Foreign and Domestic Non-profit Foundations: Impact on Social Changes

for Women-researchers in Russia

Irina Dezhina

Since the dissolution of the USSR the main subject of discussion about Russian science became a crisis of its financing followed by a reduction of scientific personnel, disproportion in the structure of expenditures on research and development (R&D), and lack of modern equipment. All these statements unfortunately continue to be true at the present time.

Why was Russian science driven into crisis? There were several causes. First - after the disintegration of the USSR a rapid decrease in the status of science and the prestige of research work occurred. At the beginning of reforms it was thought that science is not very important in the process of transformation of the economy and society. As a consequence federal expenditures on science were reduced. And if one takes into account that during the Soviet period 80-85 percent of the support for science came from the federal budget it becomes obvious how dramatic the situation was.

Second, one of the directions of reforms was demilitarization, so defense R&D also quickly lost support. And it was a substantial part of the science sphere - about 80 percent of the total R&D complex.

The science and technology (S&T) sphere was pushed into the background by various Russian policy makers. As a result the government did not even try to keep minimum living standards for researchers.

What were the main indications of crisis?

First - a rapid decrease of financing from the federal budget in the absence of other sources of support. Data in table 1 indicate how rapid this decrease was.

But GNP in Russia was also decreasing and on average expenditures on science since 1991 dropped by 10 times. For comparison, table 2 presents the share of expenditures on science in some Western countries. The lack of federal support led to the rapid decrease of researchers' salary. Many of researchers started to seek for jobs outside scientific sector. According to expert estimations, today about 90% of the personnel in R&D sector in Russia have part-time jobs in other branches of the economy which are not connected with the use of their research skills. Then, the decrease of salary followed such phenomenon as brain drain.

Table 1. The dynamics of the expenditures on science and changes in the personnel in the economic branch "Science and scientific services"

	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
Share of allocations for science in Gross National Product (GNP), %	1.03	0.57	0.52	0.44	0.29	0.30	0.40
Share of allocations for science in federal budget, %	7.43	4.47	3.70	2.83	3.25	2.30	2.58
Researchers in science sector, in percent to 1990	88.5	81.0	65.0	52.9	52.3	48.8	na

na=not available

Source: Goskomstat RF, and "Science of Russia in figures: 1997", M.: CRSS, 1997, p.26.

Table 2. International R&D expenditures as a percentage of GNP

na=not available

Source: Science&Engineering Indicators - 1996, appendix table 4-33, p.154, and "Poisk", no.8, 1997, p.15.

The obvious indication of this was the decrease in the number of scientific personnel in R&D institutions (table 1). The problem of brain drain, both internal (to other sectors of economy) and external (abroad) is very complicated even in statistical terms. Today the optimistic estimations give the outflow abroad (both for permanent residence and for long-term contract emigration) on the level of 7000 researchers for the last 4 years, and the pessimistic estimations are at the level 30000-40000 researchers for the same period of time.

The "generalized picture" of brain-drain for 1992-1995 looks as follows. The typical emigrant was a man 31-45 years old who had a Ph.D. and was engaged in theoretical research. According to different surveys physicists and mathematicians were the leaders in the disciplinary structure of emigrants, taking together more than 50% of the total number of emigrants, followed by biologists (about 30%) and chemists. The characteristic feature for the last three years of emigration is the growing share of graduate students and young researchers.

In such circumstances international scientific community started to worry about the fate of Russian science and as a result different programs to help Russian science to resist crisis were initiated. The first to appear as the most flexible were charitable foundations and non-government organizations who started to provide support to researchers in the form of grants. The main contributor among them are the United States foundations.

Foreign programs and foundations mostly started their activity in 1992-1993 with the peak of financial allocations in 1994-1995. At that time the largest award, 135 million dollars, was made by George Soros to support Russian basic research primarily in natural sciences and then in humanities (3 million dollars) through the International Science Foundation (ISF).

Starting from individual and group grant support foreign foundations then began to move from charity to collaboration, having announced in 1995-1996 a number of competitions for implementation of joint projects. Collaborative projects supported by grants continue to be charitable, because usually 80% of the award goes to the Russian partner.

