• retraining the administrative staff;
• improving the managerial structure of the university;
• developing norms for increasing the responsibility and discipline of the employees at all levels;
• creating a system for forecasting, planning, controlling, registering, and analyzing condition related to managerial and financial activity;
• creating a network of programs for quick and comprehensive problem solving at all levels;
• applying innovative decision-making methods;
• providing multiple financing sources for all university activities; and
• improving the efficiency of resource use.

Given the country's economic problems, the institute has to address many issues to create and maintain an appropriate environment for work while improving the quality of scientific and educational activities.

An analysis of the demand for institute services revealed that the following factors have affected the basic production assets of industry: low quality of domestic industrial products, active competition from imported products, and a steep decline in production and investment. To identify customers for university research, the institute also analyzed its sources of research funding. The effort revealed the following distribution:

• funds from enterprises: 87 percent
• state budget funds: 4.5 percent
• foreign funds: 5.0 percent
• off-budget funds: 2.0 percent
• other sources: 1.5 percent

These investigations suggested that:

• university science can be of interest to domestic enterprises,
• scientific work has to have a short payback period,
• introduction of a new product does not demand a large startup investment (up to $5 million), and
• enterprises are less concerned about securing patent rights than about securing their rights to use the final products.

On the basis of these insights, the institute identified requirements for its scientific research.

The institute's laboratories were merged according to the industries they served (oil, gas, refinery, etc.). Innovation and technological laboratories were