Young Researchers in the Labour Market in Russian Regions

Abstract

Currently, significant efforts are being made to attract and retain young people in science. However, based on the statistics of academic staff, these efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. The article aims to examine the demand for academic staff and their supply. It is hypothesised that the exclusive focus of state policy on attracting young scientists is not a sufficient condition for capacity building of academic staff in Russia. The paper presents an approach to the study of demand factors for academic staff, including young researchers, and their supply. Correlation analysis shows that, according to the current dynamics of indicators, the economic and social demand for academic staff, especially young researchers, is not articulated. At the same time, the analysis revealed a close relationship between the number of young researchers and indicators of supply of academic staff, and even practically functional relationships between individual indicators. This connection is explained by demographic reasons, the lack of an effective system for ensuring the inflow of young researchers and the growing prestige of science as a career. The obtained results demonstrate that researchers aged 20-29 years significantly differ from those aged 30-39 years in terms of demand factors for academic staff and their supply. In order to comprehensively solve the problem of capacity building of academic staff in Russia, it is important to support not only young researchers, but also scientific schools. © 2023 Institute of Economics, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.