How Science is Managed in Russia
Approaches to studying management practices
R&D organisations’ activities are assessed the world over, and assessment results may significantly affect their future — in reputational, financial, and managerial terms alike (all the way down to revoking licences, restructuring, or even liquidation). In Russia the need to assess R&D organisations was officially introduced by a government regulation in 2009, with relevant procedures detailed in various department-level documents.
However, no national-level assessment exercises have been carried out in Russia so far (the Federal agency for Scientific Organisations is expected to publish the results of its own study in the field). Konstantin Fursov, Head of the HSE ISSEK Unit for Analysis of R&D Performance, spoke about HSE’s relevant plans during the round table discussion. According to him, the objectives of the HSE project were not limited to just identifying and structuring best science and university management practices; another one was integrating all relevant information into a single database — an internet platform for free exchange of best ideas and solutions.
165 R&D organisations and universities — leaders in their respective fields — were selected for the HSE study. Data was collected jointly with ZIRCON Research Group. 121 in-depth interviews with the surveyed organisations’ managers were conducted; information about the remaining 44 organisations was collected from open sources.
The researchers came up with a classification of management practices comprising six subject groups: management structure, HR policy, R&D infrastructure, communication and cooperation, management of R&D results. Each group was further broken down into categories. The researchers tried to find out exactly why the surveyed organisations needed various specific management practices, how these were applied in various organisations, what specific legal environments they operated in, why certain practices didn’t work under different conditions, and whether anything could be done about it.
The compendium of best practices identified by the HSE researchers in the scope of the project is available at a special website. It still in testing mode, with certain sections being completed. According to Konstantin Fursov, about 50 management practices should be fully described by the beginning of 2018. The project authors intend to conduct econometric analysis of various practices’ impact on R&D organisations’ productivity. The website should also promote emergence of a network community of science, technology and innovation management professionals.
Konstantin Fursov, Head of the HSE ISSEK Unit for Analysis of R&D Performance, and Ekaterina Dyachenko, Research Fellow at the HSE ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation
Which practices help to advance research
Some of the results of the R&D organisations’ managers survey were presented by Alena Nefedova, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation. It turns out that many of the respondents didn’t believe management practices played a significant role in their organisations’ successful performance. According to them, human and material resources available to the organisation were the crucial factors. Also, the opinion that each research team was unique and other organisations’ experience, even successful one, couldn’t be applied elsewhere, appeared to be quite popular.
A significant difference was discovered between universities and R&D centres regarding the following issue: if universities were very much interested in practices adopted by their foreign colleagues, research centres tended to be quite indifferent about that. On the whole, the universities in the sample applied more management practices (and a wider range of them), than research centres did.
Many share the opinion that each research team is unique and other organisations’ experience, even successful one, can’t be applied elsewhere
However, the researchers did identify certain management practices applied by the both kinds of organisations. In particular, these include promoting staff members’ professional development; promoting collaboration with external organisations; setting up collegial strategic management bodies (including international advisory boards); identifying priority research areas; providing financial incentives to promote staff members’ publication activity; hosting public scientific events such as conferences, exhibitions, etc.
As to the differences, universities take steps to commercialise their R&D results, promote technology transfer, hold tenders to support research projects, and put in place mechanisms to promote internal competition almost three times more often than R&D centres do. On the other hand, R&D organisations almost three times more often apply various forms of bonuses to reward their staff for attracting external orders to conduct R&D.
Alena Nefedova specifically mentioned various rare practices which have proved to be particularly effective, and thus worthy of other organisations’ attention. E.g. these include internal tenders for research projects (HSE, Belgorod State University, Tomsk State University); publishing English-language preprints (HSE); hiring certified patent attorneys (Belgorod State University, Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), and conducting international benchmarking (Urals Federal University).
Which barriers hinder efficient management of science
According to Ekaterina Dyachenko, Research Fellow at the HSE ISSEK Laboratory for Economics of Innovation, the surveyed science managers most often mentioned funding- and regulation-related barriers. Interestingly, the worst financial limitation turned out to be not low salaries but lack of funds to procure necessary infrastructure (mainly capital investments, and commercialisation of R&D results). Managers of R&D organisations specialising in agricultural research complained about these issues particularly often.
Regulatory barriers do not allow universities and R&D centres to freely manage even the modest resources they do have
Regulatory barriers do not allow universities and R&D centres to freely manage even the modest resources they do have. Typical problems in this area include tender procedures for pubic procurement: several of the respondents mentioned they repeatedly found themselves having to deal with unreliable suppliers delivering products and services whose quality left much to be desired. Various issues have also arisen due to import substitution — though the abovementioned agricultural research organisations were very happy with it.
Other problems include inappropriate use of funds, which frequently has nothing at all to do with universities and R&D organisations’ malicious intent. “Often the real reason is inconvenient funding cycles”, noted Boris Dolgin, Scientific Editor at Polit.ru. “E.g. imagine a situation when grant money only actually arrives when most of the work should have already been completed”.
According to Irina Ilyina, Head of S&T Development Forecast Section at the Russian Research Institute of Economics, Politics and Law in Science and Technology (RIEPL), a partial solution for this problem would be encouraging businesses to co-fund R&D by universities and research institutes. “When companies get involved there will be no delays because they’d want to get research results in time, to be able to apply them”, believed Irina Ilyina. However, public funding and provision of certain tax breaks to businesses willing to invest in R&D would still be necessary.