Academician Trubnikov: world-class megascience centres will appear in Russia

Why hasn’t the law on science been adopted yet? Under what conditions is the state ready to significantly increase funding for science? How can we attract intelligence to the country? The correspondent of RG talks about this and many other things with Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Academician Grigory Trubnikov.

The interview is published in Russian newspaper, the text was prepared by Yuri Medvedev

Grigory Trubnikov: Implementing megaprojects, we could prove that Russia is an attractive place to do science! Photo: Sergey Kuksin/ RG

— What is the situation with the long-awaited law on science, which has been repeatedly discussed in various audiences? Has it bided its time?

Grigory Trubnikov: The Academy, the Duma, and the Federation Council are asking us the same question now. So, the situation is ready. After all, only during the last few months, several important events have taken place in science. Firstly, the country’s President approved a new Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of RF, developed and enacted a plan for its implementation. A National Technology Initiative has appeared, which also needs to be reflected in the new law.

Next, the situation in the Russian Academy of Sciences. In my opinion, it was necessary to wait for the results of the election of the new president of RAS, for it should play one of the key roles in the preparation of the new law. Immediately after the elections, another decisive event occurred. The president proposed to the Head of RAS to form and head a new body, which is the Coordination Council for Strategy. Therefore, now when the configuration of the science management bodies has more or less developed, we all need to finalise the bill together. Now its editorial board is radically different from the one that was even in June in 2017.

— Can you name any specific changes that will appear in the bill?

Grigory Trubnikov: For example, the issue of integration of science and universities. Universities are now in the Law on Education. But recently, a very serious basic science has appeared there, and these changes need to be reflected in the Law on Science. It is extremely important to write into tools and a motivation system in order to interest business to implement scientific developments more actively. A number of innovations may be related to postgraduate programme. It is proposed that the studies necessarily end with the defence of the candidate’s thesis, so that the student conducts scientific research. The necessary conditions, stimuli, the preparation time, etc. are all should be written into the law.

Why did business go into science?

— Now great hopes are connected with the new Strategy for the Scientific and Technological Development of the country. It should drastically change the Russian economy, turn it from a resource-based into a knowledge-based one, and ensure independence and competitiveness. A similar document was adopted in 2006. There were also ambitious plans, for example, the share of business spending on science was about 70 percent. But almost nothing was achieved. One of the main reasons was the lack of interest of business in scientific developments. Will the sad story repeat with the current strategy?

Grigory Trubnikov: We can discuss the reasons why and what was not achieved in the previous Strategy for a long time. But I will focus specifically on relationships between business and science. Until recently, the demand for research has been low, but now the situation is changing. For example, in 2016, business invested 16 billion rubles in the projects of Minobrnauki, the same amount as the state did. Anything like this was not even close ten years ago. Back then, firms and corporations were closing their R&D centers, but now they are beginning to create them, first of all, attracting the best institutes of the RAS.

In general, five years ago the ratio of business and government investments in science in the country was 20:80, and now 32:68. The tendency, you should agree, is good. To a certain extent, this is due to the gradual transition to a new way of industrialisation, and to sanctions, so they produced their effect. Of course, we are far behind some countries of the world. For example, in South Korea and Japan the figures are 70:30, in the USA 60:40, but the main thing is that everyone is beginning to understand the need to rely on science. The Strategy sets a goal to increase the share of business in science spending to 50 percent by 2035. To interest it, various stimulation options are offered: tax preferences, budget co-financing, government orders, and lifting legislative barriers.

It is proposed to introduce generous grants for scientists over the age of 70, so that they gradually vacate leading positions for young people

— And yet, the current funding of science hardly meets the ambitious goals set: only 1,14 percent of GDP, while in the leading countries more than 2 percent, and in some of them even 3.

Grigory Trubnikov: The Strategy provides for an increase in financing up to 2 percent, but depending on how successful the case goes. In general, there is growth even now. This year, funding of citizen science through Minobrnauki has been increased by 40 billion rubles at once and will reach 170 billion. And the budget of the RFBR will grow by 2 (!) times. More than 20 billion rubles have been allocated to increase salaries of researchers. Projects of the National Technology Initiative will receive several additional billion. When did this happen the last time?

How to spend money correctly?

— Your ministry has developed a state programme of scientific and technological development of Russia up to 2025. What is the reason for appearance of this document? Does it duplicate the Strategy?

Grigory Trubnikov: No, it does not. This is one of the main instruments of the Strategy. Besides, it is about the implementation of the instructions of the president. We have a task to consolidate all expenditures on citizen science in a unified state programme. In short, the point is this. Approximately 370 billion rubles have been allocated annually for citizen science in recent years. Minobrnauki, according to the legislation, seemed to be responsible for coordinating scientific policy in the country, but can influence and coordinate programmes and projects of only one third of these expenditures. This includes RAS and FASO, RFBR and RSF grants, mega-grants programme, Minobrnauki programmes etc. The remaining two thirds are programmes of other departments and agencies, like the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Transport etc. That is, today there is no general coordination in expenditure of budget from the state. Everyone has their own criteria and rules.

