AYSS seminars

Youth grants from all angles

On 29 October, an AYSS seminar was held. FLNR junior researcher Alexey Novoselov delivered a report "Analysis of the AYSS grant competition" in which statistics for 2010-2025 were presented.

The author sought answers to the following questions: how long does interest in the competition persist among young employees? What are the differences between the categories? Is there a correlation between the membership of the staff and the competition results? The speaker's report lasted half an hour and the discussion that included the representatives of JINR Directorate and Laboratories, departments, employees with experience serving on grant award committees, the grant winners themselves and the full JINR Council, lasted five times longer.

Alexey Novoselov presented the following figures: about 20% of the total JINR staff participated in the competitions. Grants have been awarded since 2009. 5,033 applications were submitted and 1,608 grants were awarded. Of the 793 winners, 623 currently work at the Institute. Today, 71% of the participants work at JINR.

The competition has more than once sparked debate, with questions about its usefulness and necessity raised at various levels. In a survey carried out by AYSS in its early years, 45% said grants would only be awarded to "their own". Many participants believe the situation hasn't changed and suspicions of bias among committees and supervisors persist. In the most recent survey, 26% of respondents have shared the same opinion. Furthermore, applications were no longer publicly available after the application process was moved to the indico platform, partly due to compliance with personal data laws that undermines transparency and raises suspicions among participants.

The speaker discussed data sources, processing features and the information they contained. The analysis was based on publicly available lists of participants and winners from various years. Questionnaires from 2010-2016 were also used. Extensive work was undertaken to make the lists suitable for analysis. The registration language needed to be standardized (Russian was chosen, as the winners' lists had always been published in Russian). The registration data format also needed to be standardized, using first and last names as the basis. Occasionally, the entries contained accidental or intentional typos that had to be corrected. Furthermore, so-called "digital traces" were used to verify that participants had not changed their last names. The categories of researchers with and without a degree were united for the analysis. These conditions minimized distortions and with the current volume of data, a general picture of the competition was presented, showing the proportions of participants relative to the number of attempts and the number of wins.

Figure 1. Competition pattern for AYSS grant participants based on data from 2010-2025.

At the seminar, it was emphasized that about half of the participants apply only once or twice and within this range, the likelihood of winning the competition is low. The majority of young talent attrition also occurs within a couple of attempts.

In conclusion, it was stated that the system, as seen through the lens of personnel and statistics, works. Those who have been rewarded at least once are in the workforce longer than those who have never won. Participants are encouraged to apply to the competition more than once, grow professionally and try again. Committees need transparency and feedback.

Figure 2. Scheme of the proportion of participants versus the number of attempts. Blue indicates the proportion of participants regardless of their current status at JINR; red indicates the proportion of former employees as of June 2025 out of the total number of participants.

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The first questions of the discussion concerned the analysis methodology and the participation of students or applicants at the edge of the age category that could impact the statistics. The author of the report answered them in detail.

Specific examples were then given. Specifically, specialists carry out work of varying complexity, both intellectual and physical. Uniting them into a single category isn't entirely appropriate. Head of the International Cooperation Department Otilia Culicov that has reviewed applications for 10 years as a member of the committee, described the FLNP experience: "Priorities varied each year. One year, they supported engineers more, since that was crucial at IBR; another, they supported scientists working on the facilities, when the user policy brought dozens of visitors to the laboratory. And sometimes, they supported workers because it was important that the workshops weren't left without mechanics. We're all part of the same system and we need to understand it."

During the discussion, Assistant Chief Engineer at the Institute and one of the system's co-authors Evgeny Uglov also spoke. He explained why statistics on "insiders" are maintained and the underlying ideas behind the competition. First and foremost, the competition was conceived as a transparent system, an alternative to salary bonuses awarded at the discretion of the head. Furthermore, the competition helped to identify employees willing to engage in social activities beyond their core job responsibilities.

MLIT Director Sergey Shmatov highlighted that there are other sources of support for young people: financial incentives for specialists with a degree, researchers without a degree and young engineers. Therefore, when young scientists don't win a grant at MLIT, they are first in line for bonuses. Ultimately, all applicants obtain some form of incentive.

In general, the grant system was discussed at the seminar from virtually every angle. Ideas for improving or replacing it were voiced. It was mentioned that the Institute's current priority areas of activity need to be taken into account. Comments were also made regarding the analytics, the survey had received insufficient participants, requiring clarification. Ultimately, the current AYSS Council was given a challenging task: to develop a solution for changes to the competition and afterwards, to submit their proposals to Directorate.

Galina MYALKOVSKAYA