鈥淔lagship research projects鈥� advocate research that can be published in high-level journals with the impact factor of 20+. Such research is generously funded - up to 2mln rubles per year for each project 鈥� so that the scientists could do research along with making international contacts and promoting their work. All the aspects are equally important here. The projects are launched as part of the program on increasing the international competitiveness of NSU among leading research and education centers.
The contest for flagship research projects at NSU attracted four applications. All of them were highly evaluated by the experts, but only two projects were selected as finalists. Dr. Dmitry Churkin, Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics, who works at the Institute of Automation and Electrometry SB RAS, proposed his research on laminar-turbulent transition and new modes for fiber laser generation. The other research work which received support is to be done by Dr. Maxim Filipenko, Ph.D. in Biology, who works as a deputy head of the Laboratory of Pharmacogenomics at the Research Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine SB RAS, Novosibirsk. His work is devoted to 鈥淧aleogenome analysis of sheep domestication in Asia鈥�, which aids in finding phylogenic relations between ancient and modern sheep based on sequencing some of their genome areas.
Dmitry Zharkov, DSc in biology, working at SB RAS Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine and at the NSU Project Office, explained that the applications were accepted due to their strong potential to establish or improve some promising research directions at NSU and Akademgorok, along with improving the NSU citation and publication indices. One of such promising directions is paleogenomics, a new area of research for the university; the other application will be helpful for more intensive development of the existing research area, fiber lasers.
The idea of funding flagship projects arose while preparing the NSU Road Map, which describes the steps aimed at NSU improving its international competitiveness and entering the program 鈥�5-100鈥�. Dimtry Zharkov believes that quite a number of papers submitted by NSU researchers are published at a much lower level than they really deserve. Some works can well be published in Nature or Science, for instance, but they come out in journals with a lower impact factor. The reasons may be numerous, but a crucial one is the lack of self-promotion. Our researchers and their works are not very popular abroad even if the level of them is really high. Thus, 鈥渨hen a journal receives an article from, say, a Novosibirsk, whose author did not participate in many conferences or did not collaborate with foreign colleagues, it receives a cold welcome from the editors in comparison to an article by a western scientist with a big network of contacts. It does not depend so much on the actual level of science, which may be equally high,鈥� explains Dmitry.
According to the program, there should be at least one research article published at a journal with 10+ impact factor by the end of 2015. In two years鈥� time, at least one article should appear in 20+ impact factor journal.
There are about 10-15 journals with 20+ impact factor in the world. The list includes such famous journals as Nature, Science, Cell, New Journal of Medicine, Reviews of Modern Physics, etc. Publications in such prestigious volumes add reputation and rating scores to the university.
