Abstract:

The paper presents some facts from the Russian history on the dynamics of the scientific development in the 20th century and the social, economic status of scientists over the past 30 years in the modern Russian Federation. It is emphasized that there is an understanding that science is important, but there is no social and economic scientific support over the past 30 years. In fact, at present we face significant degradation of the social scholar status in the Russian Federation and the relatively low funding of entire scientific fields (especially in the field of natural sciences). The proportions between mathematics and natural sciences as well as humanitarian sciences (pedagogy, law, economics, etc.) are changing, but we do not observe significant achievements in the field of the latter. At the same time, the average age of Russian scientists is growing precisely in the field of the natural sciences (doing science becomes unprestigious).

Keywords: intelligent elite, graduate school, science.