Tatarstan loses scientists
Russian Science Day was celebrated on 8 February. The date is linked with the foundation of the Russian Academy of Sciences that appeared according to the first Emperor Peter the Great’s order in 1724. First President of contemporary Russia Boris Yeltsin founded Russian Science Day in 1999, 275 years after this landmark. Realnoe Vremya explains how the scientific community lives in Tatarstan during this Decade of Science and Technologies and how it changed from 2017 to 2021.
Decrease started after 2018
Special attention is paid to the development and popularisation of Russian science today because it is of paramount importance to provide Russia’s technological sovereignty and security amid the Western aggression with sanctions. Staff potential is one of the key moments.
As Realnoe Vremya found out examining the official statistics, the number of both candidates and doctors of science has decreased in Tatarstan since 2017. The Tatarstan Statistics Service doesn’t provide the reasons for such dynamics, an outflow of scientists from the republic or simply less interest in scientific activity.
The number of doctors of science in the republic decreased by 52 people in the republic’s scientific organisations. If there were 362 in 2017, in 2021, the number was 310. During this period, their quantity increased only once — in 2018 (364 people). After that, there was a sudden fall — doctors of sciences in Tatarstan reduced by 36 people over the year. A year later, the republic lost another 27 people.
The situation is same with candidates of sciences. From 2017 to 2021, their number rose only once — from 1,527 in 2017 to 1,622 in 2018.
Afterwards, there was seen a falling tendency. For instance, there were 1,473 people in 2019, a year later, there were 149 candidates of scientists less in Tatarstan. In 2020, their quantity dropped by 120 people, by 36 in 2021, to 1,317.
The statistics don’t include the data for 2022.
Tatarstan leads in number of organisations doing research and making developments
At the same time, the number of workers doing research and making developments rose in Tatarstan In 2021, there were 12,871, which is 548 people more than in 2017. The biggest number of such employees in the republic worked in 2019 — 13,200.
This can be related to a bigger amount of organisations doing research and making developments in the republic. In 2021, there were 127, which is 13 more than in 2017. So one organisation in Tatarstan had 101 researches on average.
It is noteworthy that the biggest number of organisations engaged in research and developments in Tatarstan was in 2019 — 129. At that moment, one institution had 102 researchers on average.
Bashkiria is last in the top 3 in the Volga Federal District. As of 2021, it had 76 research and develompent organisations, which is almost 1,7 times less than in Tatarstan.
In number of organisations doing research and making developments, Tatarstan leads in the Volga Federal District. The republic has 33 more people than in Nizhny Novgorod, which is second.
The smallest number of scientific organisations where research is done and developments are made is concentrated in Mari El — 7. It is three times less than in Mordovia, which is penultimate in their number in the Volga Federal District — 22.