SCIENTIFIC SPHERE OF THE SOUTHERN REGION AS A REFLECTION OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATE OF UKRAINE

Topicality. Science is an extremely powerful socio-economic institution, without which industrial production is impossible. Science is closely intertwined with financial flows and due to their volume. But its current state and the state of financial support of scientific research in Ukraine, and including its Southern region, is very problematic. The study proved that this is the main obstacle to the development of science and raising its prestige Economic growth and meeting the needs of society depend on the state and pace of development of science. Only by achieving a high level of science and scientific and technological development will Ukraine be able to take a worthy place in the international arena. Only a deep comprehensive analysis of the state of scientific and technical activities in the country and its regions allows to identify problems that have arisen in the field of science, and to justify ways to overcome them. Aim and tasks. The aim of the article is to determine the place of science in the public life of the country and study its state in the Southern region of Ukraine, as well as to substantiate ways to increase the prestige of science in Ukraine and bring Ukrainian science to the European level. Research results. To determine the ways to bring the science of the Southern region from the existing complex state, the diagnosis of scientific research in terms of their types and regions of the region in the dynamics of five years. The process of introduction and replication of innovative developments is investigated. Statistical analysis of the development of science is supplemented by sociological research. A study of the authority of Ukrainian science in the world. Indicators of countries where science takes good care of the state and feels comfortable are considered. Substantiated conclusions are made and ways to overcome the critical state of the scientific sphere in the Southern region and Ukraine as a whole are identified. Conclusions. Science, as the engine of the socio-economic movement in Ukraine, must become a national value. This requires reforms and intensification of the work of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which may bring the time closer when the decline of scientific research will stop; a break in understanding the role of science in society, when it will not be treated in a way that can be left unsupported for years; changing the status of the renewed National Academy of Sciences, giving it the right of legislative initiative and the official return of the leading role in the scientific and technological revolution while preserving academic freedoms, self-government and democracy in work. Without a state that will lend a shoulder to scientists to successfully deal with all the internal problems of our science, especially its unclaimed, there is no chance to change the existing situation.