Science and the Unknown, Russia

10.03.2011 18:59

Brain drain. Photo from altapress.ru

Why do young scientists leave Russia?

"You can't grasp Russia with your mind..." – this line from a verse by the famous Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev can probably tell us a lot… When investing huge amounts in the Olympics-2014 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the officials want to gain too many results at once: to impress foreigners, to show that Russia is not only the largest, but also the most generous country… And it does not matter that her piggy bank is as bare as the palm of one's hand, and the chic on display is phoney. After all, nobody can see that so far...

Let’s take the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. They invested 42 million dollars and received 24 hours of glory, not more. Yes, they did surprise everyone, I admit. But was not that surprise too expensive? Perhaps it would have been better to spend the money on some more important issues? On Russia’s brain drain, for example. More precisely, on what would help keep young scientists within the country.

Only over the last three decades, our country has lost a third of its scientific potential. And from 1999 to 2004, around 25 thousand scientists left Russia, not counting the 30,000 that had gone abroad to work under contracts.

According to official statistics, already about 700-800 thousand scientists from Russia are employed overseas. And if earlier they used to leave by themselves or with their families at best, now they are leaving their country in teams, laboratories and groups.

According to the UN scientists’ estimates, as reported by rys-arhipelag.ucoz.ru, the departure of just one of such genii overseas from Russia inflicts a loss to the state in the amount of 300-800 thousand dollars. And the rector of Moscow State University, academician V. Sadovnichy, says that the training of only one such world-class specialist means that Moscow State University has to shell out $400 thousand. So, is not it time to have the problem solved, or at least to look into the causes?

For example, among the main reasons for professional emigration are: 1) the absence of technical base – the share of new equipment in Russian Research Institutes does not exceed 20%; 2) an extremely low level of social security and wages: the earnings of a young scientist rarely surpass 15 thousand rubles; 3) a very low demand for scientific findings imposes is own imprint on the situation (the level of investment ideas accepted for development is equal to 1%). While abroad, the works of Russian specialists are appreciated. Therefore, our researchers, even if they do not leave the country, can publish their research results in foreign journals that their fellow countrymen still can not afford to see (because of the high cost of subscriptions, unbearable for Russian academic libraries). It turns then out that our scientists, although they did not emigrate, still worked for ‘an uncle abroad’, so their research results are often taken by their foreign employers as their own.

To some countries, young scientists are lured especially persistently. Sometimes it is the newcomers that keep the foreign science afloat. For example, according to the US National Research Foundation, the share of foreign scientific experts in the US accounts for 40% of all doctorates in chemistry and biology, 50% of the doctorates in mathematics and computer science, 58% – in engineering, 32.1% of the doctoral degrees in natural and exact sciences, and 61,3% – in engineering disciplines.

To prevent further brain drain, action must be taken already now. For example, young professionals with higher education can be prohibited from leaving the country to work for ten years after the graduation. To do that, however, they have to be provided with decent wages so that the desire to go abroad would disappear completely.

Of course, there are other reasons for emigration: a highly criminal situation, a most profound economic crisis, political instability in Russia. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to succeed in dealing with these issues in the near future. Will we succeed later?

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