Реформа РАН: Экспертный анализ: Часть I. Реформа РАН: проект Минобрнауки

The theory of reforms usually assumes that a designer aims to increase public welfare under existing constraints. In practice, however, initiators of reforms quite often proceed from false premises, and pursue political and-or self-interested goals. In this paper, we analyze an example of such an initiative - the project of reform of the Russian Academy of Science, offered by The Ministry of Education and Science in June 2013. It is shown, that among the political motives which stimulated the appearance of the project, the main one was the intention to deprive the community of researchers of its organizational independence. This motive was supported by the erroneous thesis, according to which Russian Academy of Science is not capable to provide innovation-based development whereas for successful imitation of technologies, fundamental researches are ostensibly not necessary at all. The analysis shows the exigency of reforming the Russian system of preparation and realization of reforms.