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

State
Committee
of Planning
GOSPLAN
Research and Development:
Chart 2
Research and Development Planning in the USSR
Central Committee
CPSU
State
Committee
forScience and
Technology
GKNT
Scientific Research
and Development
❖❖❖
National Academy
of Sciences
Presidium
Research and development were a joint responsibility of three organizations. Chart 2
illustrates how the Academy of Sciences of the former USSR served as one of the
three organizations involved in planning scientific research and technological
development. From the mid-1980s until the AN SSSR became the Russian Academy
of Sciences (RAS), a major problem confronted by the Government Planning
Organization (GOSPLAN), the State Committee for Science and Technology
(GKNT), and the AN SSSR Presidium was finding a way to translate the results of
basic scientific research into speedy industrial production. During the 1980s,
officials of all three organizations worked to achieve this objective. Such cooperation
among governmental groups remains and the search continues for ways to speed
discovery into production. Undoubtedly new governmental structures will perform
the functions of the former CC CPSU in research and development in Russia. 7
The Subject-Matter Departments: The weight given to certain kinds of research,
particularly in the "hard sciences," is seen in Figure 3. By 1980, the Departments of
the AN SSSR in Moscow had developed many scientific research institutes that, in
turn, had established a great number of laboratories, and/or Departments and other
sub-units within the research system. This rate of growth began slowing in the
1980s.
7 For an explanation of the Academic, Ministerial and "Plant" Sciences, see G. Lakhtin,
"Scientific and Technical Progress and Science: Academic, Sectorial, Plant,"
Sotsialisticheskii trud, No.3, March 1985, 24-33.
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