Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium (1992)

Vice-President, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

The world is very interested in what is going on in the Soviet Union right now. It is hard to say whether the movement is from east to west or from west to east; it is not easy to distinguish.

It seems to me that it is best to begin by explaining briefly—and roughly— what is going on in my country. First, I would like to characterize the general situation for scientific R&D in the Soviet Union. I am not going to provide figures for current expenditures; I think my colleague, Dr. Ezhkov, who is vice-chairman of a state committee for science and technology, can provide more precise data on this matter. Instead, I would like to speak about the big transitions in my country and what they mean for us: for scientists and for people involved in science and technology. I should start by considering the situation about five years ago, before the Gorbachev reforms began.

First, I think the main feature of science and technology in the Soviet Union has been the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. The Academy of Sciences is a unique organization—sort of a combination of a scientific society and a ministry for fundamental research. I think this is more or less similar to the situation in West Germany, where there are very powerful research organizations such as the Max Planck Society, that have many laboratories and institutions oriented toward research without any teaching duties. In the Academy of Sciences we have about the same number of people as we had about five years ago: 350,000. There are 60,000 Ph.Ds working for the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy comprises about 500 research institutes and research laboratories.

It is impossible, of course, to discuss the subject, but we can easily conclude that the Academy is a little bit overstaffed. However, the Academy has a high reputation in basic or fundamental research, and it has a lot of first-class scientific organizations that compare very well with the best Western organizations.

Second, I should point out that Soviet universities do not play so important a role in research as the Academy of Sciences. If you try to compare the university situation in the Soviet Union to that of the Western world, it is impossible. We have very few excellent universities with a very high scientific reputation like Moscow State University, Leningrad State University, or Kiev. There are very few—only enough to count on one hand.

The provincial universities in the Soviet Union are very poor, both in the staff's qualifications and in facilities.

A third aspect I would like to mention is that we have a number of very good research organizations doing basic research in industry. A good example is the Atomic Commission of the Soviet Union. I should stress that these organizations are doing mainly fundamental research in such areas as elementary particle physics and high energy physics. We also have good organizations in the Ministry of Electronics, including a research center conducting microelectronics research. In chemistry I could mention the Karpov Institute.

Now I would like to explain our applied research organizations and the system of management in applied research. For a very long time, since just after World War II, we developed a very inflexible system of managing applied research in the Soviet Union. It was a very administrative system. For example, there was recently a special decision made by the Politburo of the Communist Party; the details of this general decision were filled in by a special governmental body under the Council of Ministers. This very detailed plan dictated what we had to do, where we had to do it, and who was obliged to do this and to do that—taking into account every necessary detail. This sort of detail is very characteristic of an administrative system.

In this way we did all that was accomplished in atomic energy and in space research. The system worked rather well, and there was no problem with money. A very large amount of money from the state's budget was allocated for space research, atomic research, and defense industries, with the result that in atomic energy, in space research, in some aspects of the defense industry, and in special fields of chemistry and biology, we were in a rather good position for a long time.

Then, about five years ago, Gorbachev came into power and, with so-called perestroika, started restructuring. The first three years was a very happy time for us. Indeed, we were in euphoria. The first acts of the Gorbachev government were very attractive, both in foreign policy and in the reconstruction of the social and political atmosphere in my country. People got freedom to a large degree.

But in the economy—what has happened in the economy? We have destroyed the administrative systems, but we have created nothing to take their place. This is very characteristic of the present moment. We have declared movement to a market economy and to market-type relationships among science and technology, research, development, manufacturing, trade, and so on. But it is not enough to declare it; it is necessary to build a new system. There is a lot of talk about Gorbachev being right, wrong, or whatever. But as scientists, you can understand clearly that for a big and heterogenous system like the Soviet system, it is not so easy to have a straight line of transformation.

We are facing many problems now, including ethnic problems, many economic problems, and many other kinds of problems as well. For in-

stance, we were very happy about transforming to democracy. But what does democracy mean now for the Soviet Union? I can say that we now have a very high degree of democracy; maybe we have a little more than necessary. For instance, even in the Academy of Sciences and in other scientific institutes, we have to elect everybody, including the director. I remember the old joke about passengers getting on an airplane and the flight attendant opening a general meeting to elect the pilot. I think that is an appropriate metaphor of our present situation.

