Academy reform to be done in 3 years, no dismissals planned – Duma committee head

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 4, 2013) Transformations in the Russian Academy of Sciences will be evolutionary and take three years. Corresponding members may become academicians in that period, the Academy administration will be abolished, and the Academy’s Agency for Scientific Institutes will manage Academy property and research centers.

“There will be no haste; transformations will begin unhurriedly, one or two years from now. There will be no dismissals,” State Duma Science and High Technologies Committee Chairman Valery Chereshnev said at a Committee meeting on Thursday.

The presidential amendments to the reform bill preserve the old legal structure of the Academy. There will be no Academy administration, and the Academy Agency for Scientific Institutes will manage institutes and assets, he said.

All corresponding members may be elected academicians within three years.

The Academy President will be in charge of the Agency for the three-year transitional period.

The Academy Presidium will nominate three candidates for the position of an institute director to the Presidential Science and Education Council and the Council will choose one for the president’s approval.

The Academy reform will be based not only on the new law but also on presidential ordinances, Chereshnev said.

“Unification of the academies (the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences) will be slow and none of their units deployed either in France or in America will be liquidated,” he said.

The academies will remain legal entities independently dealing with their areas, medicine or agriculture. The unification process will be supported “not just with laws but with presidential decrees,” the deputy said.