mechanism of promotion at govt lab

I discovered how people obtain promotions in government laboratories.
The problem is that a worker cannot be just promoted to a higher-level
position; a new position has to be created, and the person has to apply
for this position alongside with other public applicants, and win it.
The selection criteria can be written to suit the skills of the person
to be promoted, however a better applicant can apply. From the other
side, the person may "shoot himself in the foot" by demonstrating a bad
attitude at the interview and thus not getting the promotion position.

The non-guranteedness of the hiring process presents the difficulty for
the management. Suppose, the management created a new, higher-level
position to do the same job (the intention is that after the person
gets a higher-level position, the old one is made redundant). And the
person did not win the position. Now the management have two people
doing the job of one. The management does not need such a situation to
happen. This means that the management will not promote the staff.

Then the question arises -- how do the people at govt labs get promoted
at all ? Here is how. From time to time, a hot new project in a hot new
area is created. It requires new staff. The employees from other
projects apply for a higher-level position at this new hot project.
They abandon their old areas of research. This is the only main way of
promotion.

I also noticed the other trend at our govt lab. Ther management bitch
and moan at every staff meeting that they do not have the right people
to do the projects. From one side, they have technicians who develop
new equipment and set up experiments, and do what they are told without
thinking. From the other side, there are hordes of computer
modellers-scientists who spend 100% in front of their computers and who
do not know how to set up experiment or build a device. The managers
say that there are no people who would be able to do computer
modelling, and then go to the field/lab and apply this knowledge to
building a new device or conducting an experiment.

But I think such a situation is the creation of the managers
themselves. The managers have managed by the method "divide and rule";
that is, the manager keeps the big picture in his mind, and doles out
the elementary bits of work to the workers. This is how the polarised
classes of technicians and modellers-scientists remote from each other
were created. The person who would be a go-between the scientists and
technicians would be highly productive and thus would wield too much
power. And this is what the managers do not want. However, the
productivity of the lab dropped almost to zero because there was no
communication between the scientists (who are supposed to come up with
new ideas) and the technicians (who do the stuff as they are told).
Something has to give up. Either managers take some power off them and
give to the junior scientists, or the lab will collapse.

Here is my story on the topic. There is no agreement in the top ranks
of management. Recently, our administrative boss told the staff at the
meeting that a higher-level position was created in the new area. This
is the position about creation of which for me they had talked about.
This position is created independently from the lower-level position
for which I have already applied and will be interviewed soon. This
higher-level position is created within the department of another boss.
I do not know if the relevant top manager will want me to apply for it.
If I apply and then get this higher-level position, my supervisor and
his boss will probably be mad. I am concerned about it. I am now doing
a rather challenging science with my current supervisor, and I created
this "niche" from scratch. And they want me to continue doing it at a
lower level new position. The higher-level position at another dept
will be about helping out at an already established project and thus be
boring. But apply I will be.

\/