Valery Kozlov Vice President. On the Day of Russian Science - about the reasons for its crisis

Since March 2017 - the government appointed him and. about. President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, when all three candidates for this post suddenly changed their minds about voting. The next elections will be held on September 25-27. On the eve of this event, the correspondent of "Kommersant" ("Kommersant") Alexander Chernykh talked to Valery Kozlov about how he ended up at the head of the academy and why he did not hold on to this position. Mr. Kozlov said that he did not see a problem in coordinating candidates for the RAS presidency with the government, frankly admitting that this had been happening for almost the entire history of the academy. According to him, the new head of the Russian Academy of Sciences will be able to implement his program "only in everyday dialogue with the authorities."

Let's remember the history of your appointment. March 2017, academicians gathered for a general meeting to vote. And suddenly all three candidates for the presidency of the Russian Academy of Sciences come on stage and say that they are recusing themselves. By that time, did you already know that the elections would not take place?

Frankly, for me, as well as for the vast majority of colleagues, these events were unexpected. I found out about their agreement in the morning, a couple of hours before the general meeting - by that time almost everyone in the academy knew about it. By the way, the motive of the candidates was not entirely incomprehensible to me.

But the media wrote the day before that such an option is possible: the elections are postponed, and you are appointed acting.

There were similar rumors, and my last name was also mentioned, but I did not believe it at all. After all, in advance no one addressed me with such proposals. And in general, I was already planning to leave the position of vice president: after 16 years of work, she became somewhat boring (laughs).

In general, we have developed a very unstable structure with them, which it is time to change. The first option is to turn FANO into a kind of academy manager. This was already the case in Soviet times: funding went through this structure, the head of which was appointed by the government. And the second idea is, on the contrary, to raise the FASO to the level of a separate ministry of science. Give them real powers to organize fundamental and applied research. And the Academy of Sciences will be the main expert body under him.

- The Ministry of Education and Science will not be happy with this idea, is it?

Maybe he won't be happy. But here I am watching the work of the ministry and I see that it is objectively difficult for them to deal with both schools and higher education, and even science. It is very difficult to be immersed in all these diverse issues.

- Could you explain in more detail what your problems with FANO are? And in general, what is the difference between an agency and an academy?

This is the right question, and it's worth trying to dot the i's here. You see, science has always been done in institutions. And after the reform, all institutions became subordinate to FASO, now it is their founder.

- But the names still say "Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences."

Yes, but it no longer denotes ownership. It's like the name "Academic Theatre" - it emphasizes the level of the theater, its tradition, history, commitment to the classics. That's how it is here. And the academy - both formally and in fact - is no longer engaged in science. This is such a collection of outstanding scientists who are elected to the academy - not appointed, but elected - due to exceptional scientific results and achievements.

- That is, these scientists work in institutions subordinate to FASO, and they also make up the academy in parallel?

Yes exactly.

- But why then do we need the Academy of Sciences now?

If we take our charter, then the main function of the RAS is expertise. Academicians should have an idea of ​​what is happening in world and domestic science. And give some assessments and recommendations where we in Russia should concentrate our efforts. But at the same time, FANO also has a scientific coordinating council, I myself am a member of it. And many call it an analogue of our Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. But there are also state scientific foundations that distribute grants. Should their expertise be considered by the academy or is it none of our business? And science at universities - should the Russian Academy of Sciences evaluate what is being researched there?

At the same time, everyone understands that it is impossible to carry out all the expertise necessary for the state by the efforts of academicians alone, it is necessary to attract specialists from our institutions. Now this must be coordinated with FASO, where they can answer: “Why? We'll do everything ourselves then."

Another task of the academy is to maintain international relations, contacts between scientists and research teams. The state allocates some money to us for this work, but we cannot even transfer it to our former institutions. Because in terms of funding, it's just another planet. And the effectiveness of international relations is falling by an order of magnitude.

Or let's take the publishing activity: according to the law, the Russian Academy of Sciences establishes and publishes scientific journals. Previously, we had the Nauka publishing house as part of the academy, and now it has been transferred to FASO as a legal entity. But according to the charter, FANO should not be engaged in publishing activities! And that means we have to put everything up for competition. According to the law, this is how it should be done, but on the merits of the matter ... Well, I will not call it mockery. But every time there are a lot of problems that never happened.

Many more examples can be given, but let's be brief: for the last four years, FANO and I have been engaged in tug-of-war. In fact, the border between the powers of FASO and the academy is blurred, and this situation does not suit anyone. This problem, among others, will have to be solved by the new president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It doesn't matter who it will be, when he sits in the chair that I now occupy, the euphoria will pass the very next day.

