terial supplies system and try to satisfy their needs 

 illegally and by direct acquisition from producing 

 organizations. 



THE SELECTION OF RESEARCH TOPICS AND TASKS 



Program and project selection in Soviet R&D facil- 

 ities reflects the combined impact of possibilities 

 and objectives. Important factors influencing tech- 

 nical possibilities are current Soviet state-of-the- 

 art; the state-of-the-art abroad and potential for 

 foreign technology acquisition; and the quality and 

 quantity of material, labor, and capital inputs that 

 can be directed to technology generation and acqui- 

 sition. Important factors influencing objectives are 

 the level of the decision maker, his independent or 

 derived aspirations, and the urgency of the technical 

 problem at hand in comparison to other claimants on 

 resources. Influencing both possibilities and ob- 

 jectives is the productivity of investment in partic- 

 ular programs and projects, or in other words, the 

 value of the results which may be expected from a 

 given amount of inputs. While the selection proce- 

 dures and criteria clearly differ depending upon the 

 agency and type of R&D, and though our knowledge of 

 the details of Soviet decision making is still limit- 

 ed at all levels, the following description supplies 

 the important principles and general procedures. 



In all organizations and at all levels of the hi- 

 erarchies the selection generally proceeds in three 

 stages: (1) an evaluation of where the organization 

 or entity (the nation as a whole, republic, or branch 

 of the economy) is at a particular time; (2) an as- 

 sessment of where the organization or entity is like- 

 ly to be under the assumptions of combining possibil- 

 ities with several variants of objectives; and (3) a 

 selection of alternatives. The chief concern in the 

 first stage is the set of indicators employed to 

 evaluate status; in the second, techniques of fore- 

 casting; and in the third, the designation and hier- 

 archy of plans, programs, and projects and the cri- 



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