In addition, with such disunity, it is not possible to get a general view of what is happening in the field of science and technology. But there are fragmented programmes and projects, and everyone is engaged in supporting their interests. The new programme we are talking about offers a new logic for building programmes in the interests of the market. Nobody says that we need to put everything in one basket, it is wrong and even impossible. The point is that all federal and sectoral programmes should function according to the same rules.

— What is the point of such unified rules?

Grigory Trubnikov: First of all, an expertise of scientific projects must be radically improved. If previously it was concentrated in Minobrnauki, now the main expert is RAS. The evaluation of the projects will be carried out in four directions — scientific significance and novelty, innovative and market potential of the project, the quality of the project itself, and finally, an assessment of the reputation of the applicant organization. If the project involves external investments of a specific industrial partner, an evaluation of the reputation of such a partner. The winners will be determined by the sum of the points scored in the four categories.

There is another equally important condition for a project to apply for funding. When holding competitions we focus on the Strategy, where seven priority directions are identified. All competitions are focused on them. And in the new state programme, all research and development in the country should be carried out according to the same scheme, follow the same universal rules.

Only a super task can attract intelligence

— At the meeting between the Minister of Education and Science and the winners of school Olympiads, when asked who of them wanted to become a scientist, only one raised their hand. Then, who will meet the great challenges science of our country faces? This remains one of the most burning issues today. Young scientists complain about a lack of prospects for career growth, so the brain drain continues…

Grigory Trubnikov: Actually, not everyone must become a scientist. If a talented graduate goes into business, especially related to science-driven technologies, this is quite normal and even good. The main thing is that young people who have received a decent education do not go into trade and manual labour. Science requires a special mindset, as being a scientist is a special vocation.

It should be noted that things are not so pessimistic with young people in science. Now the proportion of young scientists under the age of 39 is around 40 percent. This growth has occurred mainly at the expense of those who have recently come to university science. Regarding career development: for example, there is an idea to introduce special grants for a period of at least five years for scientists over the age of 70, so that they gradually vacate leadership positions for the young. This should be big amounts of money, comparable to the salary of the Head, Director of the institute. So that a well-known scientist who has done a lot for science, would not be afraid to leave his office with retirement benefit at 15 thousand rubles.

Moreover, this is not just a scholarship, but funds for research together with their students according to the priorities of the Strategy.

And of course, we need to create conditions for the influx of great minds into our country. The main product for which the world is aggressively fighting today is the intellect. Talented people are willing to come, but only if they have a super task. Like a magnet, it attracts the best minds from all over the world, I am sure of that. Of course, social conditions are important, too, but for true scientists, for researchers they are still secondary to the task. In particular, megascience projects that attract brains from all around the globe, including Russia, can become such magnets. Look how many our scientists work at CERN, at leading research centres of the world. Thousands!

— And how can we lure them?

Grigory Trubnikov: In the nearest future there must appear two megascience centres which will start operating in 3-4 years. These are NICA and PIK facilities for conducting unique research experiments in the field of elementary particle physics. I think that there must appear about 10 more megascience centres.

— This is a costly affair. Only rich countries can afford it.

Grigory Trubnikov: Expensive, but no more expensive than dozens of kilometres of a motorway or a stadium. We can afford these projects. We are talking about 15-20 billion rubles a year for simultaneous construction of several such megafacilities in Russia. And this is not only a magnet for intelligence. Our industry receives orders for producing science-driven and expensive equipment. And it also means job opportunities and the very same high technologies.

By the way

We also have ideas on how to attract intelligence without investing as much money as we do in megascience. This is another genre. It solves other tasks mainly in the field of basic sciences. In the world, such centres are called institutes for advanced research, all conditions are created there for brainstorming breakthrough ideas.

The state provides comfortable working conditions for guest scientists and pays for their travel and stay. There are about 20 similar thinktanks in the world today, for example, in Princeton, in Santa Barbara, in South Africa, in Canada. They are established for the stars of science. We have people in Russia for whom we can create centres where eminent scientists from other countries will come.

Of course, it is very difficult to implement this idea. The competition is high, many countries offer the most tempting conditions. Nevertheless, I think it makes sense for us to get involved in this struggle. We have world-class scientific schools, world-class scientists, stunning places, good university campuses, and the most modern laboratories. By the way, graduate students are necessarily involved in the communication of great scientists in such centres. They firstly listen to masters, but quickly become full-fledged participants of discussions. Such a format of brainstorming and discussions is the best way to infect young people with real science for the whole life. And most importantly, by implementing such projects, we could gradually introduce and prove to the whole world that Russia is a very convenient, attractive, and right place to do science!