372. On science (in Russia)
Uncategorized — By Dmitry Podolsky on April 26, 2009 at 7:01 pm
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As I believe, in the long run the most painful hit that Russia got in final rounds of Cold War wasn’t a decrease of its military might or loss of political influence. It should be rather clear that those who suffer in war the most are the ones who cannot really defend themselves. The most affected by the loss in Cold War was science in Russia.
Below is a famous plot showing how the overall number of publications in refereed journals, papers written in Russia behaved with time:
Tremendous drop of 1992/93 is related to three factors: a) almost complete loss of funding of science after decay of USSR, b) the fact that almost all top scientists (including of course best teachers and leaders of scientific schools) from the former USSR were offered jobs on the West and c) the fact that so many people have left science during hard times. While (b) and (c) together meant the loss of quantity, (b) alone also meant the loss of quality. The latter, as you know, is measured in “scientific impact” 
Before 1992 Russia was among first 10 countries with the most impact in science. Nowadays the top 10 list looks like this:
The list probably only shows inadequacy of impact estimations and impact as a parameter that really characterizes science (Switzerland is the 1st and Denmark is the 3rd? and Japan is 19th?? WTF?), but the most important fact for me that follows from this list is that Russia is no longer in the top 20. Actually, as for the scientific impact, it is next to China:
I think, the situation might have changed would the funding of science in Russia be dramatically increased somewhere around 2000 (the earlier-the better). To my knowledge, no drastic changes in funding policy are observed even today, 10 years later. Quite the opposite, it seems that the number of professionals in science working in Russia continues to decrease.
Update: Rafael asked for links to statistics used in the post – here you go. The first plot (number of publications in refereed papers) is based on data from the portal scientific.ru and was first published in Lenta.ru. The impact factor data are taken from Thomson Scientific?s Essential Science Indicators database (1.01.98-30.04.08).
12 Comments
I agree with your historical characterization, otoh I still think Russians are roughly the 2nd or 3rd most influential scientists by nationality, even if many work abroad. At least, far more than those naive stats demonstrate.
Most of Europe suffered (and continues to suffer) a massive brain drain to US institutions as well so its not like they are alone there.
Dear Haelfix,
Even if it is so, the message is that it is not for long – simply because leaders of scientific schools (or good teachers, if you want) left their schools not to come back
The notion of scientific school necessarily includes a mechanism of self-reproduction, and right now pretty much all mechanisms of self-reproduction are broken. Moreover, the overall impression is that government decided: the battle is lost, so that the remaining funding should be cut as well to the bare minimum (which is, I think, 0 
). For example, there were massive job cuts in Russian Academy of Sciences recently.
This actually seems to start changing unless of course this is my wishful thinking (take ERC initiative for example)…
Cheers,
Dmitry.
I guess the anomaly that happens to Japan might be explained for their very different written script. Maybe the citations are counted much less then they should be because of the language barrier.
Hi Daniel,
I actually found that the impact factor was taken averaged over many branches of science – physics, molecular biology and genetics, sociology etc. etc. As it turns out, the main contribution into Swiss huge impact factor comes from genetics and molecular biology (and not from CERN)
Interesting, isn’t it? I never thought they are so good at it 
Not sure about the significance of the language barrier in Japan – people there mostly publish in international journals anyway.
Cheers,
Dmitry.
Not because of CERN! Wow! I never expected that!
If you are considering many branches of science, including humanities, then that might be indeed an explanation for Japan relative low impact. They just might not bother to publish about society in a language that is not Japanese.
The best thing that could ever happen to science in Russia is a brutal mix of oppression, poverty, and occasional famine mixed with the horrors of war. Take thousands of hungry teenagers and place them an hour’s walk from the nearest university library, but be sure to give them library cards. You’ll breed a new generation of Gel’fands as well as a new Lusitania group in no time. Be sure and send a thank you card to Sasha.
Here is a statement: in order to be effective researcher, scientist does not have to be funded extensively (that is, too much – pardon my English). Take Einstein for example. Whether you want it or not, his best years were the ones when he was doing clerk work in a patent bureau, not when he came to Princeton.
What do you think?
Would you mind in giving us the link-source of your aforementioned statistics?
Thanks
Dear Rafael,
Sure, I’ll write an update for the post which will contain corresponding links.
Cheers,
Dmitry.
Dmitry -
I would argue that Einstein was able to physics in the patent office for three reasons:
1. He was under 30.
2. He wasn’t married.
3. He didn’t have any children.
By the way, congratulations on doing all three
Hopefully it won’t hurt your science too much.
I was, of course, being facetious about the conditions in the former Soviet Union, but what has always impressed me was the people’s ability to overcome extraordinary circumstances and produce beautiful science. My other (half joking) opinion is that a country must have a formidable adversary if either is going to fund science. No one cares about basic research enough to fund it. If you hadn’t launched Sputnik and built the MiG, we’d be decades behind. Hope you enjoy the following interview:
http://www.airspacemag.com/his.....solov.html
Dear Geoff,
That certainly plays some role, especially if we reformulate your three points as follows
-
1. He was arrogant enough to question well established theories.
2. He was able (and wanted!) to focus on his work.
Note that he was also underfunded
Imagine you pay 150000$ to a 25 year old boy asking him to do some decent science (that’s what they do to quants on WS by the way). I would bet that he will start really enjoying his bonuses after a year, and that’s where his creative energy will be mostly channelled to. Based on your experience with human behavior and psychology, will you really doubt that?
Suppose you will, in this case let me note that not only complications but the joys of life can well lead to the violation of the condition 2 above
Regarding the “adversary” argument, I am afraid I have to agree with you. Maybe, that’s in human nature, only some serious danger forces our brains to work really seriously… Being at college/university, did you notice how much motivation to learn rises when you are getting closer to exams?
Thanks for the link, it was fun to read
Cheers,
Dmitry.
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