A Guide to the Russian Academy of Sciences - University of Texas ...

and who is not afraid to tell you. I can only express my thanks to him for his
understanding.
Fred Giessler, Bill Manthorpe, and Iames Westwood have encouraged me along the way
and have often provided me with insights that have proved to be valuable. Perhaps
none of this could have been done without the encouragement and support of
Andrew Marshall: my work on The Soviet Higher Military Educational System
(February 1982) 198 pp. and Occasional Paper No. 4, The Academies of Sciences
in the Soviet Union: An Overview of Soviet Research and Development (July 1982)
226 pp. Both were printed by the Center for Strategic Technology under Dick
Thomas at Texas A&M University. The present guide to the Russian Academy is
larger in size and scope with much of its contents updated. The cooperation
received from the Russian Academy itself accounts for this.
I believe that while the Russian Academy of Sciences is suffering greatly during this time
of troubles in Russia, it will survive. It will keep its unique system of scientific
research organization and the training of its scientists--Russian scientists will
remain institute-based, rather than university-based. I would expect the quality of
graduate research training to improve in the freer economy of the mind that is
transpiring before our eyes in Russia. These men and women will be pioneers in
these changes.
In late December of 1992, in the Rossiyskaia (aya) gazeta (29 December), Iurii Osipov,
President of the Academy, described the difficult situation the Academy was facing
in the coming year: financing had dropped precipitously while inflation had
wreaked havoc with finances of all the research institutes of the Academy; young
scientists were leaving the system for greener fields abroad in growing numbers,
creating great concern; and the publishing situation for scientific works was in a
disastrous state. Yet, as he pointed out, the Academy was surviving, and
cooperation among most of the former Republic Academies was beginning to be
develop under a suggestion from Ye. Paton, President of the Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences, and joint research project development among these academies Osipov
believed to be a responsibility. Additionally, the Academy and its institutes were
experimentally developing closer ties with many of the higher educational
institutions in the country--not however transferring the postgraduate training of its
scientists over to the Universities along the American model. As some of the former
major State Industrial Research Institutes were being reorganized, he felt that some
of these, particularly the former TRsAGI Ministry of Aviation’s institute might well
be absorbed in the Academic Institute System and a Nuclear Energy Institute might
also be created. Meanwhile, he believed that Russian researchers could contribute
greatly in providing ideas and data need for the reorganization of the economy and
the Russian society. He urged a continuation of the democratization within the
Academy saying that “The central figure must be the scientist, with his right to
scientific research and a scientific result. . . But the Academy itself must seek
solutions for immediate problems. [It must strive] to retain scientific collectives and
capable young people. We must support people who think unusually and freely.”
Osipov closed his article by observing that in an “. . . atmosphere of scientific
freedom and tolerance, new interesting ideas and programs are the best guarantee
that people who come to science will stay in institutes in spite of difficulties [so]
that we, together with Russia, will survive.”
This guide will give the interested reader a better idea of the scope of scientific
activity in Russia and some notion of how important this system is and may prove
to be for the future survival of Russia itself.
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