Abstract. The article analyzes IMEMO activities in 1992, when Russia began to implement radical economic reforms. The rapid development of events outpaced their deep understanding, let alone the forecasting of socio-economic consequences of a "shocking therapy". During this period, IMEMO experts tried to analyze the implementation of economic reforms and formulate their attitude towards them. The main platform for discussions held at the Institute was its Academic Council where the most important reforms of the "Gaidar team" were discussed. The individual members of this team – Petr Aven, Sergei Glaz'ev, Maksim Boiko – gave explanations, and assessments of economic reforms – support and rejection – were revealed during discussions at the meetings of the Academic Council. In general, the approval of reforms prevailed in the expert community of IMEMO. But even the supporters of Egor Gaidar among IMEMO economists saw their serious shortcomings and negative effects: hasty, unfounded hopes for self-regulating market; neglect of social factors; surge of corruption during the privatization and corporatization of state property; continuing inflation, which contradicted the adopted  principle of monetarism; underestimation of the state participation in the process of reforming the economy, etc. The interaction between IMEMO reformers and the government was a serious problem. Scientists criticized the government for neglecting their recommendations, and officials argued that academic science is constantly late with its recommendations and advice. The question of the IMEMO experts' direct involvement in the work of individual ministries – Economy and Finance, Foreign Economic Relations and other – was only partially solved through the secondment of some Institute employees to these ministries. In general, the problem of closer cooperation between science and practice was not successfully solved.