The speech of the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan at the National Academy of Science of RA caused controversial interpretations. Regardless of formulations (e.g. scientists that have become subjects for teasing) everybody agreed that the issue touched upon really exists and it’s pretty serious. And that is the complete absence of business and science. If in the case of the existence of the issue everybody is unanimous then as of the reasons (or the culprits) the opinions are controversial. For example, the Prime Minister indirectly blames the scientists. “If you wish to have money, finances, give us results so that we would sell it and raise your salaries.” The scientists in their turn are blaming the government and the Prime Minister. For example, in the blog of Tigran Sargsyan there is information that one of the scientists present at the meeting had quite strictly reacted at the words of Sargsyan. “In the annual assembly of the Academy the academician D.M. Sedrakyan quite harshly opposed to Tigran Sargsyan. He stated that Mr. Sargsyan doesn’t understand anything about science and that the understanding of the Prime Minister about funding of basic sciences is merely senseless.” One of the bloggers said, “Mr. Sedrakyan was expressing the opinion of all the people present at the meeting. From different sides of the audience people were exclaiming about their wish to leave the meeting and have brought up their complaints about the evidently inadequate theses of the Prime Minister. The scientists (working and efficiently working) were furious.” As a response to this saying one of the anonymous bloggers said the following, “Here it’s worth mentioning that the information provided by you is not trustworthy. Mr. Sedrakyan’s speech wasn’t harsh. It was rude and wasn’t quite adequate for the academician to speak that way. And it’s very sad that he was expressing the opinion of the whole audience but there is an allegation that this was only the wrong impression.” Most of the opinions written in the blog were directed against the Prime Minister’s speech. For instance, one of them wrote, “the speech of the Prime Minister was simply derision addressed to all the scientists. It is just the fable about the wolf and the sheep, according to which the wolf (the government in this case) is blaming the unprotected scientists, who make a salary of 30.000 AMD.” Another blogger with the nickname anne-marie has added, “alas, this speech of the Prime Minister says that our government doesn’t understand anything about science. And maybe the government doesn’t even have the ability to understand this. It is relevant to remember the words of Frederick Julio-Curie, “the country, which doesn’t care about its science, turns into a colony.” The visitors of the blog have brought up quite interesting data. For example, in the 10 leading magazine related to physics the number of the publications of the Armenian scientists exceeds the number of scientists from the three Baltic States in total – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And the financial support of the scientists of the Baltic States is probably 20-30 times more. In the end they added, “And under these circumstances the government sings the lullaby.” Another blogger added that in the last decade the Armenian physicists have demonstrated results equaling to European scientists. And this can be said taking into account the fact that the European scientists have 100-200 times more financing. Besides dual-side accusations there are also opinions where an attempt is made to give an objective assessment to the created situation. For example, one of the participants has mentioned that it is necessary to clearly segregate the fundamental and empiric sciences and it’s meaningless to speak about the basic science. “As of the classics said the basic science is a means to satiate the curiosity of the scientist at the expense of the taxpayers. No more no less.” On the other hand the same person substantiated why the taxpayer should finance the basic science. “Otherwise, the taxpayer will not have a really high-level education system and will not have specialists in charge of empirical science. It is absurd to demand or plan results from the basic science. It means that the scientist cannot ever predict the result. The result depends on the talent of the scientist.” Thus, as opposed to the allegations of the Prime Minister the job of the scientist is to work on science. And in this context Tigran Sargsyan’s accusation is not justified, according to which “we are not able to pack the results of our scientific research and we are not able to give a market shape to these products.” “We have jointly discussed approximately 28 projects, which the government requested from our research institutes. 20 out of 28 were immediately considered useless for application. We have taken 8 for examination. We estimated that 4 out of 8 can be submitted to the judgment of businesses and 4 of those were considered risky,” said Sargsyan. But the job of the scientist is not doing business. Perhaps the Science Academy mostly unites scientists over the age 70, who have old way of thinking. Maybe they can be blamed that businessmen, who don’t have relation to science, are receiving medals and some others are even “selling” titles of academicians. But they cannot be blamed of not providing a packed result for businesses. And the businessman is one of the main notches of this circle. And they are also indirectly blamed of the miserable state of the science in Armenia. One of the visitors of the blog has mentioned that innovative projects won’t develop in Armenia in the near future because money invested in the science is returned only years later. And we know that our businessmen are used to returning their money in a short period of time by receiving super revenues. However, the logic of the businesses is to direct money in directions, which can bring maximum income in a maximum short time. Seriously, who will make investments in the science in Armenia? Big businesses? Take a look at the list of the greatest taxpayers in Armenia. Those are mainly importers and mining companies. They don’t have the need or desire to spend money on science. They are able to receive super revenues without science as well. And in the aspect of small and medium business it is senseless to speak about this. Even in the event of great interest and desire they simply cannot make long-term investments in science because of the lack of resources. Thus, even there is some novelty in science and a businessman, who’d wish to give life to this novelty there are no resources. And as we know the banks don’t give credits in such cases. Indeed this issue exists in the whole world. But the state exists to play a key role in the relations of businesses, state and science. It is hard to believe that a state, which has such a bog potential of science and such a big number of scientists, has submitted only 28 projects. People simply don’t have confidence that their projects will be assessed objectively and that they will receive financial support. As of the next stage, which is to convert the idea into a business project then the problem is more serious and deeper here. The problem is that our competitive field is so discrepant that in order to provide profits we need persistence, stubbornness and connections instead of knowledge and innovations. Annihilate the opportunity of making big money from the “air,” provide healthy competition and the businessmen themselves will try to extend to new spheres and seek for investment opportunities in science. Indeed, it is always an easy occupation to blame the aged scientists but there is no use from this. And finally, the satisfaction of the scientific interests at the expense of taxpayers is a more useful thing than buying and driving foreign expensive brand vehicles or traveling abroad in big delegations at their expense.
