Чергова стаття Шірмайєера в Nature. Тепер про російську науку
06/05/2008 | Skapirus
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/453702a
Russian science academy rejects Putin ally
No change at the top as old guard keeps its grip on power.
Quirin Schiermeier
Mikhail Kovalchuk's rise to the top position in Russian science seemed a done deal. But the general assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences has thwarted plans for the head of its newly established division for nanosciences to become the influential academy's new president.
Russia's then president Vladimir Putin last year chose Kovalchuk to head Russia's US$7-billion push into nanotechnology. A few weeks later, the academy's leadership appointed Kovalchuk as 'acting' vice-president for nanotechnology.
Kovalchuk is the director of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Russia's premier centre for nuclear science. But as he was not a full member of the academy (only a 'corresponding' member), he could not be elected president. In preparation for the election, last week's general assembly was expected to grant him full membership. But on 28 May he failed to win the two-thirds majority vote necessary for membership, by 44 votes.
According to the academy's rules, full membership is restricted to individuals who have contributed in a ground-breaking way to the advancement of science. Kovalchuk — whose older brother, Yuri Kovalchuk, is a successful banker with close personal ties to Putin — has earned his merits as a skilled science administrator with influential contacts in political and business circles. He has also done research, mostly in crystallography, but his achievements and publication record are not considered outstanding.
Nonetheless, observers expected that the academy's long-time president, mathematician Yuri Osipov, who was on 30 May re-elected for the fourth time, would just be a placeholder for Kovalchuk (see 'Presidential election disappoints reformists'). Osipov's rival candidate, high-energy physicist and former science minister Vladimir Fortov, who had promised he would modernize the ageing academy, failed to win a majority in the presidential elections.
According to an unwritten but, so far, strictly enforced rule, academy leaders should not be older than 70 years. Osipov, who turns 72 in July, had last year promised to step down, but changed his mind after jurists assured him that the age provision would not be an obstacle.
Kovalchuk had already pawed the ground. He told Nature last year that Russia needs to rethink its approach to science, which critics say suffers from prevailing Soviet structures and widespread lack of competition (see Nature 449, 524–527; 2007).
“Nobody really believed that Osipov intended to remain president for very long,” says biologist Mikhail Gelfand, a Howard Hughes International Research Scholar and vice-president for science at the academy's Institute for Information Transmission Problems in Moscow. “It seemed obvious that he would merely act as a kind of interim president for a year or so, keeping the position for Kovalchuk.”
Scientists close to the academy speculate that many members voted against Kovalchuk because they felt under too much pressure from its leadership to agree with its favourites. Others think that academics were disappointed that the money flow from Rosnanotech, a tax-exempt body set up last year to coordinate Russia's nanotechnology initiative to academy institutes, was sparser than they had hoped. Kovalchuk has a great deal of influence over Rosnanotech and is a member of its board.
Indeed, the desire for Rosnanotech money has taken strange forms. In May, an over-eager Siberian scientist sent a self-invented 'nano-powder' to at least five high-ranking academy members, including Kovalchuk, whose deputy director Svetlana Zheludeva opened the package. When Zheludeva died soon after, murder was suggested by the Russian media. Russian health officials have dismissed such speculation, saying that her death on 17 May from acute liver failure was not due to poison.
Russian science academy rejects Putin ally
No change at the top as old guard keeps its grip on power.
Quirin Schiermeier
Mikhail Kovalchuk's rise to the top position in Russian science seemed a done deal. But the general assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences has thwarted plans for the head of its newly established division for nanosciences to become the influential academy's new president.
Russia's then president Vladimir Putin last year chose Kovalchuk to head Russia's US$7-billion push into nanotechnology. A few weeks later, the academy's leadership appointed Kovalchuk as 'acting' vice-president for nanotechnology.
Kovalchuk is the director of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Russia's premier centre for nuclear science. But as he was not a full member of the academy (only a 'corresponding' member), he could not be elected president. In preparation for the election, last week's general assembly was expected to grant him full membership. But on 28 May he failed to win the two-thirds majority vote necessary for membership, by 44 votes.
According to the academy's rules, full membership is restricted to individuals who have contributed in a ground-breaking way to the advancement of science. Kovalchuk — whose older brother, Yuri Kovalchuk, is a successful banker with close personal ties to Putin — has earned his merits as a skilled science administrator with influential contacts in political and business circles. He has also done research, mostly in crystallography, but his achievements and publication record are not considered outstanding.
Nonetheless, observers expected that the academy's long-time president, mathematician Yuri Osipov, who was on 30 May re-elected for the fourth time, would just be a placeholder for Kovalchuk (see 'Presidential election disappoints reformists'). Osipov's rival candidate, high-energy physicist and former science minister Vladimir Fortov, who had promised he would modernize the ageing academy, failed to win a majority in the presidential elections.
According to an unwritten but, so far, strictly enforced rule, academy leaders should not be older than 70 years. Osipov, who turns 72 in July, had last year promised to step down, but changed his mind after jurists assured him that the age provision would not be an obstacle.
Kovalchuk had already pawed the ground. He told Nature last year that Russia needs to rethink its approach to science, which critics say suffers from prevailing Soviet structures and widespread lack of competition (see Nature 449, 524–527; 2007).
