WHY DO WE NEED DONATIONS?

In our country,all grant programs of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research are being curtailed, including the basic one, to support initiative projects in the fields of knowledge. They plan to transfer the freed money to The Russian Science Foundation to finance major programs, such as the presidential research project program. The situation in the world is such that it is very difficult to practically obtain funding for Fundamental research that has not passed preliminary expensive clinical or experimental confirmation, which also requires money.

Most dialogs look like this:

— We need funding to complete the project.
— Do you already have the results of preliminary clinical trials?
—No, we need a small funding to complete basic research, and then a large amount of funding for laboratory research involving specialists, laboratory assistants, researchers, immunologists using expensive equipment and biological materials
— Well, when these stages are successfully completed, apply for financing your project.
—So we must perform basic and preclinical studies before receiving financial support, and then apply for financial support.

If we gradually carry out basic research, while not forgetting to get money in alternative ways, thereby significantly reducing the speed of research, then we are simply not able to "find out" many thousands of dollars for preclinical research. In fact, our entire group rests on the enthusiasm of the core team of developers, all invited specialists refuse to work "on the enthusiasm" because all of them have families, parents, children and they need to eat and dress.

Despite the fact that we are certified specialists with academic degrees, Kirill Kulikov is a Doctor of Science, Full Professor, we have monographs and articles in peer-reviewed rating publications, this does not affect the financing of the projects that we are engaged in, so we are giving a high-quality scientific result and also practically applicable results without absolutely any financial support becomes harder and harder.

In fact, our team has been in free swimming since its foundation, since 2015. It was in 2015 that we set the task to find a stability criterion for protein molecules, so that this criterion would be in good agreement with experimental work. In total 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, we were completely left on our own in terms of financing and were forced to look for all this time additional earnings that allowed us to carry out research projects.

Several years ago, our Prime Minister Dmitry Anatolyevich simply advised all doctors, teachers, and scientists who receive little salary have to go into business. Here is such a decision from the head of the government of the country for all occasions.

Neither I nor the second researcher get anything for my research activities, while my Phd programm for 3 years I received 100 euros per month without bonuses and surcharges, do research work, do software development, publish in rating magazines, attend conferences, pay organization fees from 150 to 550 euros, food, transportation costs and all this for 100 euros per month without a single surcharge.

In fact, our team is engaged in research and scientific activity contrary to circumstances, and not thanks to them.

To attend the conference, you have to apply the brainstorming method to decide where to get the money for the trip and the registration fee. Every conference we managed to attend is a heavy blow to our budget. The second author also receives nothing for his scientific activities, his official work is the only thing that separates him from starvation. Moreover, in principle, there is no state system that would allow doing science and not thinking where to get money for food.

This is a systemic problem when a huge number of people can not do anything.
On the Internet, I caught a glimpse of the news that in Italy a female scientist, a biologist, said that a scientist received 1800 euros per month. I don't know how much a scientist should receive, I only know that we don't get anything at all for our research, so I can't even evaluate is it a lot or a little. Neither I nor Kirill Kulikov see such money even with official employment. Even if we add up our joint earnings, we get a much smaller amount.

Director of the Institute of Macromolecular Compounds Sergey Lulin:
"Due to the departure of many strong scientists, it turned out that in the middle link there is very little competition. You defend a doctoral degree, and then a scorched field, there are almost no actively working scientists 40-50 years old."

Where do they come from?
If the scientists are the same people who have families who need to pay utilities, eat, have mortgages, loans, and I'm not talking about laboratory equipment, computer clusters, office equipment.

If we still apply for a grant, then we have to wait for the opening of applications, then the period for accepting applications, then the period for considering applications. All this takes about a year, and at the end there comes a letter with one paragraph in which we are notified that we have not received a grant, but we can submit again, but only with a different subject.

At the same time, it is advisable to have published articles in peer-reviewed, highly rated journals in order to apply for a grant. Reviewing each article takes about six months to a year, after going through all stages of the review, if the editor considers it necessary to accept your article for publication, then you will be put in the queue, this is a few more months. At the same time, all this time you need to somehow live, pay for the fare, for food.

To publish several articles in rating magazines, you need to wait for a quite tangible amount of time, a couple of years to get a couple of refusals to receive grants and all this time: we have to go around as we can, wait a few years for financing, not get it further and again "somehow to survive"

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