Transformation of the Research System in a Transitional Society: The Case of Russia

In: Social studies of science: an international review of research in the social dimensions of science and technology, Band 25, Heft 4, S. 685-703

Abstract

This paper explores the transformation of the Soviet model of science in the recent transitional period. It begins by analyzing the most important features of this model, which remained essentially unchanged from the 1920s to the 1990s; its conflict with the new conditions of development has made the transitional period more dramatic. The second part of the paper investigates the mechanisms of mounting crisis and chaos within the Russian research system, as it interacted with economic, social and political crisis, and with the transformation of state, market and social institutions. The dramatic decline in R&D funding, and the ineffective and inconsequential early reforms, gave rise to destructive tendencies. To counterbalance these, new, creative tendencies have appeared, initiated both by scientists themselves, and also by the Ministry of Science and Technological Policy. The process of forming a new model of science and science policy is now under way. These matters are considered in the final part of the paper.