SCIENTIFIC VOLUNTEERING IN RUSSIA: IDEAS OF POPULARIZERS AND ORGANIZERS

Abstract

The article deals with the problems of ideas of popularizers and project organizers regarding scientific volunteering. The object of the research is scientific volunteering as a social movement. The subject is the ideas of popularizers and organizers about scientific volunteering. As part of the study, 6 semi-structured interviews were conducted with project organizers and promoters of scientific volunteering. Among the organizers, people from three areas of science were interviewed: exact, natural and human sciences. The main activity of project organizers is directly related to work in the scientific field. As a result of the study, the main associations regarding scientific volunteering were identified, associated primarily with the community and interactions within it. Also, the definition of scientific volunteering was formed as a special interaction of people who are not professionally associated with scientific activities, and research scientists. The hierarchical structure and image of participants in scientific volunteering, the importance of scientific volunteering for science and society due to attracting funding for science and reducing research costs, the real and ideal image of scientific volunteering with its advantages in the form of saving resources for scientists and drawing attention to relevant areas of science and the shortcomings associated with a small number of Russian projects within the framework of scientific volunteering, the lack of a common understanding of scientific volunteering among volunteers and organizers, and the lack of massivization of civil science in the country were identified. In addition, changes in ideas about scientific volunteering among organizers and popularizers at the beginning of their activity and during the period of further activity were studied. Based on the results of the study, various recommendations were proposed for the development of scientific volunteering in Russia, namely, the search for cooperation between stakeholders with various media and NGOs for the wide dissemination of information, the creation and distribution of platforms for the dissemination of civil science, the formation of an expert community and the support of scientific volunteers by non-financial means, and also through deeper interaction between volunteers and organizers.