Science policy in Russia: The social-epistemological dimension

Alexan­dra F. Yakovl­e­va
Lomonosov Moscow State Uni­ver­si­ty

Sci­ence pol­i­cy in Rus­sia: The social-epis­te­mo­log­i­cal dimen­sion

Abstract. With­in the frame­work of the new polit­i­cal cycle, sci­en­tif­ic pol­i­cy in Rus­sia is becom­ing one of the pri­or­i­ties of the Russia’s author­i­ties in form­ing a pos­i­tive image of the coun­try and defend­ing the inter­na­tion­al inter­ests of the state. In the con­text of the adop­tion of the Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­no­log­i­cal Devel­op­ment Strat­e­gy and the imple­men­ta­tion of the Nation­al project “Sci­ence”, the dis­cus­sion of the goals of sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment is reach­ing a new lev­el of rela­tions in the tri­ad ‘sci­ence-soci­ety-pow­er’. How­ev­er, with­out under­stand­ing the key prob­lems that exist in the field of sci­ence-soci­ety-pow­er, it is quite dif­fi­cult to out­line strate­gic pri­or­i­ties, and con­sis­tent­ly move to achiev­ing them. Analy­sis of the basic ideas and val­ues that shape strate­gic pri­or­i­ties in polit­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ing in the field of sci­ence requires assess­ing pri­mar­i­ly the com­pli­ance of mech­a­nisms and tools aimed at devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing the sci­ence pol­i­cy (basi­cal­ly, with regard to social tech­nolo­gies for their imple­men­ta­tion) with these ideas and gen­er­al ten­den­cies in the de-vel­op­ment of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge in Rus­sia. The author sug­gests a the­sis that the author­i­ties’ steady atti­tude to sci­ence just as an instru­ment serv­ing a par­tic­u­lar sphere of pub­lic life and pro­duc­tion – of edu­ca­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion – rather than a sys­tem of com­plete­ly spe­cial val­ues and a social insti­tu­tion ensur­ing the achieve­ment of the goals of sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge, does not con­tribute to devel­op­ing a coher­ent sci­en­tif­ic pol­i­cy in Rus­sia. The arti­cle dis­cuss­es the pos­si­bil­i­ty and neces­si­ty of a future mod­el that would rest on the devel­oped sys­tem of inter­ac­tion para­me­ters in the tri­ad ‘sci­ence-soci­ety-pow­er’, both reflect­ing the specifics of their mutu­al per­cep­tion and demon­strat­ing the chan­nels of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The con­cep­tu­al analy­sis of the struc­tur­al and sub­stan­tive changes in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­text of domes­tic sci­ence, occur­ring in recent years, allows to fix the prob­lem areas.

Key­words: state sci­ence pol­i­cy of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, sci­ence, soci­ety, author­i­ty, sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions

DOI: 10.5840/dspl20192445

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