Russian scholars under the conditions of precarious employment[Российские Ученые В Условиях Прекарной Занятости]

The article discusses peculiarities of Russian scholars’ employment in order to get an insight into the degree of the negative trends affecting this area of labor which make it possible to talk about its precarization. Nowadays, a number of scientific areas in research and development are stagnating; evolvement of science is slowed down due to insufficient funding, outdated technologies and lack of qualified personnel in the industry. Besides, precarization of work, which previously affected people with the low level of education fulfilling simple and routine tasks, has spread over the intellectual sphere, including different fields of science. This research is based on a number of theoretical provisions determining the criteria of precarious employment, as well as the results of analytical reports and the data of the all-Russian research project “The Precariat: a new phenomenon in the socio-economic structure of society”. Proceeding form this information, the paper analyzes scientific infrastructure, sufficiency of motivational practices, promotion of the work of the leading scholars and assessment of employment peculiarities of Russian scholars. Analysis of the peculiarities of scholars’ work suggests that despite some signs of precarization of academic activity today, it is impossible to classify researchers as the precariat yet. The basic features of precarious work, such as informal employment, absence of social guarantees and deprofessionalization in the scientific industry, are insignificant. However, some other signs of precarization have got widespread, including instability, uncertainty, absence of guarantees, irregular working hours, extra work, dissatisfaction with the working conditions and remuneration among scholars, and others. Moreover, excessive bureaucracy and standardization of the sphere has literary forced researchers to adjust results of their activity to the standards, sometimes at the expense of the quality of their work. This fact stimulates the ideas of meaninglessness and uselessness of their work in the minds of researchers. If these negative tendencies remain unchanged, scholars (especially those of the Humanities and social sciences) may enter the precariat. It is time for the state to take serious actions aimed at preservation and development of the Russian science.