Russian scientists rally to protest funding freeze
OCT 14, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025642
Science : Several hundred scientists and students, many dressed in lab coats, gathered in Moscow’s Pushkin Square on 13 October to protest procurement regulations and a funding freeze that they say are major obstacles to research. Russia’s granting system operates through the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and the Russian Foundation for Humanities (RFRH), and the Russian government has frozen the budgets for both at 2010 levels until 2014. Protesters want the government to go back to the old policy, which gave RFBR 6% of the overall budget for civilian science, and RFRH 1%. They also demanded an overhaul of public procurement legislation, which severely limits the amount of equipment and reagents researchers can purchase each month, and they called for the clarification of funding criteria.
© 2011 American Institute of Physics
