“I am planning to quit. With a salary of 2,300 hryvnias ($92.50) a young man cannot survive in Kyiv,” says Pasha, a welder from one of the most famous Ukrainian science institutions, the Paton Electric Welding Institute. “I am thinking of leaving for another field of work. And it is not so much about money as about the lack of development. The regression.” This is not a unique case, although even in these circumstances most of the employees of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine do not leave scientific work of their own accord. Public funding cuts and a cap on pensions for working pensioners has caused the number of the Academy’s employees to fall by 2,830 people in 2015, including 94 doctors and 480 candidates[1]. 2016 has thrown scientists into another wave of “optimization,” which has led them into the streets to protest. [...]
In these circumstances, Ukrainian science is often accused of inefficiency and unwillingness to reform. The critics emphasize that before demanding money from the government, the scientists should change the system itself. Of course, nobody denies that internal problems exist. Researchers themselves complain about the Soviet hierarchy which academics and associate members have turned into a separate sacred caste with a special status and considerable (by academic rates) additional stipends — UAH 4000 ($160) for an associate member and UAH 7000 ($280) for an academic. For example, although science received UAH 700 million less in 2016, the NAS Presidium received UAH 8 million, which is more than last year. Every so often some politician receives an academic rank to “heat up” the low interest in science — let me remind you of “proffesor” Yanukovych. In addition, the number of research institutions, despite the constant research funding cuts, demonstrates an opposite tendency: this number increased from 90 to 169 between 1991 and 2011. [...]
Ukrainian science, which survived with great losses following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the period of primitive capital accumulation and systematic underfunding, yet which preserved its ability to produce scientific results, has turned out to be unprepared for the challenge of neoliberal reform with its total austerity. Although it is too early to mourn science yet, the situation already looks critical. So, instead of realizing the country’s “unique scientific potential,” what most probably awaits us in the global world system is a reputation as a provider of raw materials and cheap labour which our president is so proud of.
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