Institutional Aspects of Scientific School Activity

Abstract

The article examines the problem of institutional aspects of the activities of scientific schools. The methodological basis of the study includes the ideas of the evolutionary theory of social institutions. Dialectical and causal methods are the main methods of analysis. The article demonstrates the role of institutions in the process of formation, decline and revival of the school on the example of the Austrian school of economics. The development of the school took place in accordance with the institutional requirements that existed at that time, the school reached the rare case of four to five generations of “teacher-pupil”. The loss of the institutional academic environment after the Anschluss of Austria is interpreted as the most important factor leading to decline. The process of the school revival is analyzed in the context of the used scientific institutions (conferences, research centers, scientific journals). The theoretical and practical value of the paper is to confirm the thesis that the transformation of scientific schools into invisible colleges that do not require geographical localization, in the case of a school revival, has its own specifics. In our opinion, the work of scientists in different scientific centers with joint distance communication initially requires the concentration of a “critical mass” around one of them. For the Austrian school, the Mises Institute acted as such a center. In addition, the fruitful functioning of a scientific school requires the task of preparing new scientists, which cannot be without academic institutionalization, i.e. opening the master's and doctoral programs.