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Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation joined the discussion on creating a national system for evaluating the effectiveness of scientific research and development and proposed to make the process of conducting expertise in the Russian Scientific Foundation (RSF) more transparent.

On April 8, a round table was held at the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, which was attended by representatives of state authorities and leading research and educational centers of Russia. The topic of discussion was dedicated to the creation of a national system for evaluating the effectiveness of research and development. The discussion also touched upon the possible access termination of Russian scientists to the largest international databases of scientific articles – Scopus and Web of Science.

Sergey Gataullin, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology and Big Data Analysis for International Projects at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, supported the idea of creating a national indexing system for scientific materials. Mr Gataullin recalled that the already existing Russian database of leading journals Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) was created by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) together with Clarivate Analytics, the owner of the Web of Science database, which recently announced the closure of its office in Russia and the imminent access termination to the database for Russian scientific organizations and universities.

“Perhaps we should talk about developing a national indexing system for scientific materials, or better, for maintaining competition – by analogy with Scopus and Web of Science.” 

He compared the need to create such databases of scientific journals with the development of a national payment system, which made it possible to strengthen the financial sovereignty of the Russian Federation. According to Gataullin, state funding of publications in the form of Open Access should be limited to scientific journals that are in the top 10% in terms of citation.

In addition, Gataullin drew attention to the need of optimizing the examination when awarding grant funding through the Russian Science Foundation (RNF). According to him, this process is not transparent enough and does not allow research teams to plan activities effectively.

The round table was attended by Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov. He stressed the need for a comprehensive expert discussion of approaches to the creation of a national system for evaluating the effectiveness of scientific research and the importance of its development in close contact with representatives of the scientific community.

“The system should be fair for researchers engaged in both fundamental and applied science, for those who represent both social and humanitarian knowledge as well as specialists in technical and natural sciences. Within the framework of the existing system, which has been developing for many years, these issues have caused the greatest discussion, and disputes have been going on until the very last moment. I would like the new system to be fair and to meet national interests, while not isolating Russian science, but allowing Russian scientists to calmly exchange their ideas with colleagues from different countries,” said Valery Falkov, Minister of Science and Higher Education.

Falkov called for exploring the possibility of defining new metrics and criteria for evaluating scientific papers along with traditional indicators such as scientometry or patent activity.