Foreign initiatives served to some extent as a catalyst for the creation of Russian science foundations. These foundations took some elements of organization and mechanisms of peer-review system which are used abroad. In 1993-1994 two Russian Science Foundations began to operate: the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and the Russian Science Foundation for Humanities (RSFH). Today these foundations are assigned about 7 percent of all federal budget allocations for science and about 11 percent of all Russian researchers receive through them support in the form of individual and group grants.

Most of foreign, especially U.S., foundations announced the support of women as their special preference. In contrast to the foreign structures, the support of women-researchers is not a priority for Russian foundations.

Applications from women-researchers were particularly invited in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Moscow Public Science Foundation, funded by Ford Foundation, United States Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (CRDF) and some others.

Foreign foundations started to operate in specific environment: Soviet science always had a large percentage of women involved in R&D. Moreover, the share of women-researchers was permanently increasing during last 35 years: if in 1961 the average percentage of women-researchers in Russian science was 37.3%, in 1988 - 40.3%, then in 1990-1993 it stabilized at the level of 51%. That is more than in any developed Western country (see table 3).

Table 3. The share of women among nonacademic scientists for selected countries, most current year

	Japan (1990)	West Germany (1987)	United Kingdom (1990)	France (1992)	Sweden (1985)	Canada (1986)	United States (1992)
Percentage of women, in percent to the total scientists	15.7	20.4	22.6	28.3	28.7	31.3	36.2

Source: Science&Engineering Indicators - 1996, appendix table 3-16, p.98.

Then, in Russia the share of women in science is approximately the same as the share of female graduate students. And the latter data continue to be more or less stable as well: in 1994 there were 47.7% and in 1995 - 46.4% of female graduate students. For comparison, in Western Europe of the women obtaining a scientific degree, only 19% pursue a scientific career. Women fill 20% of positions in science in Europe today - at a time when they fill between 40% and 50% of jobs on the employment market as a whole.

The United States has had more success than other industrialized countries in attracting women into science. But Russia still may be ranked the first by the share of women-researchers as well as by the share of women-researchers with higher degrees (table 4).

Table 4. The share of females among researchers with higher degrees (Ph.D), for 1993, in percent to the total in each field of sciences

Fields of sciences	United States	Russia:
		candidate and doctorate degree holders	graduate students (for 1995)
Physical sciences	9.5	15.0	28.4
Mathematics	9.6
Life sciences	26.0	50.5	58.9
Environmental sciences	11.0	25.2	41.7
Psychology	39.2	50.3	75.4
Social sciences	23.0	37.9	60.9
Engineering	4.4	15.9	27.8
Total sciences	20.3	27.9	46.4

Sources: Science&Engineering Indicators - 1996, appendix table 5-25, p.200.

Science in Russian Federation. Statistical Abstract. Moscow, Goskomstat RF, 1995, p.p. 15, 24.

Nauka Sankt-Peterburga. Statisticheskii sbornik. Moscow, CRSS, 1997, p.44.

One can notice very high share of female graduate students in engineering in Russia. The explanation is in the special government policy which was conducted in Soviet period to attract women in technical sciences. Those universities and higher education institutes which managed to attract more graduate students-females had a chance to receive more share of federal support. So the average situation with women-researchers in Russia as well as government policy towards the support of women in science was more beneficial than in Western countries.

In light of such specific gender structure there appears a question: does the problem of women in Russian science exist at all? The answer is yes, it does, because the real problem is at what level and under which conditions women-researchers in Russia are really involved in "doing science". And from this point the situation is not very optimistic. Thus, among the candidate and doctorate degree holders the share of women is much less - approximately thirty and fifteen percent correspondingly. The picture is worse if one looks at the official structure of Russian science. Among more than four hundred Academicians of the Russian Academy of sciences only seven (or 1.5%) are women; among more than six hundred corresponding members of Russian .Academy of Sciences there are thirteen women (2%).

But women-researchers not only rise to positions of seniority more rarely and are more rarely the prestigious members of academy of sciences. Women scientists, like all women, are faced with the dilemma of reconciling working life and private life, career and family. In their laboratories they most often find themselves assigned to male project leaders and decision-makers who charge them with tasks offering little scope for creativity. This sets in train the whole mechanism. Women-researchers publish less, travel less, attend fewer seminars than their male colleagues.