“Nobody really believed that Osipov intended to remain president for very long,” says biologist Mikhail Gelfand, a Howard Hughes International Research Scholar and vice-president for science at the academy's Institute for Information Transmission Problems in Moscow. “It seemed obvious that he would merely act as a kind of interim president for a year or so, keeping the position for Kovalchuk.”
Scientists close to the academy speculate that many members voted against Kovalchuk because they felt under too much pressure from its leadership to agree with its favourites. Others think that academics were disappointed that the money flow from Rosnanotech, a tax-exempt body set up last year to coordinate Russia's nanotechnology initiative to academy institutes, was sparser than they had hoped. Kovalchuk has a great deal of influence over Rosnanotech and is a member of its board.
Indeed, the desire for Rosnanotech money has taken strange forms. In May, an over-eager Siberian scientist sent a self-invented 'nano-powder' to at least five high-ranking academy members, including Kovalchuk, whose deputy director Svetlana Zheludeva opened the package. When Zheludeva died soon after, murder was suggested by the Russian media. Russian health officials have dismissed such speculation, saying that her death on 17 May from acute liver failure was not due to poison.
Відповіді
2008.06.05 | Kovalchuk
Мудрые слова пока еще не президента РАН
Russia (and Ukraine too) needs to rethink its approach to science, which critics say suffers from prevailing Soviet structures and widespread lack of competition.2008.06.05 | Георгій
Я чомусь думав, що Шірмайєр - жінка, ні?
2008.06.06 | Skapirus
А я й не знаю. По імені-прізвищу мені здалося, що чоловік
2008.06.06 | Zajac
Re: А я й не знаю. По імені-прізвищу мені здалося, що чоловік
Таки чоловік.http://www.nature.com/news/author/Quirin+Schiermeier/index.html
2008.06.06 | Skapirus
Дякую!
2008.06.06 | Skapirus
Тепер стаття в Science
Science 6 June 2008:Vol. 320. no. 5881, pp. 1270 - 1271
http://dx.DOI.org/10.1126/science.320.5881.1270a
RUSSIAN SCIENCE:
Russian Academy President Narrowly Wins Reelection
Andrey Allakhverdov and Vladimir Pokrovsky*
CREDIT: ALEXANDER SAVERKIN/ITAR-TASS/LANDOV
MOSCOW--Despite unprecedented opposition, which included fellow academicians calling for him to step aside, Yuri Osipov was reelected last week to a fourth term as president of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The election, in which two candidates who challenged Osipov received a combined 46% of the secret ballots, made clear that RAS is split at a time when many members feel its future is insecure. Osipov's return "will bring the academy to deep stagnation," says academician Alexandr Spirin, who had made a public call for the 71-year-old mathematician not to seek reelection.
It's not clear, however, how long Osipov will actually serve. A source in the academy told Science that Osipov earned the support of the RAS Presidium, a key management body, only after agreeing to leave his post shortly after the elections so that Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the Kurchatov Institute, can take his place. Some discount such gossip, however. "I know these rumors about Osipov to be replaced by Kovalchuk, but I doubt it is true," says Nikolay Ponomarev-Stepnoy, the Kurchatov Institute's vice president.
Kovalchuk was expected by many to win Osipov's seat this year, in large part because the government has placed nearly $8.5 billion of nanotechnology funding under his institute's control and because former Russian president and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is seen as his champion. Indeed, Putin paid a rare visit to RAS to announce new science funding measures, including higher salaries for academicians, corresponding members, and RAS researchers.
But many RAS members, skeptical that the nanotechnology money will actually fund academic research, weren't swayed by Putin's lobbying. Two years ago, Kovalchuk failed to get elected to a full academician membership, and last week, academy members again declined to approve his membership, dooming any plans for him to run for election to be the next RAS president. The apparent rebuke to Putin could threaten the independence of RAS, as recent legislation has given the Russian government authority to claim some of the academy's valuable property.
Still, even without Kovalchuk in the running, Osipov's victory was close. In past elections, he had no official challengers. But this time, the Power Industry, Machine-Building, Mechanics and Control Processes branch of RAS nominated its head, Vladimir Fortov. A significant personality in Russian science, Fortov headed the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and was the country's science minister in the 1990s.
Citing the need for regular turnover of top positions, academician Vladimir Zakharov, head of the RAS Research Center in Chernogolovka, had written a letter to Power Industry branch officials suggesting Fortov. "Fortov is a prominent scientist, who won many international prizes. … He is well-known all over the world, and his presidency would strengthen the Academy's international status," noted Zakharov. The Far-Eastern Branch of the academy also proposed a candidate, Valery Chereshnev, head of the RAS Urals Branch.
A couple of weeks before the elections, Spirin, former director of the RAS Protein Institute, sent a public letter to Osipov asking him to withdraw his candidacy. "In the recent years the authority of our Academy, as well as your personal authority as the president, has strongly gone down in the broad scientific community and continues to fall," wrote Spirin.
At the RAS meeting in Moscow, Zakharov and Spirin again presented their arguments. Supporters of Osipov countered that he had managed the academy successfully for 17 years and was accepted in high government circles. "In these 17 years, Osipov has more than once saved the academy from elimination," says RAS Vice President Alexandr Nekipelov.
When the votes were counted, Osipov had received 52%, whereas Fortov got 39% and Valery Chereshnev 7%. "I think we are now witnessing a critical moment in the history of our academy," says Spirin. "This is an unprecedented situation that so many people voted against the president."
Andrey Allakhverdov and Vladimir Pokrovsky are writers in Moscow.