries of the world.
And as long as the country does not need real science, and as long as the era of respect for scientists does not come, science will become an imitation. I hope this is not what the leaders of the industry and the country wish while trying to take science on a financial leash and pull it in line with their political priorities.
Vadym LOKTIEV, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Svit newspaper, № 41 – 42, November 2021