In the period of collapse the level of decrease of men and women researchers was approximately the same but the qualitative situation for women remaining in science worsened. Many women were shifted to less qualified jobs; the fact that many male leaders who left science for business or for abroad had led to the closing of entire research projects where women participated and it in turn had led to hidden unemployment of women. At the same time not everything was so dark: due to the appearance of new mechanisms of funding in science women received a chance to improve their position. And here the important role belongs to non-profit grant-awarding foundations.

The impact of foundations on women-researchers may be measured in statistical and qualitative terms. At the present time statistical survey can't reveal comprehensive picture: not so much time passed since the appearance of first foundations (maximum 6 years), first, and second, the scale of foundation's influence is limited by their funding possibilities. Foreign sources, including non-profit foundations, contribute only 5.6% to overall science budget in Russia. Such amount of investments can not lead to the gender restructuring of science. Then, in the specific gender structure the increasing of the share of women-researchers could not be considered by foundations as the main target since this share was already bigger than in any other country. The most important purpose became to create new social environment for women-researchers.

At the same time the results of some foundations' activity - those which announced the support of women-researchers as their priority even in quantitative terms - may be measured statistically. How successful their policy was may be evaluated on the basis of a comparison between the percentage of women supported through their programs, and the percentage of women-researchers in Russian science. But it should be mentioned that all foundations never treat the support of women as the main selection criteria. The first and the most important criteria for selection of research proposals is always merit. Sex of applicants is an additional criteria and it is taking into account in case of "other equal conditions", i.e. when one has to select one proposal among several proposals of equal quality. That is why the level of support of women in such foundations is interesting to compare with the same indicator for those foundations which do not announce women-researchers as their priority. A sample comparison was made for the group of the U.S. foundations which support research projects in social sciences and humanities. These foundations were compared to each other and to the Russian Science Foundation for Humanities (RSFH) and then to the share of women-researchers in social sciences and humanities in Russia (table 5). The data reveal that the level of support in foundations which treat women-researchers as their preference is slightly higher than in others; the level of support of women researchers is the lowest in Russian science foundation. Finally, anyway the percentage of supported through foundations women is slightly lower than their share in social sciences and humanities. Analysis at more detailed level of selected disciplines supported by foundations shows that in some fields foreign foundations achieved real success in supporting women. These are sociology, political sciences, and law. In these disciplines the share of women-grantees was higher then their share in general.

Table 5. The share of female grantees in social sciences and humanities, in percent to the total supported in each foundation

Foundation	1994	1995
Foundations which announce the priority support of women-researchers
Ford Foundation	47.5	40.0
MacArthur Foundation	43.7	47.4
Foundations which do not announce the priority support of women-researchers
IREX	35.3	42.2
Fulbright program	39.0	32.0
Program "Humanities" of the ISF	36.2	-*
RSFH	na	21.3
The share of women-researchers in social sciences and humanities	51.8

na=not available

* - program was conducted only in 1994.

Sources: databases of foundations; Science in Russian Federation. Statistical Abstract. Moscow, Goskomstat RF, 1995, p.p. 15, 24.

As for the natural and technical sciences the level of support of women-researchers there is not so impressive. The percentage of women scientists is 49.3% of the total, and the percentage of women supported by foreign foundations in these fields is about 23% of all grantees and about 12% of principal investigators. And there is no significant distinction between foundations which awarded grants only to Russian researchers (the ISF) or collaborative grants (the CRDF) as well as between those which give women special consideration (the CRDF) and do not give it (the ISF). The Russian Foundation for Basic Research supports women-scientists slightly better: 33% of all its grantees are women, and among principal investigators - 14%. Twice as low share of women among principal investigators shows that women are still employed at an average lower positions than men. It confirms by the data on the official structure of the male and female grantees of the RFBR. Women are mostly engaged into research as auxiliary personnel (about 72% of all auxiliary personnel) and as researchers of lowest positions (junior researcher, researcher) - 43% of all juniors. At the same time the highest share of men is in the groups of leaders and heads of departments and laboratories (95% and 90% correspondingly). These data show that in general the structure of employment did not change significantly after the dissolution of the USSR. That is objective process - it could not change so rapidly since the foundations do not have large-scale financial influence.

