Anatoliy A. Shiyan – Liliya O. Nikiforovа: Comparing National Academies of Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe: Current State and Perspectives for the Development of the National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine
2015/28
The paper is a country report prepared for the 'Comparing National Academies of Sciences in Central and Eastern Europe’ held at the Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest on 7–8 April 2015.
The paper presents the history and present status of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (from among other national academies), and argues that the Academy could be considered as a “bad” (or “predatory”, following Acemoglu’s classification) institution in Ukraine, operating like a “feudalist” system, and the non-member researchers can be described as the “serfs” or “vassals”. The authors present three possible future scenarios. First, the Academy can maintain its present state as a “bad” or “predatory” institution. Result: government institutions must kill off any “predatory” institution in the country and the Academy will die. Second, the Academy can work in cooperation with foreign grants. That is, the Academy will be integrated with R&D institutions in foreign countries. Result: the Academy will transition to a state such as that of business firms and the government will start to collect taxes from the Academy. Third, the Academy can transition to the development of R&D institutions in Ukraine. Of these, only the third option is attractive as only in this way can the Academy be maintained as a domestic institution.