Russian science: What the scientists say

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:ATTITUDES OF RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS TO FOREIGN SUPPORT
SOURCE. Iurevich and Tsapenko (as item 2), pp. 54-69 (chapter written together with I. Dezhina)

While only a small minority of Russian scientists receive support from abroad, (1) most have sought such support at one time or another. Almost every scientific collective, the authors remark, now has its "experts on foundations" who bombard potential foreign sponsors with appeals for money.

To explore the attitudes of Russian scientists to foreign support, the Central Institute for the Study of Public Opinion (TsIOM) surveyed 250 natural and social scientists from the main regional scientific centers, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Saratov, and Chelyabinsk. (2)

(a) Benefits and drawbacks of foreign support

"With regard to the general influence of foreign support on Russian science, moderately positive assessments predominate." Thus 13 percent of respondents consider foreign support of Russian science absolutely essential; two-thirds think it useful but not essential; and 13 percent regard it as humiliating or harmful.

In what ways does foreign support benefit Russian science and Russian scientists?

* In the view of 49 percent of respondents, foreign support increases the QUANTITY of scientific output.

* In the view of 35 percent of respondents, foreign support improves the QUALITY of scientific output.

* In the view of 52 percent of respondents, foreign support facilitates the creation of new scientific research programs.

* In the view of 62 percent of respondents, foreign support makes its recipients more independent of the directors of their institutes.

* In the view of 37 percent of respondents, foreign support revives the interest of Russian scientists in such traditional attributes of a scientific career as the publication of articles and monographs and the acquisition of academic degrees, inasmuch as these increase one's chance of getting a grant.

* In the view of 60 percent of respondents, grants from foreign foundations are a very substantial supplement to the income of Russian scientists (typically $100-200 per month). However, 65 percent of respondents note that grants are not large enough to cover trips abroad or the purchase of new equipment. They get "eaten up" by their recipients without changing the situation of Russian science as a whole. The system is "oriented toward growing vegetables not fruit trees."

* Many respondents also stress the moral dimension of foreign support, which makes the beneficiaries feel that they are a part of world science and that at least someone values their work.

The two most commonly mentioned negative effects of foreign support are:

* that -- in the opinion of 43 percent of respondents -- it undermines good relations among scientists by sowing divisions between the envied recipients of grants and their less fortunate colleagues, and

* that the hunt for grants takes up a large part of scientists' time, distracting them from their research.

The authors note some differences in the attitudes expressed by various categories of respondents:

* Men tend to be more skeptical about the benefits of foreign support than women are.

* Older and senior scientists, especially institute directors, tend to be more skeptical than their junior colleagues.

* Natural scientists, who are unable even with foreign support to buy the equipment they need, feel that social scientists receive a disproportionate share of the available funds.

* Contrary to expectations, no significant difference was found between the views of scientists who received foreign support and the views of scientists who did not.

(b) Attitudes to different forms of foreign support

The basic form of foreign support is the award of individual (or less often collective) grants on a competitive basis. Most respondents -- 86 percent -- approve of this practice. But a number of criticisms were also frequently voiced:

* Some grants should be awarded on the basis of nomination.

* More joint research projects with foreign collaborators should be funded.

* Some areas of science that are seen as politically relevant get disproportionate support at the expense of other less politicized but no less important areas.

* More support should be given to new scientific directions and open-ended exploratory research.

(c) Motives attributed to foreign sponsors

Only 12 percent attribute purely altruistic motives to foreign sponsors, seeing them as "Santa Claus," while 40 percent believe they "are trying to buy up our ideas on the cheap" and 14 percent suggest that their goal is to protect Western scientists from competition by stemming the emigration of Russian scientists. Only a few attribute to foreign sponsors the motive of preventing Russian scientists from working for "rogue states" like Iran and Iraq or long-term strategic motives like turning Russia into a "civilized neighbor" of the West.

16 percent suspect that Western secret services may be involved in foreign funding of Russian science, but they do not regard this as such a terrible thing. Some argue that the West has an interest not in undermining but in stabilizing the Russian state.

