How could Russian scientists promote themselves?
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According to Alexander Povalko, deputy RF Minister of education and science, both the content and dissemination channels are important in modern science. “We have always thought Russian science was a leader, but then made a rather interesting conclusion: if that is so, let the world make an effort to learn just how wonderful we are”, Mr Povalko noted during the round table discussion “Image of the Russian Science in the World” held on the Russian Science Day.
Alexander Kuleshov, president of the Skoltech, believed this approach was a legacy of the Soviet times when “nobody was really concerned” how the Soviet science was percieved abroad. Its international image was seen as a natural extension of the domestic one: in the Soviet Union, scientists enjoyed “an unbelievably high status”. The situation is quite different now, though it started to improve in recent years. Notably, Russian science’s reputation abroad is mostly being made by Russian (according to their passports) researchers working in the West.
Nikolay Kudriavtsev, MIPT rector, agreed and noted that during the last twenty years, the institute’s graduates who have relocated abroad were the most important information channel about the MIPT. The rector stressed the importance of international contacts: even a very good scientist who doesn’t keep in touch with international colleagues would be doomed to remain “second-grade”.
About a third of academic publications by Russian scientists indexed by international citation databases were co-authored with foreign colleagues, reported Leonid Gokhberg, First Vice Rector of the Higher School of Economics (here you can find his full presentation at the round table discussion).
According to the data collected by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, in 2014 Russia had the 15th largest share of academic papers indexed by the Web of Science. In recent years colleagues from Taiwan, Turkey and even Iran came very close to that figure.
Russian science’s “fertility”, and as a consequence its “visibility” in the global environment are very disparate. Most visible is Russian research in such areas as, e.g., space exploration. On the other hand, Russian scientific presence in agricultural or life sciences is much less visible. Meanwhile life sciences (medicine, bio-engineering, etc.) are currently experiencing a boom.
Interestingly, perception of science in Russia is largely the same as in other European countries. E.g. according to the HSE research and the “Eurobarometer”, Russians’ knowledge about scientific discoveries and technological achievements is comparable with that of Belgians and Germans. However, after 2011, the Russians’ interest to scientific matters started to decline in all areas except international relations and information technologies.
HSE ISSEK researchers have also analysed how frequently Russian scientific achievements were mentioned in major international media (such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, The Times (UK), Forbes, Newsweek). It turned out that Chinese, British, and American scientific advances were mentioned there most frequently; these three countries were leaders in the science news area. In terms of mention frequency, Russian science firmly remains in the first ten.
According to Tagir Aushev, MIPT Vice Rector, informing people about their work and promoting it shouldn’t be a burden for the Russian scientists. To help them with it, HSE, MIPT, Skoltech and TASS news agency came up with an idea to launch Russian Science News Feed — an English-language news service for international media which would disseminate news about Russian science. The project’s authors hope other Russian universities and research institutes would join the initiative.
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