Marketing Science: Gains and losses

Problems of institutional reform, lack of means, arbitrary distribution of grants for research projects, conflict of interest, and even intrigue emerge as phenomena which, if they have not succeeded in thwarting scientific activity altogether, have left their mark on post-Soviet scientific production. This section focuses on the paraphernalia of academic life, addressing the more ‘tangible’, external factors, such as policy making and money, besides those scientific ‘trends’ of Western origin which have, undeniably, influenced current developments in research, education and the academic book market. Gennady Batygin and Larissa Kozlova are both sociologists at the Academy of Sciences, and engaged as teachers in other institutions as well. Gennady, who specialises in the methodology of sociology, is Professor at several universities; Larissa teaches as docent at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Moscow Academy of Architecture. Gennady heads a research team working on a history of social science and the intellectual community during the Soviet Regime. His approach combines oral history and extensive use of archive sources. In 1994, thanks to the backing of a George Soros ‘start up fund’, he launched the Journal of Sociology, and, despite recurrent financial difficulties since the initial funds were depleted, continues to edit the journal, which comes out two to three times a year. As a member of Gennady’s research team, Larissa’s contributions to the projects focuses primarily on the academic community active in the 1920s and 30s. She has written extensively on the elite ‘Red Professoriate’ Institute (founded in the early twenties to redesign the profile of social science, and of those destined to teach it). She also brings her background in philosophy to bear on related topics, such as the sociology of knowledge and the history of social science more generally. . The two essays here on grant support and the book market complement each other in their accounts of the shift from an academic system based on the distribution of status to one based on competition. Applying for grants is quite novel for Russians, requiring a special mindset which is alien to many who were brought up to believe in the inviolability of intellectual status. Now they have reason to doubt this as contemporary material insecurity compels them to develop new skills those of filling out grant application forms. It is, says Gennady Batygin, a special art (which he humorously likens to an ode, sonnet or madrigal) requiring considerable inventiveness, as well as an intuitive grasp of what he calls the ‘grant mode of life’. Separated from the larger post-soviet ‘social space’ and enclosed within an invisible border, this ‘grant mode of life’ has contaminated the academic mind. While some have developed ‘anti-bodies’ rejecting the insidious ploys required to win awards, others have mastered the art thoroughly, knowing when, where and how to differentiate between the ‘what’ of science and the ‘who’ behind it. The essay by Larissa Kozlova is based on a survey of Kniznoe Qbozrenie an index of current publications in most disciplines for the past ten years. Her findings highlight the shifting trends in the social science book market since the early nineties, but they also prompt reflection on the principle of ‘authorship’, and generally, the dynamics between author and reader.