St Petersburg University holds an online meeting for the scientists received grants from the Russian Science Foundation

Scientists from St Petersburg University have had an opportunity to ask questions at the online meeting devoted to work with the grants from the Russian Science Foundation.

The meeting was organised for the directors of over 90 research projects supported by the Russian Science Foundation following the results of the competition in the area of ‘Conducting basic scientific research and exploratory scientific research by small separate research teams’. The implementation of the grant projects will start in 2022.

The University specialists told the directors of research teams about the right way to form research teams, the allowed categories of the grant funding and special features of the competition this year.

According to Elena Lebedeva, Head of the  Research Support Service at St Petersburg University, the University takes the second place in Russia in the number of applications supported by the Foundation.  This year, the Russian Science Foundation supported 93 projects by scientists of St Petersburg University in the area of ‘Conducting basic scientific research and exploratory scientific research by small separate research teams’.

According to Elena Lebedeva, in order to implement the grant successfully, project directors should write at least three research articles and publish them in prestigious journals indexed by the Web of Science or Scopus as well as present their project in an in-person scientific conference.

Tatiana Gorokhovitskaia, Chief Specialist in the Department on Grants and Scientific Award Support at St Petersburg University, responded in detail to the questions of the grant holders. She pointed out several important issues that should be considered by the directors of the grants from the Russian Science Foundation. For example, the research team should consist of four people at most. At the same time, no less than 50 % of the team members should be under 40 years old. Besides, the research team members can take part in no more than two grant projects.

Tatiana Gorokhovitskaia also clarified that the research team on every grant can comprise not only the scientists, staff and bachelor's, master’s and doctoral students of St Petersburg University, but also scientists from other universities. To take part in the project they have to be employed by the University or enter into a civil contract with the University.  Bachelor's and master's students are accepted into the research team as engineers (engineers–researchers) or laboratory assistants (laboratory assistant–researcher), while doctoral students can be accepted as junior research associates given the relevant work experience.

At the same time, they can travel abroad on business trips within the framework of the grant, for example, to take part in scientific conferences, work in archives or, if necessary, work on unique equipment of an international organisation.

Vadim Kukushkin, Member of the Expert Council on the Presidential Programme of the Russian Science Foundation, Coordinator of the ‘Chemistry’ direction, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor at St Petersburg University, answered a number of controversial issues raised by the grant holders.  For example, the scientists discussed the possibility of changing their research plan. ‘In the majority of cases, the research can’t help deviating from the plan,’ emphasised Vadim Kukushkin.  ‘If the research strictly follows the plan, it is not an investigation performed by a scientist, but a technical project with a foregone conclusion.  Scientific thought may change and, in most cases, it changes depending on the current results. Thus, the report should state that the task declared in the application has been accomplished, while deviations from the plan are natural for scientific activity. However, detail explanation and motivation have to be provided. All experts of the Russian Science Foundation are also scientists like you are and they understand these problems.’

At the online meeting, scientists and specialists of the University also considered the instances of failing to complete the grant requirements. ‘It is extremely important to notice the moment when it is still possible to take certain measures. Otherwise, we risk to miss the right time to solve the problem and it will be too late to change anything,’ believes Elena Lebedeva.

Vadim Kukushkin supported the position of the Head of  the Research Support Service  at St Petersburg University and advised that in case of doubts on the grant implementation, the researchers should contact the support service of the Russian Science Foundation or study the section with the frequently asked questions on the website of the organisation.  

‘Besides, the University scientists that received grants from the Russian Science Foundation have the right to turn to the specialists at the Research Support Service at St Petersburg University, where a special department on grant support was created in 2021,’ completed the meeting Elena Lebedeva, Head of the Research Support Service.