I do not want to dwell on the political aspect of our life, but there are a lot of rumors about what has happened: we have turned to the right—from democracy to dictatorship and so on. The people want to live an ordered life. But, nowadays, practically everything is destroyed—industry, agriculture, all aspects of the economy. Of course, there are many possible ways out of the situation, but I think it is a special problem—not my field, of course, for I am a physicist. In any case, I would like to say that Mr. Gorbachev himself has great respect for the scientific community and scientists, and he invites them to participate in all stages of decisionmaking. But there are so many different views now, it is not so easy to come to a conclusion.

Now I would like to explain a little about applied research and technology transfer. What we have now is the whole system of administrative management destroyed. Members of the scientific community who penetrate to the top level still can get guarantees for basic fundamental research— enough money to be in a stable position. But for people from applied research areas—you have to understand that it is not so easy to guarantee subsidies for activities as big as applied research is in my country. We are facing very great difficulties in supporting applied research of a scale necessary.

Of course, in applied research we also find such situations as overstaffing. But the main problem is not the efficiency of people or the efficiency of institutes or laboratories; the problem is the cuts in money allocated. The government has now decided to support this big area with subsidies from a special fund for the coming two or three years—to support laboratories and institutes doing applied research and making technology transfers to industry.

I think everybody knows that Soviet industry for a very long time was absolutely uninterested in accepting new technology. We could do it only under pressure, by special directives from the top level of government. Now we are trying to move to a market economy, and all manufacturers and factories, as well as some other organizations, have decided not to pay for R&D. They have no motivation to pay. They want only to continue their old-fashioned production, and they have no motivation at all to produce new products, especially with high-tech methods.

This is the present situation. What we need now is a completely different kind of action in the fields of fundamental research and applied research. This past summer a very important act was signed by President Gorbachev concerning the Academy of Sciences. The act made the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union a private, self-ruling organization,

independent of the government, which I believe is an extremely important decision for us.

Now we are free, practically and formally, from any obligation to respond to directives from above. I have worked for the Academy of Sciences for over 30 years, and I remember very well many directives from above to do this, or that, in chemistry, biology, genetics and so on, and to do some kind of defense research. The Academy was obliged to a very large degree to do many things for the defense industry. Now we are free to make our own decisions. If we need some additional money, we can ask industry to pay and set up a contract to establish a special relationship. But we have got 1.5 billion rubles this year for so-called basic financing.

What, then, is the system? In the law signed by Gorbachev this summer were three major points. First, the Academy of Sciences is now an independent, self-governing organization. Second, nobody from above— party, government, or other political organization—can try to press the Academy by directives. Third, a new foundation has been established, so we now have a national or all-union foundation for fundamental research. This year the foundation has 3.2 billion rubles to distribute among academies, universities, and others in the scientific community so that everybody, including individuals, small groups, large groups, institutes, and laboratories can apply for money in a system very similar to that of the National Science Foundation.

Thus, we have two parallel systems. The first is the budgeting of the Academy of Sciences and the academies of the national republics, without any preconditions, for fundamental research. The money is distributed, not to the projects, but directly to institutes and Academy divisions. The second system is along the lines of the National Science Foundation of the United States—that is, it concerns grants and referees. It seems to us that we are very lucky to have a well-balanced system, and we will develop it carefully along these lines during the coming three to five years.

So the system of allocating money for fundamental research is in good shape, but, of course, we have another critical problem, and that is brain drain. Living conditions and research conditions in the Soviet Union are much worse than those in the West. For example, the President of the Soviet Union makes 4,000 rubles a month or 48,000 rubles per year. The black market ratio is 25 rubles to a dollar, so you can work out the numbers. The director of a big institute with 1,000 employees has a monthly salary of about 1,000 rubles—12,000 per year. Because people have freedom now, they can travel and they can apply for positions in the United States and in western Europe. With conditions as they are, many have the desire to leave.

