On the improvement of scientific work in higher military education establishments.

Reforming the Armed Forces and of the system of military professional education as part of the Federal program "Reforming Military Education System in the Russian Federation till the Year 2010" envisages further improvement of scientific work. This problem is filled with new content in light of the new requirements stipulated by inclusion of military academies and universities in the regular attestation procedure. In the article in question, the authors make an attempt to attract readers' attention to some essential problem questions of "college and university science" development in the context of attestation requirements.

Relating to such questions is certain discrepancy between the targeted assignment and the object-matter of the procedure for licensing, attestation and state accreditation of institutes and universities. As part of the procedure in question, also subject to analysis is the capacity of the higher educational institution to address scientific work objectives on the adequate level. The aggregate parameters, which are analyzed both by self-inspection, and during the work of the outside commission, characterize the real situation in the scientific activity of the higher educational institution, its competitiveness as potential contractor of work related to scientific and technological output achieved on the contractual (obligation) basis. Moreover, one of the parameters assessed--the volume of research work implemented at the expense of external finance--merely compels institutes and universities to look for such contracts.

It will be observed that this requirement is sound and important given the permanently insufficient budget financing of higher military education establishments and the unsatisfactory material position of their teaching staff. At the same time, the currently realized ideology of licensing, attestation and state accreditation of higher educational institutions envisages the analysis of the scientific element in their activity solely in terms of providing quality education. This assertion is justified by the fact that following the comprehensive examination of the higher educational institution, it is granted the license only to educational activity. Whereas to participate in the tenders for placement of orders for scientific research and development work (R & D) for state needs, the institutes and universities, like all other aspirants, are obliged to have a license to implement such work. Thus, apart from being subject to mandatory periodic licensing, attestation and state accreditation under "auspices" of the Ministry of Education and Science, institutes and universities, including higher military education establishments, are obliged, into the bargain, to seek single-handed the license for conducting scientific activity and to expend additional efforts and resources for this sake.

The absurdity of this situation is so self-evident that it does not require any additional clarifications. One thing is worth noting: similar practice is not conducive to developing paid activity in the field of education in higher military education establishments. Moreover, it provokes brain drain from colleges and universities to all kinds of phony agencies, which got a handle on obtaining and leasing out legal person's attributes and relevant licenses. It is not difficult to guess to what extent it is pernicious for retaining institute and university scientific potential, for building up and effective use of state-owned results of intellectual activity, for protecting the information classified as state secret against unauthorized disclosure.

In this connection, it is deemed necessary to put forward the question about documentary execution of the right (and obligation) of higher military education establishments to participate in the R & D work for state needs following the successful licensing, attestation and state accreditation procedure. The currently applied system of parameters of complex examination, evidently, will have to be reviewed. The mechanisms for realization of this right (incidentally, which is envisaged in the Charter of the higher educational institution) can be different. For instance, the extension of the traditionally issued license also to the area of scientific activity, the issue, in addition to traditional license, of the license for scientific activity (naturally, in the relevant branches of science); exemption of positively attested military academies and universities as education establishments from the duty for additional licensing of scientific activity (by definition).

Related to the above question is the second question concerning the measurement of scientific work. Those, who really have to address organizational issues related to this problem, have long ago arrived at the conclusion about conceptual impossibility of the establishment of absolutely correct quantitative norms (as well as evaluations) of intellectual activity. Nevertheless, this aspect of rate fixing retains it topicality at least because it is necessary to learn how to determine the marginal scope of scientific tasks both for higher educational institution, the research organization, as well as for their educational-and-scientific subdivisions and for individual contractors. Without sufficiently precise definition of the marginal scope, we would henceforth face either the ineffective use of available scientific potential, or low quality implementation of assigned investigations by scientific and engineering personnel due to its excessive workload. In our view, the universal scientific work rate setting system will enable to establish, in a more sound way, the cost of the ordered R & D work.

It is evident that expenditure rates for scientific work, first, must be estimated; second, they must cover the maximum scope of different versions of tasks to be implemented; third, apparently they will not yield themselves to be reduced to temporal measurement only, which was done in most cases up to now. The more precise definition of requisite labor costs will call for reckoning with constraints in terms of scientific qualification either of the available contractors, or of the contractors engaged for specific tasks. In this connection, it will be observed that the estimated norms for scientific work, which are recommended by the current documents for planning of the teaching staff load in the higher education establishment (2005 RF MOD Order No. 319) only encompasses the scope of tasks, which are implemented by teachers as part of scientific investigations in the educational area. While in practical work, the scope of scientific investigations of higher educational institutions, and especially of their scientific subdivisions, is much wider.

Presumably, in each organization of the Armed Forces military science complex, including Peter the Great Strategic Missile Forces Military Academy, there are own approaches to substantiated ratings of scientific activity. The problem is to colligate the experience, and the main thing is to establish, on its basis, "the rules of the game," which would be uniform for all.

The third question, which the authors considered necessary to dwell on, is coordination of requirements specified for military education establishments with regard to scientific work in the event of examinations held in the line of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Education and Science.

Note that there are no principled discrepancies between the parameters make-up and their criterial values, which are used for attestation, on the one hand, and the parameters and estimation criteria used for inspection of the higher education establishment (2000 RF MOD Order No. 277), on the other. At the same time, the Instruction introduced by this Order needs amending, as it does not fully conform the documents of Russia's Ministry of Education and Science. This unconformity would never be raised to the tank of problem issues, save for the following detail: the question is that both documents include the requirement about the participation of higher educational institutions (more properly, of each of the subdivisions subject to evaluation) in fundamental research. What meaning does this concept bear in this particular case? If this is the meaning, which is envisaged in the Federal law on science and the scientific and technological policy of the state (1996), then such requirement is impossible of achievement at least in respect of part of the subdivisions of higher educational institutions. The point is that the Law attributes to fundamental research "... experimental or theoretical activity aimed at obtaining new knowledge about the main regularities of the structure, functioning and development of man, society, and environment." The scientific activity of subdivisions in higher education establishments, in a greater degree, is qualified under applied research, especially in the subdivisions of operational-tactical cycle. It appears that in the event of reviewing the Instruction concerning the examination procedure for the higher education establishments of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, this question ought to be set out in a more definite way, which excludes variant readings and raises examination objectiveness.

In general, the questions raised in the article by far do not cover the range of issues in the area of scientific work organization, which military educational establishments are exposed to routinely. Nevertheless, their solution, in our view, is the important prerequisite for maintaining the hallmark for science in institutes and universities.

Lt. Gen. A.S. ABRAMOV

Deputy Commander, Curriculum, Instruction and Scientific Work Department, Peter the Great Strategic Missile Forces Military Academy

Candidate of Military Sciences 

Col. A.F. RASSOLOV

Chief, Scientific Research Division, Peter the Great Strategic Missile Forces Military Academy

Candidate of Technical Sciences