Агамова Наталья Сумбатовна

Аллахвердян Александр Георгиевич

The number of scientific workers is one of the chief characteristics of the level of the development of scientific research in a country. In Russia, the number of scientists grew by a factor of 9.2 between 1950 and 1988, and decreased by afactorof 2.5 (from 992.6 to 391.1 thousand) between 1990 and 2005. The fastest growth (90 percent) occurred during the 1950s, whereas by the 1980s it slowed down to 10 percent. The analysis and proper interpretation of these data require a careful consideration of the sources, their methods of counting, and an account of historical and social contexts.