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FIVE CHRONIC PROBLEMS OF KAZAKHSTANI SCIENCE Abay Myrzakhmetov Kokshetau University, Kokshetau, Kazakhstan
scientific journal of the modern education & research institute fiVe chronic ProBlems of KaZaKhstani science
Saiken aisin (saiken2009@mail.ru)
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abay Myrzakhmetov Kokshetau university, Kokshetau, Kazakhstan
abstract
The article highlights five problems of Kazakhstan science: the problem of rejuvenation of Kazakhstani science; unreasonably high load on scientists; lack of quality management in Kazakhstan science; problems of the commercialization of science. The author claims that if the state does not solve these problems now, then negative consequences should be expected in the future.
Keywords: science, foreign publications, commercialization of science, scientist.
According to state statistics in 2017 about 386 organizations were engaged in research and development in Kazakhstan. The total number of employees who carried out research and development reached 22,081 people (of which 17,205 were research specialists) [1]. Thus, in terms of the number of research scientists who are directly involved in scientific research, our country lags far behind most of the leading countries of the world and this gap continues growing steadily. In 2017 alone compared to 2016 the number of workers in research institutions decreased by 904 people, including researchers by 206 people. For example, Belgium and the Netherlands, the population of which is comparable to Kazakhstan, have far more researchers than our country.
There are only 22,000 scientists per 18 million citizens of Kazakhstan. For comparison, the number of police officers, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, reaches almost 90 thousand people [2], and there are about 39 thousand soldiers and officers [3]. Looking at such statistics, one involuntarily recalls the famous caricature of the Soviet artist Julia Ganfa, which was published in 1954 in the Krokodil magazine (see Figure 1).
In 2019, the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan assigned conducting legal monitoring of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On Science». In addition to the bylaws, media materials were analyzed, including researchers’ emotional reports regarding the deplorable state of science in Kazakhstan. The analysis helped to identify five chronic problems of domestic science: 1 – the problem of rejuvenation of Kazakhstani science; 2 – unreasonably high workload on scientists; 3 – senseless pursuit of foreign publications; 4 – lack of quality management; 5 – research commercialization problems.
In the field of science, over the past 10 years, the number of scientific publications has decreased by 40%, foreign internships by 26%, and the average salary of a scientist has become much lower in comparison with the salaries of workers in other professions. But the most alarming thing is that the number of research personnel during this period decreased by 8% and this figure continues growing steadily, thereby facilitating the high aging process of research personnel. Thus, the average age of an employee with a research degree is 57 years old, a chief research officer is 65 years old, leading and senior research workers are 54 years old, and the younger ones are 30 years old. More than 15% of employees have reached retirement age [4].
The sociological research on the topic «Status and problems of Kazakhstani science: an outward glance» conducted by the order of the National Center for Scientific and Technical Information of the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan confirms the aging of the country’s research staff, especially in the first crisis decades of the post-Soviet period. The sociological survey also determined the following average statistical ages: 56 years old – Doctor of Sciences; 46 years old – candidate of sciences; 39 years old – employees without academic degrees [5].
Experts emphasize that the share of scientists, namely candidates of sciences in the age group of 50-60 years old continues to increase steadily, while the share of the most efficient age group of 30-40 years old is decreasing.
Regarding this problem, the world-famous biologist Ken Alibek believes that the lack of researchers is caused mainly by the brain drain from the country. And as a way out of this situation, he insists that the state should increase funding for training of young researchers, raise their status and, finally, under the Bolashak program, focus on most needed and relevant specialties. He believes that without these actions, it will be practically impossible to retain valuable professionals, raise the bar of the scientific school or win the competition with developed countries [6].
ii. unreaSonaBly hiGh worKload on ScientiStS
According to the sociological report 60% of researchers in universities in Kazakhstan combine research with academic teaching. And what is important, about a quarter of university teachers work part-time in research institutions. At the same time, more than half of the surveyed teachers take part in research projects only within the state order, which serves as a disguise for the absence of real research work. Thus, majority of respondents are still far from mastering new tool for stimulating research activity. Only less than 9% of those surveyed had grants, and half of them were from the Ministry of Education and Science. Only 11.6% of the respondents tried to find additional sources of funding, and about 40% of this number limited themselves to searching for information disseminated within a university or research institute [5].
