A scandal is being discussed in Novosibirsk over the low salaries of scientists. Scientists’ salaries can be viewed under a microscope: they receive 25-30 thousand, although they should earn several times more
The topic of the week in Novosibirsk is a conversation between the Siberian woman Anastasia Proskurina (the girl works as a researcher at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics) with President Vladimir Putin about the level of salaries of scientists. At a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education, the scientist said that her salary is only 25 thousand rubles. In response, the President laughed and asked the Minister of Finance: «Where is the money, Zin?»
Prosecutors and investigators have already become interested in information about the low level of salaries of Novosibirsk scientists. But if not, what does it look like? The director of a private college, Sergei Chernyshov, pondered why the employees themselves are to blame for such salaries. We publish his author’s opinion column (you can argue with it in the comments).
This whole situation with the girl who complained to the president about the low salary is, of course, very funny. They pulled out some researcher and now they are rubbing an obvious question, the existence of which everyone has known for so long. And she is kind of like a local hero, and, as they say, academicians slap her on the shoulder on the sidelines — here, they say, what topic she raised. As if before that no one knew that the twofold increase in wages was achieved due to the transfer of everyone to the share of rates — both the minister and the governor, who are now making round eyes. Such a state secret, when everyone does it — both universities and research institutes.
“Well, you can’t do otherwise,” various journalists told me today, asking for comments. Of course, it could have been otherwise — to expel a third / half of the ballast, which are professional tea-workers, and not scientists, and calmly really raise everyone’s salary. But here’s the thing. After all, we have scientists as veterans — nothing can be said against, as about saints.
Although why all of a sudden, because your work book says that you are a researcher, you have to cost twice the labor market in your region? There are good plumbers — they get a lot. There are bad plumbers — they are rogue and alcoholics. It’s the same with scientists. The rules of the game are now like this. You have a minimum fix, and then — work, dear, receive grants, participate in scientific projects. And apparently, this girl, who was crying there, on the «TV», receives many times more than the salary indicated by her. Apparently, she is tormented by the fact that for this she has to work a lot, or what?
So the world as a whole is arranged in this way, why should the academy be arranged somehow differently? Of course, now they will make some kind of «ombudsman for the rights of scientists» out of her.
This is usually a bad characteristic for a person. Well, what self-respecting, self-sufficient person would formulate the question like this: “Raise our salary, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich”? But for a professional trade union leader, however, it will do quite well, and pensioners from the presidium will quite like it — they are the same too. Moreover, when your last independent work, judging by the Elibrary (Russian information and analytical portal in the field of science. — Ed.), Is a Ph.D. thesis written in 2007, and everything else is articles where up to 10-15 co-authors. Then you are generally an ideal candidate for the post of ombudsman for the rights of scientists, demanding the rules of the game: «Give us a big flat salary in exchange for nothing.»
Is the big fix corrupting scientists? As an answer to this question, I will tell you a story I heard recently in Krasnoobsk (the Siberian branch of the Russian Agricultural Academy was located there). Hundreds of meaningless «scientists» worked in scientific institutes, as a rule — 2-3 hours a day with a break for tea. They promoted each other to academicians of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, dragged out, in general, a miserable existence, and would have so calmly gone into insanity, if not for the merger of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Suddenly, the academicians of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences received the same rights as the academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences — and most importantly, of course, the same scholarships for academicians and correspondent members. Did they become more effective from this and did they come out of insanity? No, of course, they just bought up almost all the «elite» housing in the district — for example, in «Bavaria». I really wish this girl from the TV did not finish the same way.