(d) Perceptions of foreign foundations

Although most Russian scientists are interested in obtaining foreign support for their work, they are poorly informed about foreign foundations. Few respondents were able to name more than two or three foreign foundations. (3) By far the best known and most highly regarded is the Soros Foundation, which is mentioned by 83 percent of respondents. The Ford and MacArthur Foundations are quite widely known. German and other non-American foreign foundations are rarely mentioned.

Only 35 percent of respondents think that they have an adequate understanding of the mechanism by which grants are allocated; 54 percent say they have a vague idea, and 7 percent admit that they have no idea whatsoever. Many confess that they find the allocation of grants by the MacArthur Foundation in particular "a complete enigma." This ignorance, the authors comment, is "fertile ground for the circulation of all sorts of rumors and the attribution to foreign foundations of dubious aims."

What, in the opinion of respondents, are the main factors influencing a scientist's chances of obtaining a grant?

* the personal connections of applicants (68 percent)

* their skill in writing applications (55 percent)

* their objective scientific achievements (29 percent)

* their formal status, i.e. post occupied and academic degree (27 percent)

* their informal authority (22 percent)

The majority of respondents see the process by which grants are awarded as subjective, chaotic, and corrupt. Here are some typical statements:

-- "The main thing here is the administrative apparatus of distribution, which keeps part of the money for itself."

-- "This sphere is quite corrupt."

-- "Our grant bureaucrats have concentrated in their hands power that Soviet bureaucrats never dreamed of."

-- "I do not exactly know this mechanism, but I have the a priori opinion that it's a mafia grouping."

Resentment is directed especially at the many employees of foreign foundations who are Russian emigres or people from specific politicized institutions such as the Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada. Respondents say that the emigres left Russia a long time ago and have a poor knowledge of the contemporary state of Russian science.

Thus the appreciation that respondents feel for the support offered by foreign foundations is marred by their acute dissatisfaction with the way that the foundations operate.

NOTES

(1) The authors' estimate is 4 percent, but it is not clear whether this refers to all those who have ever received foreign support or to those receiving such support at a particular moment in time. "Scientist" is used in the broad sense of the Russian "uchenyi" to include not only natural and social scientists but also scholars in the humanities.

(2) Of the 250, 200 completed questionnaires while 50 were interviewed in depth. The time of the survey is not specified, but appears to have been some time in the early 1990s.

(3) Curiously, some respondents thought that purely Russian foundations such as the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research were foreign foundations. Perhaps they were not aware that Russian foundations actually exist.

Kids' $100 Laptop Jumps in Price to $188

The famous laptop project by the OLPC project will now cost $188 instead of $100. The One Laptop Per Child project has been plagued with problems for some time now. The price has nearly been doubled by the not-for-profit organization to cover losses and fill a void with the inability to book orders.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has raised the price of its XO laptop to US$188, according to an Associated Press report.

OLPC spokesman George Snell confirmed the price change on Friday, the AP report said. Snell blamed the price hike on "currency fluctuations" and the rising cost of raw materials like nickel and silicon.

OLPC executives in the U.S. were not immediately available for comment. Previously, OLPC said the XO would cost $176.

The reported price hike comes at a critical juncture for OLPC. The XO laptop has gone through four prototype stages, and the design has been locked down for weeks. In August, Quanta Computer Inc. completed a manufacturing run of 300 units to test the production process -- the final step before mass production of the XO begins later this month or in early October.

OLPC customers are counting on a low-cost laptop, and it was not immediately clear what, if any, impact the latest price hike will have on orders for the XO.

OLPC laptop gets minor delay along with price bump
Rumors that the XO laptop still has some refinement in terms of both pricing and configuration were confirmed late last week. A spokesperson for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project told the AP on Friday that the price of the XO laptop has risen to $188 per unit and that the project faces product delays. The cost increase of approximately $12 may not seem like much, but given that initial orders from governments must amount to at least 100,000 units, it all adds up quickly.

The OLPC project designed the XO laptop to be used by students in developing countries. The non-profit organization will sell the laptops to foreign governments to distribute to children through schools. Although the systems were originally intended to sell for $100 each, the price has steadily climbed as a result of additional features and unexpected costs.