And here I will turn to my colleagues: we must do everything so that elections are held in September and we have a president. Someone, I know, does not attach any importance to this, they think that they will appoint me again and. about. and nothing will change. But, firstly, it is not a fact that it will be so. And secondly - well, this, however, is not included in my plans. If I wanted to run an academy, I would honestly go to run.

- Have you had any ambitions to become president of the academy during these six months?

You know, no. Before, I had a good idea of ​​what a difficult burden it was, but now I know for sure that I was not mistaken. The problems of the academy cannot be solved only from this chair. We must constantly turn to the government, the ministry, the president of the country, we must constantly correct something. Of course, during these months we also did not sit idly by, we achieved something.

But now, it seems to me, we need younger people who have more energy and strength.

Well, I'm not going anywhere, I remain a member of the academy and continue to communicate with colleagues - this gives me real joy. There is something to do in the mathematical department of the academy, we want the next International Mathematical Congress to be held in St. Petersburg. And let the presidency go to whoever wants it. I have long and well known all seven - now five - candidates, all of them are worthy to lead the academy. Probably, someone will succeed more successfully, someone less ... But until a person tries, it’s not worth guessing.

- What advice would you give to the new president, giving way to the cabinet?

Do not create problems out of the blue - neither for yourself, nor, most importantly, for the academy. And benefit science from contacts with other structures. The head of the Russian Academy of Sciences must be a diplomat - all the things that are written in the programs of candidates can be implemented only in an everyday dialogue with the authorities. But I think each of my colleagues understands what he is getting into.

Interviewed by Alexander Chernykh

the Russian Academy of Sciences

Dossier

Established by order of Peter I in 1724. On November 21, 1991, it was recreated by President Boris Yeltsin on the basis of the USSR Academy of Sciences as the country's highest scientific institution. It operates as a federal state budgetary institution. In September 2013, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences were merged into the institution. As part of the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the management of property and subordinate scientific organizations was transferred to FASO (731 subordinate organizations). The Academy includes 13 branch departments, three regional departments (Ural, Siberian and Far East), 15 regional research centers and one foreign representative office (Nice, France).

In total, more than 46.9 thousand researchers work in the RAS under the management of FASO, including 2.1 thousand members of the academy, including 940 academicians (average age - 73.67 years) and 1160 corresponding members (average age - 66 ,69 years). In 2017, 4.02 billion rubles are provided for financing the Russian Academy of Sciences from the federal budget, in 2018 - 3.98 billion rubles, in 2019 - 3.95 billion rubles.

Kozlov Valery Vasilievich

Private bussiness

Born on January 1, 1950 in the village of Kostyli, Ryazan Region. Graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (1972). Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1977), Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1978). From 1983 to 1999 - Professor of the Department of Theoretical Mechanics of the Mekhmat of Moscow State University, from 1999 to 2005 - Head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics and Stochastic Processes. Since 2005 he has been the head of the Department of Differential Equations. From 1998 to 2001 he worked as Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation. From 2004 to 2016 - Director of the Mathematical Institute. V. A. Steklov RAS. In 2001 he became Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since March 2017, he has been acting President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1997), full member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2000), member of the advisory scientific council of the Skolkovo Foundation. Awarded with the Order of Merit for the Fatherland II, III and IV degrees. Member of a number of foreign academies and scientific societies, Honored Professor of Moscow State University.

Sources

University book (unkniga.ru), 09/20/2017

TASS # Single tape (Closed tape), 20/09/2017

Russian Academy of Sciences (ras.ru), 20/09/2017

Kommersant. News inform. center, 20/09/2017

Kommersant. News inform. center, 20/09/2017

Scientific Russia (scientificrussia.ru), 09/21/2017

“We are constantly told how much money is invested in science, and yet we write too few articles. Articles, publications in leading scientific journals are an important moment, but this is the final stage of research. And if writing articles and publishing them in Scopus and Web of Science, when should we think and engage in actual scientific research? Let's take the same Steklov Mathematical Institute: we have reached the level of 2.5 publications per employee per year. This is a lot, because mathematics is a fundamental science, not applied, A mathematician cannot write more than two good papers a year, even if you get rich, you can't jump above your head.

But we are persistently demanded that there be more and more articles. Moreover, without coordinating state tasks in terms of the number of publications with the academy, with its specialized divisions, which could give their professional assessment. Where does this lead? My colleagues, in order to get out of this absurd situation, suggest: let's split up and publish separate "episodes" instead of finished, large articles. Scientists are forced to accept the "rules of the game" and respond to formalities with formalities. And what is all this for? For reporting? But this is a dead end.

