SCIENTIFIC LOT

People in Azerbaijan often ask: what do our scientists do? At first sight, their work isn't very striking. There is a common view that the staff of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan is bloated. And the award of academic degrees has been made so easy that people now become academics almost every day. There is a grain of truth in this, except for one but… Azerbaijani scientists are working, but many of them do it, as they say, "for the table". 

Their developments and initiatives turn out to be simply not needed by the state because of a lack of the necessary finance. Even if these developments are needed not only by the country but by the whole world. The work of scientists is very badly paid, in spite of the fact that their pay has increased substantially in recent years. As a result, the majority of the ingenious ideas of our researchers, of which Azerbaijan could be proud, remain unrecognized. We will cite the following figures for comparison. The share of GDP devoted to subsidizing science in the Jewish state is the largest in the world - 5 per cent of GDP. This expenditure has risen especially in recent years, reaching more than 5.5bn dollars per annum in the tiny country.

And what is happening in Azerbaijan? In 2007 the draft state budget allocated 39.6m manats to science. Certainly, compared with 2006 this is an increase of 3.3m manats. But nevertheless, it is still a pittance. Finance is mainly allocated to fundamental scientific research, to the work and upkeep of scientific research institutes; 68 per cent of the funds was given to research in the field of physics and mathematics and branches of mechanics, and to fields in the biological, humanitarian and social, and chemical sciences. In absolute terms this works out at 27m manats.

It is interesting that the president of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Mahmud Karimov, has spoken several times of the inadequate amount of finance for science. "It is accepted practice around the world that if spending on science is lower than 2 per cent of GDP, it is unable to influence the level of economic development. In our country in 2007 this figure will be 0.7 per cent of GDP. This is not enough for scientific work to have an effect on economic processes," he said.

He added that wages are not high enough in the National Academy of Sciences system. "In particular, in Ukraine the average salary of an employee of the Academy of Sciences is 200 dollars, in Russia it reaches 300 dollars, but in Azerbaijan it was until recently just 79 manats (approximately 93 dollars - Ed.)," he said. This is not even to mention scientists' salaries in Israel and the USA.

It's true, on 23 January 2007 the president of Azerbaijan issued an instruction raising the salaries of people working in scientific and scientific research establishments of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan by 50 per cent. This means that the salaries of scientists has risen from 79 to 118 manats. This is certainly good and it points to certain progress on the issue. The instruction raising sala-ries says: "With a view to further reinforcing the social protection of people employed in the science sector and enhancing state concern." But at current prices 118 manats is still not a large sum.

Comment is superfluous. It is just worth adding that holders of doctorates and post-graduate degrees in the developed countries make up the backbone of hi-tech companies. This aspect also forms part of the state's economic indices. There are more than enough holders of such science degrees in Azerbaijan, but what is their efficiency factor? Unfortunately, very small. And yet Azerbaijan has the richest history of scientific thought!

Brilliant past

The Soviet period - the 1970s - was a golden era for Azerbaijani science. The Academy achieved major breakthroughs. New fields opened up, such as aerospace research, microbiology, biophysics, hi-tech sectors of industry, in particular scientific instrument building, space instrument building, electronics, microelectronics, the production of polymer materials, and others. In the field of agriculture new high-yield varieties and advanced agrotechnical devices were developed, the foundations of the agroindustrial complex were laid. And so - in all fields.

At academic institutes experimental design bureaus and pilot plants were created, which played and continue to play a key role in introducing the fruits of scientific-research work carried out in the academy. And how many undergraduates and post-graduate students continued their education and went on secondments at leading scientific and educational centres in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus!

The list of key scientific achievements in the USSR included more than a thousand pieces of research by Azerbaijani scientists. They are the pioneers of oil geology. The institute of mathematics and mechanics was among the scientific teams which were given the task of defining the development of the entire area of Soviet mathematical science. The physics institute was the lead institute in the USSR for the physics of selenium and tellurium. The republic became known as the "oil academy", primarily thanks to scientists in the petrochemistry field. Of worldwide renown was the work of our scientists in the field of the molecular and physicochemical biology of plants. In the humanities, on the basis of many years of research into ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, Arab, Persian and Turkish literary sources, and archeological excavations, many volumes of monographs were created reflecting the ancient and rich history of states on the territory of modern Azerbaijan and neighbouring countries, and describing the ethnogenesis of the Azerbai-janis.

The achievements of Azerbaijani scientists, made in all fields of science, have gained worldwide renown. These include work in the fields of functional analysis, elasticity theory, the physics of layered crystals and semiconductor converters, molecular spectroscopy and nuclear physics, fundamental research in petrochemistry and on the theoretical problems of chemical technology and catalysis.

Our geologists and geophysicists have set out the leading positions of Azerbaijani science in the field of the genesis of oil and gas, the geochemistry and geology of mud volcanoes, geotectonics, the fundamental problems of physicochemical and molecular biology, the problems of photosynthesis and genomes. By means of selection geneticists have produced varieties which are being successfully introduced in the field of agriculture. There are scientists who worked and are working in the academy who are renowned throughout the world.

In spite of all these scientific riches, Azerbaijani scientists at the same time draw particular attention to the lack of the necessary equipment and instruments, which limits their ability to independently carry out important scientific research. Azerbaijani scientists learn about new equipment through their colleagues abroad. It is a blessing that the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan is currently conducting many joint scientific international projects. It remains only to hope that one of the priority tasks of the government will be to finance science at the proper level. After all, science and education are the key factors in human life and the stable development of any state.