THREE SCIENTIFIC CENTERS OF CHEMISTRY SECTOR DEMAND REVIEWING GOVERNMENTAL DECOSION ON CREATION OF SECTORAL SCIENTIFIC TECHNOLOGICAL CENTER

Noyan Tapan
Mar 22 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 22, NOYAN TAPAN. Directors of three institutes
subordinate to the RA National Academy of Sciences – the Institute
of Fine Organic Chemistry (IFOC), the Institute of Organic Chemistry
(IOC), and the Molecular Structure Research Institute (MSRI) – have
sent letters to the president and the prime minister of Armenia
with the request to review the October 12 governmental decision on
establishment of the Scientific Technological Center of Organic and
Pharmaceutical Chemistry. This was stated at the March 21 press
conference convened at the IFOC by the management of the above
mentioned scientific centers. According to Vigen Topuzian, acting
director of IFOC, the governmental decision was made without taking
into account the opinion of the staff of these institutes. He said
that after the decision, some well-founded proposals on review of
the decision have been sent to the government. It was noted that
formation of the center through unification of three scientific
centers is artificial: the fact these three institutes represent
different scientific directions was not taken into account. MSRI
director Harutyun Karapetian said that the creation of the center is
an initiative of the Presidency of the RA National Academy of Sciences
(NAS), which, however, is only an imitation of reforms in science. In
his words, during the March 13 extended sitting of the natural sciences
department of the RA NAS it became clear that the heads and members
of this department have no idea about the scientific directions and
administrative-economic structure of the new center, as well as about
criteria that a candidate for the post of the center director must
meet. According to the letter, taking all this into consideration,
at the joint sitting of scientific councils of the three institutes
a decision was made to recall the candidates nomunaited for the post
of director of the Scientific Technological Center of Organic and
Pharmaceutical Chemistry.