Further. A "pure" mathematician may not need sophisticated equipment. But in other areas, especially where the main method of cognition is an experiment in order to conduct research, write and publish an article, one cannot do without such equipment. Access to modern information bases, libraries, to what is being done in the world, in the West, finally, a decent salary, so that a scientist thinks not about how to carve out food, but about science - all this needs appropriate funding. Each article that is published by American, German, Japanese scientists costs many times more than ours. After all, it says something. Therefore, perhaps, we should start with the question of whether the existing volumes of funding are sufficient for our science?

And one more problem. As part of the 5-100 program to improve the global competitiveness of our higher education institutions, they are tasked with rising in international university rankings and, therefore, also increasing publication activity. Universities that participate in this program compete for additional government funding. And this leads to the fact that they lure our scientists to them and pay them only for writing articles and as an affiliation (place of work. — Note.) indicated these universities. So bursts of publishing activity at such universities are not the result of the rise of their own university science, as one would like to think and how it is presented, but simply the effect of the university’s adaptation to the requirements and conditions set “from above”.

Is this behavior appropriate? I think not, and many of my colleagues think the same way. Our great surgeon, a graduate of Moscow University, a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov liked to repeat: “Science, taken by itself, both shines and warms, and education apart from science does not shine, and does not warm, but only shines” . It turns out that instead of an organic combination of academic, fundamental science and education, we sometimes have only a false shine.

Birthday January 01, 1950

Russian mathematician

Biography

In 1972 he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University with a degree in mechanics. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1978. Since 1983 - professor at Moscow State University.

In 1989-1998, Vice-Rector of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. From 1999 to 2004 he headed the Department of Mathematical Statistics and Stochastic Processes of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, since 2005 he has been the head of the Department of Differential Equations.

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1997, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2000. Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences since November 14, 2001. Head of the Steklov Mathematical Institute. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal Izvestiya RAS, Mathematical Series, and is also a member of the editorial boards of a number of leading journals in mathematics and mechanics. Since 2010, he has been the editor-in-chief of the Kvant magazine.

Main areas of scientific research: general principles of dynamics, problem of integrability of equations of motion, variational methods of mechanics, theory of motion stability, rigid body dynamics, nonholonomic mechanics, impact theory, symmetries and integral invariants, mathematical problems of statistical mechanics, ergodic theory and mathematical physics. He solved a number of classical problems: the Poincaré problem on additional conservation laws for an asymmetric top and on the integral invariants of three-body problems, the Painlevé-Golubev problem on branching of solutions of dynamics equations in the complex time plane, for the first time gave a complete and rigorous proof of the theorem on instability of equilibria in a field with harmonic potential expressed by Earnshaw.

Works in the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for Science, Technology and Education.

Since 2010 - Member of the Advisory Scientific Council of the Skolkovo Foundation.

Recognition and awards

• State Prize of the Russian Federation (1994).
• Lenin Komsomol Prize (1977) - for a series of works on the study of methods of qualitative analysis in the dynamics of a rigid body
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" III (September 17, 2009) and IV degree (November 4, 2005).
• Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of education (2010) - for the innovative development "Creation of a new direction of higher professional education "Innovation", its scientific and educational support, experimental development and widespread introduction into practice of domestic universities."

Valery Kozlov was born on January 1, 1950 in the village of Kostyli, Ryazan Region. After school, he left for Moscow, where in 1972 he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University with a degree in Mechanics. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1978, receiving the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Since 1983, Kozlov has been a professor at Moscow State University. Since 1989, for nine years, he served as Vice-Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1999 he headed the Department of Mathematical Statistics and Stochastic Processes of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. Five years later he was appointed head of the Department of Differential Equations.

Valery Vasilievich in 2000 became an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since November 14, 2001 he has been the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2004, for twelve years he headed the Vladimir Steklov Mathematical Institute. At the same time, he works as the editor-in-chief of the journal Izvestiya RAS, Mathematical Series, and is a member of the editorial board of a number of leading journals in mathematics and mechanics. Since 2010, he has been the editor-in-chief of the Kvant magazine. During the same period, he joined the Advisory Scientific Council of the Skolkovo Foundation and the Council under the President of Russia for Science, Technology and Education.

Main areas of scientific research: general principles of dynamics, problem of integrability of equations of motion, variational methods of mechanics, theory of motion stability, rigid body dynamics, nonholonomic mechanics, impact theory, symmetries and integral invariants, mathematical problems of statistical mechanics.

Kozlov Valery also solved a number of classical problems: the Poincaré problem on additional conservation laws for an asymmetric top and on the integral invariants of three-body problems, the Painlevé-Golubev problem on the branching of solutions to the equations of dynamics in the complex time plane, for the first time gave a complete and rigorous proof of the theorem on instability of equilibria in a field with harmonic potential, expressed by Samuel Earnshaw.

