Sustainable Professional Career in Science and Technology: Interdisciplinary Perspective and the Russian Context

Sustainable Professional Career in Science and Technology: Interdisciplinary Perspective and the Russian Context

Popova Irina

Institute of Sociology of the Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology
National Research University “Higher School of Economics”

КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА:

PROFESSIONAL CAREER, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, SUSTAINABLE CAREER, PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

АННОТАЦИЯ:

We are faced with a contradiction in the approach to professional careers of scientists and engineers. On the one hand, we have an emerging environment, characterized by uncertainty, instability in re- gard to the status and the prospects of various groups employed in this sphere, growing mobility and diversity of career types, as well as bases for differentiation of their typology. On the other hand, the in- tegrity and biography of a career as a process of accumulating knowledge, professional experience, re- sources of social networks and statuses remains an important requirement. And, from this viewpoint, it can only be long-term and consistent. Establishing a favorable professional environment remains the main task in resolving this contradiction.The impact of various external factors on professional careers, including the science and technol- ogy sector, is becoming an urgent problem within the framework of various concepts and disciplines. Conceptual accuracy and thoroughness in the examination of external career factors distinguishes pri- marily the approaches to social psychology, sociology, management and organizational studies. This allows us to pose the question of infrastructure of professional careers in the field of science and tech- nology. The conceptual framework from the viewpoint of various disciplines enriches our perceptions of it. This presentation offers an attempt to raise the problem of interdisciplinary interaction in relation to the study of the potential for regulating professional careers in the field of science and technology. In the Russian context, its various aspects may need to be emphasized. We must take into account the specifics of the Russian situation, which during the recent decades was differentiated by the radical disruption of continuity, as well as the erosion of previous models of the work force regeneration in the field of science and technology; substantiation and establishment of new ones for more effective organization of activities in this field. In general, the analysis helps identify three levels of such infra- structure: a macro level (state policy in regard to science); middle level (on the level of a particular institution and organizations) and family level. This report utilizes data based on research projects supported by The Russian Foundation for Humanities grant № 16-03-50220).