MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) – The upper house of Russia’s parliament approved a contentious reform of the country’s Academy of Sciences on Wednesday, as some 200 protesters gathered outside the legislature’s building in downtown Moscow.
The bill outlining the reform passed the Federation Council with 135 members voting in favor and two abstaining.
Its main provisions transfer the management of most academic property to a new federal government agency and merge three previously existing academies – focusing on the sciences in general, medicine and agriculture – into one, but bar the state from interfering in the academy’s scholarly activities.
While the academy is to retain the right to shape the research agenda of its numerous institutes and distribute budget funds for research projects, opponents of the reform have worried how large a role the new property management agency – to be created under the new law – will play in the affairs of the academy, which will officially be a federal state-funded establishment.
Under the legislation, which will take effect after it is signed by President Vladimir Putin, the incumbent head of the academy, Vladimir Fortov, will stay in office for at least three years.
The reform has caused much debate within Russia’s scientific community and today’s protest was not the first.
Moscow police estimated the number of demonstrators outside the Federation Council building on Wednesday at about 200. Four protesters were briefly detained for disturbing the peace, as the rally was unauthorized, the police press service told RIA Novosti.
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