According to Doctor of Engineering Science M.F. Urkumbaev, a university employee with an academic degree can barely be called a researcher. This is, first of all, a lecturer and teacher, who is forced to do academic and other administrative work not related to research. A researcher from a university, or, to be more precise, a teacher with a research degree, uses his annual leave time, days off, and night-time for doing research. But even if the teacher finds this time for research, the success is not guaranteed, because there is
no proper infrastructure in place. Therefore, a university researcher, even a highly qualified one, as a rule, continues old practices.
Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor Aliyarov E. in his article «Problems and Prospects of Political Science in Kazakhstan» notes that today anyone can get bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but there is no opportunity for those who want to continue doing research and academic studies to obtain Doctor’s degree. Since any competitive selection is quite subjective, not everyone who wishes, or even those who are worthy, have an opportunity to pass the selection. Therefore, many promising young people leave abroad to get PhD degrees, and some of them, to the detriment of their own country, remain there and continue working successfully [7].
iii. a SenSeleSS PurSuit of foreiGn PuBlicationS
Since the adoption of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On Science» in assessing the results of scientific achievements, and in all branches of science, the demand for the use of quantitative identifiers, namely the impact factor and the citation index, has increased. It seems not entirely correct to make the data absolute and be based only on them. And this point of view is shared by some Russian scientists.
In particular, E. Aliyarov asks the question: if we all «rush» to write to for foreign publications, will domestic research publications develop? perhaps we need to strengthen our academic periodicals more effectively. We should not consider the assessment based on the number of articles with an impact factor as the only and universal indicator of a researcher’s competence [7].
Thus, a scientist-lawyer, a leading specialist in constitutional law M.T. Gabdualiev disagrees with the fact that foreign research publications are placed above domestic periodicals, and argues that some research areas (for example, history, linguistics and music) specific to Kazakhstan may not be of interest to European and Western publications. however, all scientists in kazakhstan are forced to publish works in foreign journals under the slogan of integrating domestic science into the global scientific environment [8].
iV. lacK of quality ManaGeMent
The authoritative publication Forbes Kazakhstan referring to experts, reports that in the field of public administration of science, and among scientists there is no single view on the further development of science in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, many have already agreed with the catching-up nature of domestic science and with the fact that from year to year weak research projects continue to be financed, while the promising projects remain unnoticed by the state institutions. At the same time, we keep saying that we are self-sufficient, that the opinion of leading foreign researchers is not important for us, that we are unbiased and impartial in assessing our research potential [9].
The doctor of technical sciences M. Urkumbaev says: «I do not exclude that all reforms of the education ministry in recent years were based on sincere intentions of the authorities to introduce something new into the existing state of education and science. Unfortunately, all this was done without evaluations of academicians or researchers, extensive discussions with experts and thoughtful analysis of the possible consequences.
Few scientists have preserved the foundations of research over the years, but they might give up when the next education minister starts declaring that the country does not need scientists and invites other researchers from abroad. But a decent researcher will not come to the country that destroys its own research capital – the national Academy. Only «Western swindler» will appear for a salary that is 50-100 times higher than ours, and the country becomes dependent on foreign technologies» [10].
Researcher at the Research Institute of History and Ethnology named after V.I. Sh. Ualikhanova Nurlan Zhetpisbai notes with sadness that there is practically no science in the country’s higher educational institutions, since academicians and teachers, instead of doing research, are forced to spend their valuable time on submitting all kinds of reports. The excessive red-tape forces academicians to engage in short-term projects and does not provide an opportunity to engage in long-term and promising research. This, in turn, aggravates the development of Kazakhstani research, which today is on its way to its decline. Our science, says
Nurlan, resembles our huge country – looks like a huge ship, speckled with poisonous arrows of corruption, which is slowly but surely going to the bottom [11].
The president of JSC «National Center for State Scientific and Technical Expertise», honoured public figure of Kazakhstan Adil Ibraev, talking about corruption in the academic environment and research councils, believes that the problem lies in government officials, who try to manage science without understanding of its functioning and the processes of cognition. The officials consider research as a kind of business project that should bring immediate revenues and apply standard business processes that are good for business projects, but destructive for research activities.
It should be noted that some countries have successfully developed research without large and clumsy bureaucratic organizations. For example, the United States has no ministry of science, however this country is a global leader in research. Instead of an entire ministry, the United States have allocated a small department of research and technical policy at the presidential structure, and funding is provided by some federal departments.