The XO laptops, which are being manufactured by Quanta in Taiwan, include innovative hardware features like a dual-mode LCD screen, a pull-string charger, a wide touchpad, and a unique wireless mesh network system. The XO's Linux-based operating system also includes innovative features including a highly unusual user interface.

The OLPC Project now faces competition from Intel's Classmate PC and a new laptop developed by Asus called the Eee PC that is scheduled for release this month.

The OLPC Project reportedly faces delays as well, but the severity of those delays isn't apparent yet. In the latest OLPC community newsletter, which was written last week, OLPC president Walter Bender says "there were Sugar, network, and security reviews this week resulting in the reporting of some new bugs and future features. One outcome was the identification of some last-minute features, so we will not be ready for code freeze on Monday—we are probably off by about a week. Next week, we will have a major push to get all remaining blocking bugs addressed."

Although the XO laptop has fallen short of initial expectations and far exceeded the original anticipated price of $100, the project is still heading towards a strong launch with a product that has lots of potential. The project is still confident that it can reach $100 per unit (if not below) over the next year or two with scale, but achieving that scale is going to be hard in the face of price increases.

adding time to the school day in order to focus on reading and math

Almost half the nation’s school districts have significantly decreased the daily class time spent on subjects like science, art and history as a result of the federal No Child Left Behind law’s focus on annual tests in reading and math, according to a new report released yesterday.
The report, by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington group that studies the law’s implementation in school districts nationwide, said that about 44 percent of districts have cut time from one or more subjects or activities in elementary schools to extend time for longer daily math and reading lessons. Among the subjects or activities getting less attention since the law took effect in 2002 are science, social studies, art and music, gym, lunch and recess, the report said.
The report, based on a survey of nearly 350 of the nation’s 15,000 districts, said 62 percent of school districts had increased daily class time in reading and math since the law took effect.
Within a year of the law’s implementation, teachers and their associations were reporting that schools and districts were suggesting or requiring that they spend more time on reading and math to improve test scores, and that they cut back time spent on other disciplines.
The narrowing of the nation’s elementary school curriculum has been significant, according to the report, but may not be affecting as many schools as previously thought.
A report that the center issued in March 2006, based on a similar survey, gave one of the first measures of the extent of the narrowing trend. It said 71 percent of districts had reduced elementary school instruction in at least one other subject to make more time for reading and mathematics. That finding attracted considerable attention, with many groups opposed to the law decrying the trend.
The law’s backers, including Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, argued that the intensification of English and math instruction made good sense on its own because, they said, students who could not read or calculate with fluency would flounder in other subjects, too.
The center’s new report raises the question of how to explain the considerable discrepancy between last year’s finding, that 71 percent of districts had reduced instructional time in subjects other than math and reading, and this year’s, which gives the number as 44 percent.
Jack Jennings, the center’s president, said in an interview that the discrepancy was a result of a change in the wording of the questionnaire. Last year’s survey asked districts to say whether they had reduced instructional time in subjects other than reading and math “to a great extent,” “somewhat,” “minimally” or “not at all.” Districts that reported even minimally reduced instructional time on other subjects were included in the 71 percent, along with districts that carried out more substantial changes, Mr. Jennings said.
This year, the center listed English/language arts and math as well as social studies, art and music, science and other subjects on the survey, and asked districts whether class time in each had increased, stayed the same or decreased since the law’s enactment. In a second column, the survey asked districts to indicate the number of minutes by which instructional time had increased or decreased.
Districts that made only small reductions this year, 10 minutes a day or less, in the time devoted to courses other than reading or math, may have chosen to report that instructional time had remained the same, Mr. Jennings said. On last year’s survey, the same districts may instead have acknowledged reducing the time, while characterizing the reduction as minimal, he said.
According to the new survey, the average change in instructional time in elementary schools since the law’s enactment has been 140 additional minutes per week for reading, 87 additional minutes per week for math, 76 fewer minutes per week for social studies, 75 fewer minutes for science, 57 fewer minutes for art and 40 fewer minutes for gym.
In a statement, Secretary Spellings said the report’s scope was “too limited to draw broad conclusions.”
“In fact,” she said, “there is much evidence that shows schools are adding time to the school day in order to focus on reading and math, not cutting time from other subjects.”