Scientists wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about the inadmissibility of cutting funding for science

The answer came from the Ministry of Education and Science that research costs are only increasing

The Ministry of Science and Higher Education responded to a letter from the Trade Union of Workers of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in which they criticized the project to reduce the budget of Russian science for 2023-2025 by 150 billion rubles. Scientists reminded the authorities that in the context of sanctions, when the country needs to replace imported science-intensive products, retain scientific personnel, it is necessary not to reduce, but, on the contrary, to increase funding for science.

Oddly enough, the Ministry of Education and Science replied that they had not reduced, but even planned to slightly increase spending on science for the next three years. How such a discrepancy arose, what the current situation may turn out to be for the country in the future, we talked with Evgeny Onishchenko, Deputy Chairman of the Trade Union of Workers of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Let’s say right away that it is not yet clear what kind of expenses will be reduced as part of the budget cuts planned by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation for the state program “Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation” by 150 billion rubles. Currently, the government is discussing the draft budget allocations for science in 2023-2025, the draft has not yet been made public.

– When we heard about the planned cuts in the budget of the state program “Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation”, the Trade Union expressed serious concern about the situation, – says Evgeny Onishchenko. Our science is already chronically underfunded. Now, in the context of sanctions, when the role of science is growing, when everyone is talking about the need to rely on one’s own strength, technological development, import substitution, we would like to hope for a sharp increase in spending on scientific and technological development, but talks about reduction have begun. Let me remind you that our financing of science lags far behind the most developed countries, if we take the ratio of spending on science to GDP.

In Russia, domestic spending on research and development is 1.1% of GDP, while in China, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and leading European countries, they range from 2 to 4% of GDP. How is it possible to develop rapidly in such conditions, to become leaders?

Our Trade Union unites employees of academic institutions, therefore, the most important thing for us is spending on fundamental research, which is the responsibility of the state all over the world. But even here everything is not at all rosy. In 2022, 229.3 billion rubles will be allocated for fundamental science. It would seem that not so little. But let’s take an expert assessment of the real need for budget spending. For 2023, the Russian Academy of Sciences recommended allocating 383 billion rubles for basic science, which would amount to about 0.3% of GDP. Accordingly, it was also recommended to increase the allocation of budgetary funds for 2024 and 2025. If this happened, then Russia could catch up with the level of financing of fundamental science in relation to GDP, not the leading countries, no, but only Hungary or Portugal. However, the Government traditionally ignores the recommendations of the Academy of Sciences and, most likely, funding for fundamental science in 2023 will grow very slightly, only compared to the current year.

Help “MK”. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for 2020, the amount of funding for fundamental science in Hungary amounted to 0.3% of GDP, in Spain – 0.29% of GDP, in Portugal – 0.31% of GDP. For comparison, in the USA it is 0.48% of GDP, in France – 0.5% of GDP, in South Korea – 0.7% of GDP. In Russia, it still does not reach even 0.2% of GDP.

Having learned about the plans of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation to reduce costs, the Trade Union at the end of July sent a letter to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin criticizing the plans of the Ministry of Finance to reduce funding for science.

“We drew attention to the tense geopolitical situation, sanctions, in such a situation, in no case should we reduce investments in scientific research, we need to increase them,” explains Onishchenko. – In addition, we recalled that the years 2022-2031 were announced by President Vladimir Putin as the Decade of Science and Technology. What happens during the Decade of Science without allocating the necessary funds to science?

In the letter, scientists also drew attention to the problem with indexing the wages of employees in the public sector of research and development. – In 2021, the salaries of employees of our institutes were not indexed, although earlier this was done annually. At the same time, the inflation rate last year amounted to 8.4%. A government decree on indexing the salaries of employees of scientific organizations in 2022 has not been adopted either. And this year, according to estimates, inflation could reach 15%. Indexing should not be postponed if we want to retain scientific personnel and attract young people. We need additional funds for grants, for equipment, for many other things, not words.