Scientific State Policy through the Eyes of an «Ordinary Scientist».Scientists’ Situational Strategies in Response to the Science Reforming Waves in Russia

Abstract

A comparative analysis of the results of two paired sociological studies of the Russian academic community in the Siberian Branch of the RAS (SB RAS) in 1992 – 1994 and 2015 – 2016 was carried out. The first study was realised at the institutes of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center (NSC SB RAS); the second again at the Research Institutes of the NSC SB RAS, as well as at the academic institutes of Tomsk, Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk was carried out. The main method: in-depth structured interviews focused on the problems of (a) professional adaptation of “ordinary” scientists and (b) reactions of the institutes and laboratories to radical changes in state scientific policy. A comparative analysis showed that despite the different goals and results of implementing scientific policy in the early 1990s and in mid-2010s, the scientific community often demonstrates the same, in fact, “response to threats” expressed in the professional behavioral strategies. These strategies are conservative and situationally non-adaptive. Management of research institutes strives to maintain the “status quo”; they aim, if possible, not to change the structure of professional relations, the directions and subjects of researches. This testifies to the inert structure of academic science and science management, which aims to maintain the main organizational components that were laid down in the Soviet 1930s.