times as the lead agency — in the solution of compre- 

 hensive interbranch problems. In cooperation with 

 appropriate USSR ministries and agencies the ministry 

 resolves questions regarding the withdrawal of obso- 

 lete products from production and use. Supervision 

 over the observance of standards and the status of 

 means of measurement and tests falls within its com- 

 petence. For individual types of products for which 

 there are no state standards the ministry approves 

 branch technical norms. Each ministry also prepares 

 recommendations concerning the patenting of inven- 

 tions abroad as well as the purchase of foreign li- 

 censes for the latest machinery, equipment, mater- 

 ials, and technological processes. As illustra- 

 ted, responsibilities include those of "line" plan- 

 ning and administration of branch facilities and pro- 

 grams, along with interaction between the ministry 

 and state organs on functional issues, such as stan- 

 dards and invention policies. 



The Ministry of Higher and Specialized 

 Secondary Education 



Institutions of higher education (VUZy) , their 

 teaching staffs, and their students constitute an im- 

 portant R&D resource and the third relatively inde- 

 pendent subsystem. For example, Moscow State Uni- 

 versity alone has four subordinate research insti- 

 tutes, 33 basic science and industrial laboratories, 

 200 laboratories in the teaching departments, and 9 

 teaching-research stations. More than 4,000 of its 

 teaching staff participate in research activities. 

 In total, there were more than 800 civilian higher 

 educational institutions in the Soviet Union in 1972. 

 Some 60 percent of the daytime students in the VUZy 

 reportedly participate in research. Table 9-3 

 provides data on the distribution of scientific work- 

 ers by branch of science in 1970 and permits a com- 

 parison of the numbers in VUZy with those in scien- 

 tific research institutes. Fully one-third of the 

 scientific workers are in the VUZy, though they ac- 

 count for less than five percent of all R&D performed 

 in the country. Nonetheless, about 70 percent of all 

 research conducted on the basis of economic contracts 

 with industry is performed at the VUZy. 23 



60 



