Last month, the Russian government announced that it plans to layoff approximately 10,000 researchers within the next three years, with the majority of cuts occurring at Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) institutes. The layoffs represent 17% of RAS’s staff. Moreover, the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations, created in 2013 to oversee RAS’s property and budget, has recently announced plans to merge several dozen institutes. According to internal documents from the education and science ministries, the layoffs are to make up for the doubling of scientists’ salaries earlier this year. The documents recognize that the cuts will impede productivity.

Source: Science