|
Soviet Union [USSR] RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND PRODUCTION ORGANIZATIONS
In 1989 the Soviet scientific and technological establishment
consisted of a variety of organizations engaged in the research,
development, and production of new products or processes. In
general, each organization specialized in one phase of the process
and in one sector of industry.
Many types of organizations were involved. Western specialists
placed them in three broad categories: research institutions,
design organizations, and production facilities. In the first
category, the most numerous organizations were the scientific
research institutes (nauchno-issledovatel'skie instituty--
NIIs), which focused on scientific research, both basic and
applied. Each NII was headed by an appointed director, who oversaw
a staff of researchers and technical personnel. Another type of
research institution, the research laboratory
(laboratoriia), operated independently or as a component of
a larger NII or a production plant.
The second category, design organizations, included design
bureaus (konstruktorskie biuro--KBs) and technological
institutes (tekhnologicheskie instituty). Each of these
encompassed a range of facilities with such titles as special
design bureau (spetsial'noe konstruktorskoe biuro--SKB),
central design bureau (tsentral'noe konstruktorskoe biuro),
and project design and technology bureau (proektnokonstruktorskoe i tekhnologicheskoe biuro). Design bureaus
planned new products and machines, although some also conducted
research. Technological institutes had responsibility for designing
new processes, installations, and machinery.
The third category included production facilities that
manufactured the new product or applied the process developed by
the research and design facilities. The output and testing of
industrial prototypes, industrial innovation processes, or smallbatch production prior to the stage of mass production occurred in
experimental production or pilot plants (various Russian
designations, e.g., opytnye zavody, opytnye
stantsii). These functioned independently or were attached to
production facilities, research institutions, or design
organizations.
In addition to their categorization according to the research,
development, and production phase in which they were most involved,
these facilities were characterized according to their
organizational affiliation: industrial ministries, university and
higher education, or the Academy of Sciences system.
Industrial ministries controlled the majority of science and
technology organizations, including all types of research
institutions, design organizations, and production facilities. The
precise number of facilities in 1989 was not available because the
Soviet press stopped publishing such statistics about a decade
earlier. Western specialists, however, reported that in 1973 there
were 944 independent design organizations, and in 1974 there were
2,137 industrial NIIs. The number of production facilities
undoubtedly exceeded both those figures.
Industrial science and technology organizations tended to
concentrate on one broad area, such as communications equipment,
machine tools, or automobiles. They were directly subordinate to
the industrial ministry responsible for that sector
(see Soviet Union USSR - Industrial Research and Design
, ch. 12). Science and technology work in
ministries was directed by scientific-technical councils within the
ministries; the councils comprised the ministry's leading
scientists and engineers.
The second organizational affiliation, the higher education
system, has been administered by the Ministry of Higher and
Specialized Secondary Education. In addition to training
scientists, the ministry's system provided a research base whose
contribution to national scientific research and development has
been growing. Its system included such varying scientific
organizations as NIIs, design bureaus, problem laboratories
(problemnye laboratorii), branch laboratories (otraslevye
laboratorii), scientific sectors (nauchnye sektory), and
such specialized institutions as computer centers, observatories,
and botanical gardens. The number of organizations in the Ministry
of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education and the percentage of
the country's overall science budget allocated to them remained
relatively small. In the late 1980s, their contribution was
increasing with the expansion of contract research.
The third organizational affiliation, the Academy of Sciences,
in 1989 was divided into four sections: physical sciences,
engineering, and mathematics; chemistry and biology; geosciences;
and social sciences. Grouped into these subject areas were
approximately 300 research institutes employing more than 58,000
people. The network also included the separate academies of
sciences in each of the fifteen union republics of the Soviet Union
(except the Russian Republic, which was represented by the allunion academy) and regional divisions, the most prominent of which
has been the Siberian Division. The academy also had responsibility
for specialized schools, such as the All-Union Academy of
Agricultural Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences.
As the most prestigious scientific establishment in the Soviet
Union, the Academy of Sciences has attracted the country's best
scientists. Membership has always been attained through election.
In January 1988, the academy had approximately 380 academicians and
770 corresponding members. Of these, about 80 academicians and 170
corresponding members were elected in December 1987. This election
was noteworthy because it was the first held since the review of
academy personnel policies had begun a year earlier. The review led
to a number of measures directed at removing some of the older
members from active participation, such as requiring them to retire
at age seventy-five. The new rules also lowered the age at which a
scientist could be elected to the academy and established an age
limit beyond which officials who were not academicians could hold
top-level administrative positions, such as institute director.
Once voted into the academy, a member held that title for life (as
an example, dissident Sakharov retained his academician status even
while in internal exile in Gor'kiy).
The members of the academy usually met once a year in general
assembly to discuss major issues, to vote on organizational
matters, and to elect new members. In October 1986, the general
assembly elected Gurii Marchuk, formerly chairman of GKNT, as its
president. Marchuk replaced Anatolii P. Aleksandrov, who had served
as president for eleven years.
Soviet scientists and governmental officials have debated the
precise role of the Academy of Sciences in the development of
science and technology since the inception of the Soviet state.
Such discussions continued during the 1980s. Statutes defined the
academy's mission as conducting primarily basic or fundamental
research. Some scientists and administrators, even within the
academy, have argued that this was appropriate and that the academy
should not engage in applied research. Many others, however, have
argued that the academy has to be involved in applied research not
only because it employs the best scientific talent in the nation
but also because fundamental science drives technological
development and causes technological breakthroughs. In his speech
to the Nineteenth Party Conference in June 1988, academy president
Marchuk stressed that "fundamental scientific research is the basis
of all science and all scientific and technical progress. It
defines the prospects for ten to twenty years hence, it achieves
the breakthroughs both in the production sphere and in the sphere
of knowledge of nature and society."
Data as of May 1989
|
