Increase in Salaries of Science Workers: the Results of Reform 2014–2016

The article considers the results of the implementation of the Actions plan (road map) of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to the Researchers’ Relative Salaries indicator (the ratio of researchers’ salaries to the average salary in the region) in 2014–2016. The small-sample effect is detected, which entails that the larger is the sample size, the lower is the value of Researchers’ Relative Salaries. Based on the calculations performed one can reasonably suggest that in their strive to achieve the indicator, universities and research organizations in Russia provide erroneously high statistics on the salaries of their employees. In order to quantify the scale of distortions in the reported data, the author verified the statistical data against results of a sample researchers survey held in universities and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences. To evaluate capacities of the regulatory authority, a method is proposed to an assessment of additional budgetary funding needed to achieve the Roadmap target concerning Researchers’ Relative Salaries in 2017–2018. The author’s calculations demonstrate that the Roadmap target can’t be achieved for a wide range of science workers and faculty members. Such a finding is determined by the high needs for budget provision: 77bn rubles for the universities and 33bn rubles for research organizations of Russia. However, there is still another way of achieving the target for the indicator and that is a proportional reduction in staff of universities and research organizations. Different scenario calculations show that if the country pursues this path, almost 90 thousand faculty members of Russian universities could be dismissed in the coming year or two.