Moscow News
http://www.mnweekly.ru/
April 10, 2008
Stopping the Brain Drain
By Theodore Merz
First there was the brain drain. Then there was the reverse brain drain. Now, Russia seems like it might finally have a finger in the leak.
"We can no longer say that there is a massive ‘brain drain.' It has stopped," said Irina Presnyakova of The Russian Academy of Sciences. "Very few researchers now move abroad permanently. They go there for several months or years, but only temporarily."
In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of scientists, researchers and technology workers either emigrated from Russia or moved to other fields. According to a UNESCO World Science Report, 400,000 scientists left the profession between 1991 and 1995. By 2002 that figure had topped half a million.
"If Russian scientists leave Russia, then of course both Russian society and science with suffer," said a spokesperson of The MacArthur Foundation, which currently offers grants to researchers to encourage them to stay in the country. But, for some, the move away from science in the early 1990's was seen in a more positive light. "Soviet science was overprized: an island of relative freedom, it was a magnet for all intelligent people. Redistribution of society's intellectual resources... was a necessary stage of the post-Soviet transition," wrote A.V. Iurevich and I.P. Tsapenko in their 2001 article "Does Russia Need Scientists?"
Whatever the damage or limited benefit, the mass exodus was caused by bad working conditions, poor facilities and low pay - with the possibility of far higher salaries elsewhere. "At the start of the 90's, scientific funding dropped ten-fold and scientists were not seen as necessary for society," said Presnyakova.
The problem of under-funding and low pay is now being tackled by the Russian government. In 2006, the government entered into an agreement with The Russian Academy of Sciences which aimed to raise and standardize the salary of research scientists. When the program was put forward two years ago, the average monthly salary for a researcher was 17,000 rubles. That figure is now 19,000 rubles, and there are plans to raise it to 30,000 rubles by the end of this year.
But the issue of social standing remains. Despite the government aim of increasing the prestige of being a scientist, a survey conducted by the Moscow Center for Science Research and Statistics showed that scientific research is one of the least respected occupations among the Russian public - only engineers and the military ranked below. Businessmen, bankers and politicians came in the survey's top three.
This is a stark contrast from in Soviet times, when scientists were among the most highly-regarded members of society. Researchers with a PhD were even given 10 square meters extra floor space in a competitive and overcrowded Moscow housing market.
The hyped "reverse brain drain" of the early 2000s brought many qualified workers back into the country. A 2003 survey compiled by the Kelly Services recruitment agency showed Russian IT workers "flowing" back from the West to the East. The newly stabilized economy also opened up many more management and accounting positions which were soon filled by Russian "repats."
But only few highly qualified scientists relocated to their home country or moved back into the profession. "Some biologists returned from the U.S. and Sweden to Moscow to work on genetic projects. Now western specialists are arriving because of grants, but then leave when the grant is finished," said a member of The Russian Academy of Sciences.
Presnyakova acknowledges the ongoing problems caused by the post-perestroika brain drain. "(Scientific research) was practically liquidated then. The effect of this is still being felt in the development of new technology in Russia. Russian industry still prefers to buy technology from abroad... There is still no link between academia and industry."
But with the funding for the national science academy increasing by 40 percent every year and a stable number of researchers now working in the country, Presnyakova remains positive about the future of Russian scientific research. "The universities and their facilities are being improved. New equipment is coming. Things are being reconstructed now, but slowly."