Plan to increase research at national universities

The government is aiming to improve the position of Russian science in the global arena by accelerating research activities at national universities.

According to a recent report by Thomson Reuters, Russian science lags significantly behind most countries in the G20. Statistics show that over the past decade, the share of Russian papers in the Web of Science international database has dropped from 3% to 2.1% – and the papers go largely unnoticed by foreign scientists.

In 2012, Russian scientists published 26,503 papers in international journals, which is a very small figure for a country with Russia’s scientific history and potential. The figures for 2013 are currently unavailable, but according to Ministry of Education and Science analysts, they are comparable with those obtained in previous years.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that citations of Russian papers are nearly 19% lower than average global figures. Among the most cited papers are those by physicists, astronomers, mathematicians and chemists.

Higher funding but publication lags

According to Ivan Sterligov, head of the analytical department at the Higher School of Economics – one of Russia’s leading universities in the field of economics – the situation is complex as the number of publications by Russian scientists has remained the same despite the fact that science funding has risen significantly in recent years.

In 2000 the government provided about 17 billion rubles (US$500 million) for the acceleration of scientific activities, particularly at leading universities. By 2014 the amount had grown to 366 billion rubles (US$10 billion).

But during that period the number of publications by Russian scientists – and in particular by university professors – increased by only 5%. This compared to an 820% publication growth by Chinese and 51% by German researchers.

Sterligov said one of the reasons for the current situation was lack of world-class journals at Russian universities.

In addition, most of Russia’s leading universities continue to pay greatest attention to research in the fields of mathematics and physics, while biology and medicine currently account for a significant share of global publications.

Research has never been a great strength of Soviet and later Russian universities, as the government traditionally placed more focus on developing research in the Russian Academy of Sciences and its numerous branches located throughout the country.

The situation has changed in recent years, however. Dmitry Livanov, the education and science minister has repeatedly announced state intentions to make national universities centres of research.

Among planned measures are increasing the salaries of professors by 200%, establishing laboratories in promising areas of research, and allocating mega grants to attract world-renowned scientists to Russian universities.

According to the presidential press service, implementing these plans will be personally overseen by President Vladimir Putin, who in May 2012 issued a decree aimed at increasing Russia’s share of publications in the Web of Science to 2.44% by 2015.