Expert Activities of Scholars in the Context of Age Differences

The expert activities of scientists are diverse and represent one of the professional roles both within the academic world and in the social space beyond it. The article presents the results of sociological survey of the expert activities of researchers and university professors in the context of age differences. The study involved an online questionnaire survey of 486 experts from 14 regions of Russia in 2023. The survey showed that a researcher providing expertise essentially always goes beyond the boundaries of his institution. The older respondents more often have to act as experts outside their primary workplace predominantly working with government authorities. The article provides data on the degree to which age influences experts' commitment to their specialization, their focus on the needs of a specific region or institution, and the role of authority, reputation and status. The older experts primarily rely on their professional experience highly valuing methodological competence. Younger experts pay more attention to objective facts focusing on the logic of analyzing the situation and the object of expertise. With age and experience there is an increase in refusals to conduct expertise partly due to the significant time investment, lack of payment for this activity, and the conflicts of interest. Young experts refuse to conduct expertise much less frequently mainly citing a lack of relevant competencies as the reason. The older experts are significantly more confident in their authority, while young experts are interested in developing their professional reputation and pay special attention to the review of scientific manuscripts. This indicates stable and reproducible norms in science where expertise is an integral element of the verification of scientific knowledge.

expertise, ambivalence of expert knowledge, expert, competence, expert activity, academic researchers, university professors