V. reSearch coMMercialiZation ProBleMS
kazakhstan has the lowest rates of commercialization in science. When compared with developed countries, there is a huge gap between research and design developments and their application in industrial production. According to domestic experts, the biggest problem of science in Kazakhstan is not a low level of funding, but lack of demand for research at domestic factories and plants. This point of view is confirmed by the fact that companies with foreign participation and private ownership have more research activities, 5% and 3.7% accordingly, while state-owned companies have only 0.6%.
Today in the country we have a very small share in the R&D sector of design and construction organizations: on average, there is one design organization per nine research structures. Moreover, the share of specialists makes about 5% of the total number of workers performing R&D, or 0.1% of the personnel of the industrial and production complex in the country.
Considering the above problematic issues, it can be stated that there are no serious remarks to the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On Science» itself, all issues in most cases rely on insufficient funding and inept management of processes. As noted by the deputy of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Smirnova I.V. the law should simply be followed and then everything will fall into place [12]. However, every year we see how people try to interpret the law to their favour in order to bypass its provisions. Widespread violations of the Law are observed when appointing members of research councils, which, in turn, violate the rules for selecting scientific applications and try to lobby for «relevant» projects for state funding. Some of such cases have already been inspected by law enforcement officials, which, by the way, were initiated by the researchers themselves, and not by officials from the ministry.
Concern is also caused by the fact that the Ministry of Education has come under the strong influence of foreign ideas, which in our kazakhstani reality work the other way around. What works well abroad for the interests of the whole society, in our country it creates the conditions leading to the corruption and abuse of power by certain officials. It is worth noting that while introducing a new idea, foreign experience is undoubtedly necessary. However, it should facilitate the creation of own adapted model not a foreign copy, otherwise foreign innovations might lead to disastrous consequences.
In conclusion, I would like to express the hope that the state will nevertheless pay attention to the problems of the national researchers, as it is done in all developed countries, and the sooner the better. It is no secret that today some scientific developments of Kazakhstani researchers, which are not in demand in our own country, benefit the economies of other countries. Many young scientists are ready to implement their ideas and work for research institutes in neighbouring countries. This should be prevented, because lagging behind at least one year in the research field entails long-term negative economic consequences. However, I would like to hope that effective vaccines will yet be developed in Kazakhstan to combat «chronic» problems in domestic science.
references
1. National Science Report. – Astana; Almaty, 2018 .– 118 p . 2. The media calculated the number of police in Kazakhstan https://factum.kz/2019/80554/ 3. What does the army of kazakhstan look like against the armed forces of other countries http:// today.kz/news/kazahstan/2018-11-13/771965-kak-vyiglyadit-armiya-kazahstana-na-fone-vooruzhennyih-sil-drugih-stran/ 4. Modernization and development of agricultural science http:// abkaz.kz/ modernizaciya-i– razvitie-agrarnoj-nauki/ 5. «State and problems of Kazakhstani science: an inside look» report of the results of a sociological study commissioned by the National Center for Scientific and Technical Information with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan http://www.bisam.kz/ ru/reports-and-publications/otcheti / 6. A science that is not in Kazakhstan: who will answer if Nurlyzhol fails https://aqparat. info/news/ 2018/03 /03/8760232 -nauka_kotoroi_ net_v_kazahstane _kto_otvet.html March 03, 2018 7. Aliyarov E. Problems and prospects of political science in Kazakhstan http://sarap.kz/ken. php?query=kz 8. Kazakhstan Science: pending a breakthrough https://forbes.kz/ process/science/ nauka_ kazahstana_v_ojidanii_proryiva/ August 10, 2018 9. Amanov S. «Curiosity in Kazakhstani science has faded into the background» https://yorick.kz/ serzhan-amanov-nauka-kazahstana-pochemu-po-moemu-mneniyu-ne-vse-horosho/15.09.2016 10. Ibraev A. Direct speech on the collapse of the science of Kazakhstan nomad.su https://vrk.news/ news/i458 10/21/2016 11. Ibraev A. About corruption in the scientific community and about the work of scientific councils https://www.ncste.kz/ru/nauka-na-poroge-novyix-vyizovov.-chem-otvechat-budem 12. kazakhstan’s anti-record science: why are scientists published in fake magazines? Source: www. kt.kz https://www.kt.kz/eng/society/ antirekord _nauki_ kazahstana_ pochemu_uchenie_ publikujutsja_v_ fejkovih_ zhurnalah_ 1153662797. html.
