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- “Quasi-market autarky”: crisis and transformation of the institutional model of sectoral science in post-Soviet Russia (1992–2000s)
- Valek N.A. “Quasi-market autarky”: crisis and transformation of the institutional model of sectoral science in post-Soviet Russia (1992–2000s). Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 2026, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 43–53. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2026-32-3-43-53
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2026-32-3-43-53
- УДК: 001(091): 338.45
- EDN: QQIYME
- Publish date: 2026-09-01
- Annotation: The article, using historical and scientific analysis, applying historico-genetic and systemic methods, examines the transformation of Russian industrial science in the first post-Soviet decade. It demonstrates that the USSR dissolution in 1991 and the subsequent market reforms did not see a paradigm shift in scientific development, but rather exacerbated systemic contradictions inherited from the Soviet period. Based on an analysis of legislative acts, statistical data on scientific potential decline, materials on personnel emigration (“brain drain”), and the activities of state scientific centres, the phenomenon of quasi-market autarky is identified. What is implied by this phenomenon in the article, is preservation of institutional isolation and departmental orientation, as if the previous period (planned autarky) had never ended, just under conditions of formal liberalisation, commercialisation, and loss of strategic planning. Particular attention is paid to the reforms’ socio-psychological consequences, including protest sentiments in the scientific community and several institute leaders’ personal tragedies, demonstrating the full depth of the crisis. The conclusion is that it was precisely the 1990s that saw worsening of a complex of problems (communication gaps, staff exhaustion, resource degradation), predetermining the difficulties of integrating industry-specific science into the global scientific space in the following decades.
- Keywords: sectoral science, history of science in Russia, post-Soviet period, institutional model, quasi-market autarky, state scientific centres, privatisation of scientific research institutes, scientific communication.
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