But that is not the only reason for the brain drain; I think a more important reason concerns research conditions. An experiment that takes about one month to do in the United States takes about one year in the Soviet Union, on average, for there are the problems of computing, of experimental facilities, of service, and of getting materials in the Soviet Union.

I am not going into the political, social, and ethnic problems we have to solve. But I must say that this brain drain away from the Soviet Union to the Western world is a very dramatic process, and I believe it is much more important in the Soviet Union than in eastern Germany. Not only can we lose our scientific potential but we can lose our best people, and this drain can have a dramatic effect on the general atmosphere of the country. At present we still have choices about which way we will go, but if we lose our best people, we may lose the ability to go in the right direction.

As for applied research and technology transfer, of the many issues I could discuss, I address just two. The first is the special need to form a link between the Western world and our defense industry. Our defense industry is very capable and very much able to be integrated in the market economy because of its relatively high technological level. I think it is especially important to discuss ways in which we can do this. The people from the defense industry were put into a box for a long time, and they also want to be free now. They have a taste of freedom already, and they are, on average, very good people who could be very useful in the course of the main stream.

Second, I suggest for discussion the possibility of establishing not only offices of Western companies in Moscow and Leningrad but research organizations as well—research laboratories and institutions owned by Western companies and employing Russian people. For instance, IBM has good divisions in Europe; if such companies as IBM and IT&T were to establish scientific institutes in Moscow, they would provide the opportunity to employ very good people and would provide the chance to retrain many people doing applied research.

Deputy Chairman, U.S.S.R. State Committee on Science and Technology

I would like to make some comments on the problems of the Soviet Union's scientific and technical policies. First, I would like to give you some numbers concerning the outlays of the Soviet government for science. This year alone science expenditures from all sources will total about 68 billion rubles. Approximately 28 billion of that will come straight from the state budget, 1.5 billion of which will go to the Academy of Sciences and 12.5 billion of which is proposed to go to the development of military science (this figure is somewhat lower than last year's figure for military science and technology). About 6 billion rubles will go to the U.S.S.R. State Committee on Science and Technology for several priority sectors in civilian R&D. And, for the first time, there is a new article in our state budget this year: 8 billion rubles will go toward the conversion of military research and design institutions to civilian use.

The first priority for the money that the State Committee on Science and Technology receives is state-funded research projects. In 1988 there were 14 such specific research programs identified, and four more were added

this year. As for the specific content of these programs, it pretty much follows the sort of things one would expect to be developed in most of the countries of the world. In choosing the specific directions of these programs, one criterion we followed was that they should answer in some manner to the global problems of mankind. We view these programs as a basis for potential international cooperation, which would allow us all to develop even more research in these areas and to conserve research brain power, thus avoiding redundancy around the world.

Of course, some of these state programs are very specific to our country. For example, there is a program on highly efficient food production, which is a question that has probably been resolved in many countries of the world but for which we need a program. I want to underline the definite social emphasis in the development of these programs.

One thing that we have noticed in our country is that pure science has been torn away from the human factor—from peoples' needs. These programs about which I speak go in a new direction for us—they are socially oriented. Socially oriented science is something that has existed in other countries but not so much in our country. It is qualitatively new for us.

I do not have the time, of course, to go into detail on all of these programs, but I do want to mention that the selection of the projects was done on a competitive basis. Today, under the umbrella of these programs, we are working on something along the lines of 1,500 individual research projects that were selected from among 11,000 entrants into the competition. Among the majority that were not chosen, there were very many that were of very good quality; these were not rejected because they were bad-quality projects but simply because of the lack of funding.

I do not want you to get the idea from my talk that everything being done under the aegis of the state science programs is going perfectly well. One problem that exists is a sort of scientific monopolism that has developed in our country, which at times impedes the selection of the best people for a given project. Sometimes unfortunate things happen, as when the same people get money for specific projects that would have gotten money from some other source anyway. One way in which I see we can achieve the proper decisions might be through the invitation of the international community to participate in these projects. I think that this is a field in which there are broad opportunities for collaboration.

