basic problems did not change until the Tenth Plan, 

 when central authorities tightened up on procedures 

 and laid down the "basic technical-economic indica- 

 tors" to guide the selection process. 



All the same, despite improvements in calculating 

 effectiveness, economic return on R&D is not an ab- 

 solute criterion for selection of basic problems. 

 There are other factors, such as national prestige, 

 defense, social and even technological goals, that 

 may override considerations of economic benefit and 

 cost /effectiveness ratio. V. N. Arkhangelskiy, a ma- 

 jor authority on the planning and financing of R&D, 

 labels this the "criterion of necessity." In cases 

 where this criterion applies, he writes, only the 

 cost and not the economic return need be estimated."^ 

 Though he gives no specific examples of basic S&T 

 problems that fit this category, we can surmise that 

 "necessity" may have determined the choice of some 

 of the research-oriented problems in the areas of 

 space, oceanography, public health, and atomic ener- 

 gy. Examples of past technology-oriented basic prob- 

 lems that may have been perceived in these terms were 

 the development of the Soviet supersonic transport 

 plane, the TU-144, and the new series of Arktik class 

 atomic ice breakers. 



Even more difficult to quantify than economic cri- 

 teria are the two others, technical and particularly 

 social criteria. But these exert significant influ- 

 ence on project selection. The project to mechanize 

 production operations at the large ZIL truck plant is 

 a case in point. As a Soviet case study of the deci- 

 sion-making process that underlay this modernization 

 program notes: 



The program of reconstruction had great economic, 

 technical, and social significance. 



The economic significance of the program consisted 

 in that it was viewed as the creation of signifi- 

 cant economic return: the growth of labor produc- 

 tivity, increase of profitability of production, 

 and guaranteeing stability of quality production. 



123 



