Moscow

The Russian Academy of Science (RAS) has set up a new body, known as the Above-Budget Foundation (ABF), to manage its property and channel the income it receives to supporting scientists and their work.

According to Gennady Mesyats, the academy's vice-president responsible for ABF activities, the new body has already generated more than $1 million in income, even though it started operating only a few months ago.

“Next year we hope to get $3 million, and in the coming years ABF plans to operate with tens of millions of dollars,” says Mesyats. “We hope that this will enable our libraries to subscribe to all major journals, and that we can finance expeditions, and solve our most acute financial problems.”

Mesyats told a meeting of the academy's praesidium in Moscow last week that, for the first time in recent years, the government has this year transferred all the money it had allotted to science both on time and in full. But the praesidium emphasized that the total amount being made available is still insufficient to meet the needs of Russian science.

External income is therefore very important, Mesyats emphasized, particularly given that the budget money can only be used for specified purposes, such as salaries, and cannot be redistributed. The academy owns considerable property, which until recently has been inefficiently used. It has 38 buildings in Moscow alone, and many stores, hotels and other real estate around the country.

The academy also receives income from its scientific ships, and substantial revenue is raised through its international academic association ‘Science’, which manufactures and distributes copies of scientific exhibits.

The academy also makes money from publishing. More than 80 scientific journals are published in English by a recently founded publishing company, Nauka, which is expected to raise $1 million next year, partly because publication of the two leading Russian physics journals was transferred to it from the American Institute of Physics.

The ways in which these funds are to be spent are discussed at weekly meetings of the RAS praesidium, chaired by Yuri Osipov, the academy's president. This year's priorities have included buying apartments for young scientists, providing petrol supplies for mountain observatories and supporting scientists' widows.

“Finding external funds is a new activity for us, even though in other countries it is quite normal; up to 30 per cent of the income of US universities comes from using their property, such as stadiums, parking places and living quarters,” says Mesyats.