Enforced Conformity or Modernisation?
Russia’s Academy of Sciences
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia inherited from the Soviet Union its education and research system, and with it the Academy of Sciences as well. In the 1990s, Russia’s academic facilities suffered from economic and organisational difficulties as well as a brain drain. In 2004, the Ministry of Education and Research presented a reform concept for the Academy of Sciences that unleashed fierce debates. For some, the academy is the embodiment of obsolete and inefficient scientific structures. For others, the academy is a guarantor of independent science and a national symbol. In the argument between politics and academia, the content of education and research has come up short.
(Osteuropa 1/2008, pp. 35–48)