Putin wants control of Russian scientists

By Nick Holdsworth in Moscow, Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 12:43am BST 07/05/2007

Russia's ageing but revered scientific geniuses are on a collision course with Vladimir Putin after the 1,200-member Academy of Sciences rejected Kremlin proposals to end its unique independence from state control.

Since it was founded by Tsar Peter I in 1724, the Academy has enjoyed immunity from government interference. Freedom to think and work unfettered has enabled 17 of its alumni since 1904 to win science's highest plaudit, the Nobel prize. Of those, 14 have been within the past 50 years and the most recent, Vitaly Ginzburg and Alexei Abrikosov, shared the prize for physics in 2003.

Now, however, its autonomy is threatened by a proposed new charter which would give the government control of its management, funding and multi-billion pound property holdings.

Kremlin officials claim the institution needs dragging into the modern world to harness its members' brainpower for lucrative scientific patents and commerce. But critics fear it will fall victim to Mr Putin's appetite for control and his distrust of free-thinking institutions.

Prof Vitaly Ginzburg, who is 90 yet still academically active, said Mr Putin's Russia was worse than Stalin's Soviet Union. "Of course, in Stalin's times the Academy was under the control of the central committee of the Communist Party," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"But in those days you could come up with an idea and create - that's how we put the first Sputnik satellite into space. Now the government thinks science must bring only income and profit, which is absurd."

He added: "Of course it is about Putin. Our democracy is far from ideal."

The Kremlin tried last year to gain political leverage, but its officials failed to gain election to the academy. Some were said be so ignorant they could not explain the law of gravity. Critics say the Kremlin then deployed its Ministry of Education and Science to take control when the Academy's Soviet-era charter came up for revision. It proposed a new supervisory council, stuffed with Kremlin place men from the Russian Parliament, and to take control of the academy's finances and vast property holdings.

The Academy receives £870 million in federal grants, owns about 400 affiliated institutes and employs around 200,000 people across Russia. Prof Valery Kozlov, 57, its vice-president, said: "This is simply an attempt to seize control of our finances and property."

A full meeting of academy members voted last month almost unanimously in favour of a charter which would preserve its autonomy.

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