A third item that I would like to touch upon is the legislative support for scientific and technical progress in the country. This morning, Mr. Pandolfi of the European Community mentioned that there is a series of legislation supporting scientific research within the European Community. Unfortunately, I could not name for you a parallel item of legislation in the Soviet Union—one that outlines the competence and the authority of a particular scientific institution or particular organs and so forth for scientific research. Unfortunately, until now, the entire process of directing sci-

entific research was done through the government or through such organizations as the Politburo.

Now, as we strive toward the achievement of a legally based social system in our country, we realize that we need a legislative foundation for scientific and technical progress. As a result, at this point there is a great deal of draft legislation in various stages of development. Some of it is still in the project phase; some of it has been introduced already in the Supreme Soviet.

The one piece of draft legislation that has made it to the Supreme Soviet is the draft law on inventions. This draft law guarantees the author's full rights to intellectual property: either a process or an invention created by an individual. It would be hard to overestimate the impact of such a law because its absence has a profound negative effect on the development of international scientific cooperation.

Another direction for possible collaboration with the Soviet scientific and technical community might be in assisting in the development of an appropriate legislative base, because the only way that we can enter the world scientific community is through legal mechanisms.

Question: Perhaps you could take another minute to say something both about the Russian Academy of Science and the emerging academies of other republics and about the cooperative sector in scientific research, the private sector.

Academician Osipyan: First of all, I would like to say that we have academies in all national republics except the Russian republic. The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union draws 95 percent of its members from the Russian republic; 99 percent of the Academy's laboratories and institutions are in the Russian republic. Practically, it acts as the Academy of Sciences of Russia. But, nevertheless, the Russian republic should have its own academy, in addition to the Academy of Sciences.

I think there are two reasons it should. First, there are so many eminent scientists who have no chance to enter the Academy because its size is very much limited; there has been a struggle to create additional places for the election of more candidates. The second reason is purely administrative; the Russian government would like to have its own academy to manage or manipulate.

Dr. Ezhkov: Let me say a word or two about scientific cooperatives. They have begun to function very efficiently. I don't have the exact figure, but, roughly speaking, I know that the entire volume of scientific works published or created by the cooperative sector last year equaled the volume

of works published within the official institutions of higher education: universities, colleges, and institutes.

But such a tumultuous growth of scientific cooperatives has raised certain problems. One of the biggest problems is that the workers of a scientific research institute may work on their own projects, using the physical plant, equipment, and materials of that institute. Using the brain power of the institute, of members of the institute who are not members of their cooperative, they may come up with research results at the expense of the institute but in the name of the cooperative, thus diminishing the institute as an institution. This particular problem is not yet regulated by legislation. It is not against the law.

Question: I am interested in the 18 special programs that you have launched. You represent them as being the basis for international cooperation. Do you have any specific mechanisms, plans, or procedures in place for connecting those with international activities of any sort? In other words, how are you going to exploit the international cooperation in those programs?

Academician Osipyan: To manage international cooperation you need hard currency. Under the current system, if you have a budget for a state program, you get a very small additional part paid in hard currency from the state budget. It is the only means of organizing international cooperation. A program I work with, for example, is funded with 30 million rubles per year, including just $100,000 in hard currency. We spent practically all that money sending people to participate in international conferences.

Another example is a high energy physics program. This is traditionally big science, with a very high level of international cooperation. But we have to be very sharp at creating opportunities. For instance, we have spent our rubles with Soviet industry to produce superconducting wire, and we are going to send this wire to Dallas. In return, we hope to get back some hard currency to use for international cooperation.

Question: I am interested particularly in the 1,500 projects selected from 11,000 applications. You mentioned that they came from many sources; where primarily are these grant requests coming from? And has there been great pressure to improve that ratio?

Dr. Ezhkov: We do not discriminate between proposals from the state sector or the cooperative sector. A large number of the projects that we fund are Academy of Sciences institutions. But this also includes cooperatives and so forth.

The current projects, the ones that are ongoing, are not stagnant. They are being reviewed constantly by scientific committees and so forth. Academician Osipyan, in fact, had one such committee. So they are constantly in a state of flux as to who is actually in the project.

As for future competition, I personally feel it would be wrong to limit participation. I think we ought to disseminate information about them more widely and invite as many applications as possible. Of course, that complicates the actual decisionmaking process, but this is only an administrative question.