REFORMS IN SCIENCE SHOULD BE CARRIED OUT WITH CAUTION
By Mher Ohanian

Yerkir/arm
September 09, 2005

Overcoming the extremely unfavorable situation in Armenia’s science
sector is something that could guarantee a competitive economy. Any
radical reforms in the sector that fail to take into account the
realities established during a long period would simply destroy the
scientific potential accumulated by generations of scientists.

Currently, there is a trend that the entire scientific system we have
inherited from the Soviet era does not correspond to national economy
interests and thus should be downsized.

There certainly is some truth in this but what matters more is that
the process should be carried out in open and transparent discussions
and the scientific community should be informed on the reforms being
implemented. Only then, situational solutions could be ruled out.

One of the key directions in the government’s science sector policy
is the optimization of how the allocated money is spent. Reforms in
the field of science require a “counting and registering” in that
area. Moreover, scientific products should also be ” counted and
registered.” In addition, an impartial test should be carried out to
find out their scientific “value.”

A chief issue in restructuring the science is the process of uniting
scientific substructures that had been operating separately.

In such a situation, the implementation of the principle of financing
the scientific themes is preferable at this period of time since
it allows — though temporarily — reproducing of the most vivid
scientific potential.

However, the implementation of the principle of financing scientific
themes has stirred the discontent of the science community because of
the arbitrary decisions taken in this sphere. The result is that many
institutes of the National Academy of Sciences face to be shut down.