Production of indicators as a mechanism for suppression of production of knowledge, technology and competencies

Abstract

On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, public administration of the scientific and technological system was shifting more and more towards the total use of such a “tool” as estimated indicators. The article provides examples of the analysis of the harmful consequences of administrative-command coercion of Soviet science to produce indicators in V.L. Tambovtsev’s two monographs of 1990 and 1993 and in E.V. Semenov’s monograph of 1990. The experience of this analysis thirty years ago became again relevant in connection with the restoration in Russia, starting from 2012, of a system of administrative-command management of science, which based on forcing science to produce indicators. The article shows how, under the pressure of production of indicators, the transformation of science from the production of knowledge to the production of informational noise occurs. It shows that scientific production under the conditions of “demonstrative” management forced to reorient from the production of knowledge for its consumer to the production of indicators for the administrator. Work on indicators leads to the degradation of scientific organizations and a decrease in the professional level of the scientific community. The situation aggravated by a catastrophic decline in the professional level of government officials responsible for scientific and technological policy and the management of the scientific and technological field. The way out of this situation is possible due to the mass return to the system of state administration of science, starting with key positions, the category of professionals, by revising the system of goals and objectives of the country’s scientific and technological development, including replacing formal indicators and standards with meaningful goals and objectives, by the way of revival of the system of self-organization and wide self-government of the scientific community, by launching an innovative system that allows one to switch scientific production from reports to administrator to the production of knowledge, competencies, research and development for the real sector of the economy.