Intra-firm mobility of scientific staff of the Russian Academy of Sciences

The article is devoted to the study of intra-firm labor mobility and the opportunities for updating the composition of research personnel, including managers. The information base was the data from the questionnaire survey of the personnel of the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, carried out by the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies of Population RAS in 2015. The age limit set for heads of institutions, the established standards for young research fellows and other measures have changed the mechanism of labor mobility. Changes in the position of researchers of different categories have been analyzed with the account of the factors facilitating career growth or, on the contrary, complicating it. It turned out that junior researchers and top-management were the most mobile categories in the personnel hierarchy. The summary picture of the career advancement to top management, on the one hand, showed its availability for employees with different starting opportunities, and on the other hand, provided insight into the personnel reserves of candidates for the position of director and deputy director for research. Career attitudes were correlated with the assessment of the reality of their implementation. The process of accelerated rejuvenation of the RAS personnel can be described as controversial, especially in connection with the large-scale changes in the top management. The internal potential of candidates for director’s post was also investigated. According to the study, it is not high enough, and the chances of a person from the outside are significant. It looks like normalization of the intra-firm mobility of researchers, including rotation of managerial personnel, is possible not so much by administrative regulation, as through the all-round development of the scientific environment in which there is a qualitative professional growth of scientific personnel.