A Failed Reform of Science

Abstract

The necessity to reform the national system of science has been clearly recognized in Russia since the mid-1980s. The start of reform has repeatedly been announced. But during the perestroika period, the reform of science was never even started. The most consistent reform effort was made in the early 1990s. This reform produced a number of some positive results, but did not lead to an integration of science into the market system, did not transform the scientific and technological complex into a scientific and technological network, did not free science from the bureaucratic form of organization and governance, did not approve the principles of self-organization and self-government. In 2004–2007, another, generally unsuccessful, attempt has been made to reform science by integrating it into the innovation system, which they tried to create (unfortunately, without success) in those years. As a result of failures to reform the national scientific system and a successful restoration of the bureaucratic administrative-command system, a weakened Russian science is faced with the same problems as a third of a century ago.