At the same time foundations through support of the most skillful researchers affect the qualitative structure of female workforce. The factor of "knowledge" becomes more and more valuable, and those women who are real leaders and real workers get a chance for career development. Those women who were satisfied with the modest role in scientific process, were not ambitious and skillful enough, found themselves in worst situation as it used to be before. These women became the main contingent among those who left science for another types of activity. In general all these tendencies lead to the improvement of qualitative structure of science. A good illustration for this process may be the program supported by Geogre Soros, called ISSEP - International Soros Science Education Program. It gives individual awards to senior outstanding faculty members at the level of professor and assistance professor who at the same time are actively involved in research. The selection process is based on formal complex quantitative assessment of publication and teaching activity of the applicants combined with the sample surveys among students who attend lectures of potential grantees. The program started in 1994. Its results show that the share of women-grantees is permanently increasing both among professors and assistant professors (table 6). The process is quite objective: this program does not give special consideration for women, and the share of women applicants is approximately the same as the share of women-grantees. Thus, the share of women-researchers who meets all these criteria, is increasing.

Table 6. The share of female grantees of ISSEP, in percent to the total grantees in the category

Source: database of ISSEP.

The growing overall "quality" of female workforce became possible due to the social change for women-researchers. Foundations contributed a lot to this social change. The appearance of foundations became a cultural phenomenon for Russian science. Foundations create new possibilities and new public attitude. There are several the most noticeable foundations' impacts which affect the situation with women-researchers.

Foundations created new mechanisms for implementing research in Russia which are to some extent more important for women-researchers. Sociological surveys revealed that women researchers assess the foundations activity as positive more often than men (67% of women consider it as useful for science). According to the opinion of women-researchers the main purpose of such foundations is to prevent brain-drain and to improve the situation in science while men are more suspicious to the real goals of foundations' activity.

First of all foundations permitted to do research more independent - both for men and women-researchers. This, in turn, creates more possibilities for leadership and career development. But women still feel themselves more dependent from the administration and research leaders at their institutes than men: 70% of men and only 54% of women responded that due to foundations they feel more independent from their institutes' top officials.

Second, foreign foundations brought the feeling of openness - due to widened possibilities to travel, to attend international conferences, to establish contacts with foreign partners. Women-researchers, again, are more sensitive to such changes. Today international collaboration brings a new culture of relationships and attitude to women researchers. As some researchers mentioned in interviews, it became some sort of a fashion to include women-researchers in international teams.

Third, foundations influenced the development of new directions of research, stimulated the scientific search. That is the opinion of 50% of women-researchers which participated in the survey. Men are more pessimistic in assessment of the foundations' impact on the appearance of new research topics: 25% of them think that there is no correlation and only 11% of women share this opinion.

Fourth is the influence of the foundations on the psychological climate inside research teams. The survey revealed that this influence is positive in general.

The most questionable is the impact of the foundations on the brain drain process and on the process of leaving science inside the country for another types of activity. Both men and women do not have certain opinion on this.

The survey had also a purpose to reveal attitudes to such priority as support of women-researchers. Here the opinions of men and women researchers were quite different. Most of male researchers think that men and women have equal opportunities in science at the start of their careers. But then such factors as family and children begin to resist women's career development. Sometimes it leads to loss of competitiveness for a long time. But the predominant number of male researchers think that special programs for support of women are not necessary. Foundations have to support the best projects but not men or women.

As for the women-researchers the opinions were divided into two comparatively equal groups: the representatives of the first group think that special consideration for women is humiliating for them because it creates an assumption that women by definition are weaker than men which is not true. The others think that such programs should exist and implement their goals more consistently.

The assessments show that today the foundations support best researchers - as the first priority, and only as the second they pay attention to infrastructural effects such as demographic, sexual or regional distribution of grantees. In this way they contribute to the improvement of the qualitative characteristics of scientific workforce and create favorable conditions for those women-researchers who have inclinations for promotion of their science careers. That is the most important result for development of science. Special support of women in science from that point of view meets more political demands then demands of the development of scientific knowledge.

At the same time special focus on women is important in some cases - to eliminate the shortages of previously existed structure. First of all the special attention to women-researchers is important in regional scientific centers where possibilities for women are worse than in main science centers of the country. And second, foundations may help considerably in promotion of targeted international collaboration.