The article considers the main models of interaction between the authorities and the expert community, as well as the conditions for maintaining civil responsibility of experts. The text is based both on the results of previous studies and on the materials of 15 semi-structured interviews with experts conducted in the spring of 2017 in Moscow and St. Petersburg, most of which have experience of responsible work in federal or regional government bodies or interaction with international organizations, as well as academic work in universities or NGOs. Expert interviews were analyzed with the method of the “categorical content analysis scheme” and the QDA Miner Light program. Based on the criterion of the main affiliation (or lack thereof) and the degree of remoteness from the high authority, six categories of experts are identified that are involved both in the processes of politics – the struggle for the conquest or retention of power, and the process of policy – preparing and adopting political and managerial decisions. Along with the previously shown models of interaction between experts and authorities – a linear autonomous model, a model of virtuous intelligence and a model of “prepaid result”, the author suggests the fourth one, the model of initiative expertise, within which projects of political and managerial decisions are developed without the participation of executive power. It is shown that a certain level of civil responsibility of experts can be supported by the corporate ethics of the expert community, the development of which is promoted by professional expert associations.