Plundering the Russian Academy of Sciences

Plundering the Russian Academy of Sciences is the open letter by D.Kouznetsov, revised by the Editor of AMS.

The project of reforming the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) was suggested in June 2013 by the Russian "Duma" without discussion with Russian scientists. It appears as a sudden attack. The project implies the expropriation of property of the RAS, elimination of the RAS, and creation of new organization with the same name but with new staff and new regulations.

From my point of view, such a "reform" should be qualified as the liquidation of the RAS, the plundering of properties of the RAS, and the plundering of the name of the RAS.

I think the RAS deserved serious criticism, but not liquidation. Such a liquidation would be a big step toward the total destruction of any science in Russia.

Corruption has created serious problems for science in Russia. The revolution and disintegration of Russia are predicted for "this year", by many authors. Such predictions have appeared again and again over the past several years, so I cannot qualify them as scientific, but I accept that there are reasons behind these predictions. The observed destruction of science in Russia is one of these reasons.

I do not ask colleagues to save the RAS, nor to save science in Russia; I doubt if they can be saved. I would only suggest that at least mathematicians use the correct terminology to describe what is happening with science in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century.

In support of my point of view, I suggest the following links: http://www.mi.ras.ru/index.php?c=ref http://mizugadro.mydns.jp/t/index.php/About_RAS_reform http://mizugadro.mydns.jp/t/index.php/Against_the_RAS_reform http://mizugadro.mydns.jp/t/index.php/RAS_reform http://samlib.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/saveras.shtml

Keywords
RAS RAS reform