A team of sociologists, psychologists and media specialists from SFedU conducted a large-scale study within the framework of the Priority 2030 program and found a gap between the real image of a modern Russian scientist and the outdated one that lives in the public consciousness and the media.

Throughout 2025, the interdisciplinary team applied three different research perspectives to unravel this paradox. Sociologists interviewed almost three thousand scientific and pedagogical workers from all federal districts of Russia and conducted in-depth interviews with young candidates of sciences. Psychologists analyzed the associations of schoolchildren and students, as well as children's drawings collected for the 110th anniversary of the SFedU. Media analysts have studied one and a half hundred publications in the media and almost a thousand comments on social networks. The total number of participants and objects of analysis exceeded 4,300.

Anastasia Pilipenko, Associate Professor of the Department of Mediation and Social Engineering at the Institute of Sociology and Regional Studies of the Southern Federal University, said that the results of the sociological survey paint a portrait that breaks down the usual stereotypes. A modern young scientist is not a recluse in an ivory tower, but a "creative professional" who came to science consciously and for a long time.

"This is a profession with a high entry threshold: dissertation, grants, publications. This is where purposeful people come in, for whom science is highly likely to become a matter of life. They do not plan to leave, they are motivated not so much by salary as by personal interest and a desire to contribute to the development of society," explains Anastasia Pilipenko.

Researchers cite access to resources, good funding, and, most importantly, mentor support as the main conditions for success – 44.7% of respondents note this factor. At the same time, science today is a team effort, and young people identify themselves with living teams and specific projects.

However, the media space offers a different picture, which practically does not cover the personality of the scientist. An analysis of the publications showed that the young scientist in the media appears not as a living person, but as a set of formal achievements: "received a grant," "published an article," "won a competition."

"The media creates the image of a rational professional without a personal dimension. This is the "new Soviet hero": single-minded, hardworking, devoid of doubts, hobbies and personal life. His motivation is not an internal search, but an already found "mission." Such an image does not evoke emotions and is not memorable," Anastasia Pilipenko notes.

This gap is even more pronounced in the perception of children and social media users. The psychological analysis of children's drawings turned out to be revealing: in 95% of the images, the scientist works completely alone. His invariable attributes are a white coat, glasses and tousled hair, which refers to the archetype of a "crazy genius." Children associate the future of science with robots and space, but not with a team of people.

Social networks demonstrate a paradox: posts with the participation of young scientists collect enough comments, but 85.9% of these discussions are devoted to animals that researchers study. The scientist acts only as a "guide" to the cute content, remaining invisible.

"We are witnessing the phenomenon of "digital invisibility." Society is positive, but indifferent to scientists as individuals. Their work serves as a backdrop for discussing something simpler and more emotional," says Anastasia Pilipenko.

Thus, the SFedU study clearly diagnoses the gap: on the one hand, a real scientist, young, commanding, socially oriented, on the other, his perception as a lonely, boring and detached stereotype. But the team's work wasn't limited to diagnosis. Her results immediately became a practical tool and formed the basis of content for the popular science project "Genome of Science" and the upcoming children's project "Genome of Science. Children."

"Our task is not just to state that the image of a scientist in our minds is outdated. Our task is to reboot this image, filling it with real stories, faces and emotions from our own research. It is necessary to show not a "scientist in general", but a specific biologist Anya or physicist Ilya. Science is a drama of ideas and personal stories, not a dry report. This is exactly the story we will tell," sums up Ruslan Denisov, head of the SFedU Science Center and author of the Genome of Science project.

Today, the task is not just to talk about discoveries, but to "reset" the image of a scientist: to show faces, motivation, path, mistakes and inspiration. Because science is not just formulas and articles. It's always a human story.

Southern Federal University, being a participant of the strategic academic leadership program "Priority 2030" (national project "Youth and Children"), concentrates efforts on solving the tasks of scientific and technological development of the country. As part of this work, the university creates full-cycle production and technological chains based on the network architecture of interaction to respond to "big challenges". The key areas of development cover a number of critical and end-to-end technologies that underlie three key strategic technological projects of the university: "Technologies of soil bioengineering", "Technologies of multifunctional microelectronics and intelligent sensors for biohybrid and cyberphysical systems" and "Technologies for accelerated development and transfer of strategically important materials in micro and low-tonnage production".