He was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland II, III and IV degrees, the Order of Honor, the Sergei Chaplygin gold medal for a series of works on analytical mechanics and the theory of motion stability, and the Leonard Euler gold medal for a series of works on nonlinear Hamiltonian systems of differential equations.

On March 22, 2017, Valery Vasilievich Kozlov was appointed acting head of the Russian Academy of Sciences until the election of a new president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, postponed from spring to autumn, and was approved in this position from March 24, 2017 Order of the Government of Russia. He refused to nominate his candidacy for the post of President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

After Alexander Sergeev was elected President of the Russian Academy of Sciences on September 26, 2017, Valery Kozlov resigned, but remained a member of the Presidium: in two positions at once: as Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and as Academician-Secretary of the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin No. October 28, 2019 For his great contribution to the development of science and many years of conscientious work, Valery Vasilyevich Kozlov was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky.

Valery Kozlov's awards

Lenin Komsomol Prize (1977 ) - for a series of works on the study of methods of qualitative analysis in the dynamics of a rigid body

Mikhail Lomonosov Prize (1986 ) - for the cycle of works "Variational methods in classical mechanics"

State Prize of the Russian Federation (June 10, 1994) - for the cycle of works "Dynamics of complex mechanical systems"

Order of Honor ( December 22, 1999) - for services to the state, many years of conscientious work and a great contribution to strengthening friendship and cooperation between peoples

Prize named after S. V. Kovalevskaya (1999 ) - for the cycle of works "Tensor invariants of the equations of dynamics"

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th class (November 4, 2005) - for a great contribution to the development of domestic science

Leonhard Euler Gold Medal (2007 ) - for a series of papers on nonlinear Hamiltonian systems of differential equations

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd class (September 17, 2009) - for a great contribution to the development of domestic science in the field of mathematics and mechanics and the training of qualified scientific personnel

Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of education (2010 ) - for the innovative development "Creation of a new direction of higher professional education "Innovation", its scientific and educational support, experimental testing and widespread introduction into practice of domestic universities"

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree (August 14, 2014) - for a great contribution to the development of science, education, training of qualified specialists and many years of fruitful activity

Citizen of the Forts, why do you need property? Why do you academicians need state property? This is not your property. This is the property of the state. Yes, these are gigantic hectares in the center of the capital and not only... Why do you need them? You say: someone needs it for construction. What are you doing with her? You stupidly gave it up before. Did you let anyone in there and put the rent or what you agreed on from above into your pocket? That's why you had helipads, you lived a great life. For what? Did you invest money back into Russian science? Have you ensured the growth of such technologies for the state of Russia that everyone says: "Wow! That's what she has become!" Did they come to Russia from all over the world to be treated? Did people from all over the world begin to travel to Russia for training? Russia received a wild number of Nobel Prizes? How did you manage state property?

Mmm, can I...

The questions are here, I ask. No, I understand, Citizen of the Forts, if your children are suddenly Nobel Prize winners. It would be funny if they would suddenly. Or they would have a fantastic citation index. But it's not like that... having lost the fight for real estate to the state, you tried to launch a campaign in the press to discredit the reform. We realized that here you are not very good at it. And then, you decided to increase your administrative resource, expand the academy and recruit officials there) Did you think that if prosecutors, generals and all the others come to you, they will provide your fort with the necessary physical resources? That is, instead of doing science, you decided to engage in intrigue? Instead of purging your ranks, instead of stopping stealing government money, you decided to increase your positions in power) If you had an honor and a conscience as a citizen of the Forts... You are an elderly person, you are a physicist. You are not a Nobel Prize winner. No, absolutely. But you are probably a very good scientist - I don’t know, I don’t argue) You are just an extremely weak organizer. You decided to play intrigue. Under you, the Academy turned out to be a laughingstock, which it has not been for 300 years. Citizen of the Forts - Academy - whose is it? Yours? Well, let you have your own academy - private - Fortovo. But this is not the Sovereign Academy. Moreover, the Sovereign is not a leader in the Kremlin, the Sovereign is I. Not "the pseudo-state is mi", I am not repeating the famous phrase of the French king. The State is me, the representative of the Russian Peoples. What is our academy? No. This is an academy of obese citizens of this shit on the territory of the state and their children, who through their lips believe that they can spit in the face of the population without responding to its requests, being neither moral authorities nor anyone else. Did they show examples of the highest moral qualities? Are they fighting for Russian science? They stupidly fight for state property and their kids. For warm places and the ability to keep your fat asses in very comfortable chairs ....