Adaptation of science to new conditions of activity: strategies and assessments by the scientific community (1990s – first half of 2000s)

Abstract

The article describes the dramatic period in the history of Russian science associated with the transition to the post-Soviet period of its existence. There are two types of sources as the empirical basis of the analysis. The first is official materials (speeches by the leaders of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, concepts and development programs, reports on the activities of the Branch). Such materials describe the main trends in the development of the official strategy of the Branch for work in the new conditions. The second is the results of mass sociological studies conducted among researchers of the Novosibirsk Scientific Center in 1996 and 2004, which made it possible to identify the dynamics of adaptation processes at the personal, everyday, routine level. We conclude that despite the relative stabilization, including the growth of funding and the consolidation of the number of researchers, academic science still relied primarily on state support, it was not possible to build a market-oriented science. Under such conditions, a radical reform of the methods of managing academic science, primarily its property complex, became only a matter of time.