MOSCOW, July 1 (Itar-Tass) - The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) opposed the proposed RAS reform. The RAS Presidium has approved a resolution at its just-ended meeting on Monday. The resolution holds that “in case of the fulfilment of the reform an amorphous and unclearly managed organization will be created.”
“The changes in the subordination in the Russian Academy of Sciences will ruin the principle of unity of management over fundamental science and will make it impossible or extremely inefficient to fulfil the functions, which are fixed for RAS in the bill,” the resolution of the RAS presidium runs. “No union of prominent scientists in the modern world can resolve analytical and expert tasks without daily cooperation between the staffs, without information support, experimental base and without modern laboratories,” the resolution said.
Last week the government approved the bill over reorganizing of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The bill offers to create a public, state-run organization Russian Academy of Sciences instead of three academies (the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences).
“Russia is forming a public, state-run organization Russian Academy of Sciences, which will become the union of prominent scientists and outstanding scientific experts,” Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov said after a meeting of the government. Livanov noted that a new organization will become the most important communication floor for the scientific community, but will not manage the proprietary sector and will not have subordinate scientific organizations.
“The academicians and corresponding members of three academies - the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences will be included in a new Russian Academy of Sciences under formation upon the applications from them,” the minister stated, adding that this structure is creating a common, authoritative scientific community, which represents all spheres of scientific research.
Livanov emphasized that, on their part, the state authorities will fund the activity of the new organization, will provide for its real independence and will use as much as possible its expert functions in the making of the most important state decisions.