The number of young scientists in Russia has decreased by 25% in 10 years

The number of scientists in Russia under the age of 30 has decreased by 25% over the past ten years. This was reported by the rector of the Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, writes The Moscow Times. The total number of scientists at the end of 2021 was minimal – 340 thousand.

In 2010, there were 71,000 scientists under 30 years of age in Russia, including 4,350 with a degree, and in 2021 there will be 53,000 of them, including 1,750 with a degree, Sadovnychy said at an extended meeting of the Russian Union of Rectors.

He added that now the stipend for post-graduate students of the federal university of humanitarian specialties is three thousand seven hundred rubles, for natural sciences – nine thousand rubles. “Naturally, a graduate student is faced with a choice: either go to work and study in graduate school formally, or look for ways to monetize their research, which are very limited,” Sadovnichy explained.

The total number of scientists at the end of 2021 reached a historical minimum of 340,000, according to data from the Higher School of Economics. Scientific staff in Russia has been decreasing since 2014. Over the past seven years, scientific workers have decreased by ten and a half percent, or by 76 thousand people.

• At the time of the collapse of the USSR, there were 992 thousand researchers in Russia, and the country was in first place in the world in terms of the number of scientific personnel. According to various estimates, between 400,000 and one million people could leave Russia during the war in Ukraine. Among them are many IT specialists, businessmen and scientists, notes the expert on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe Ivan Preobrazhenskyi.
• In Russia, the financing of science is also being reduced. In 2022, the government reduced the budget for scientific development by a record amount for 6 years – 57 billion 700 million rubles – to 569 billion.