garded as being too aloof from general economic prob- 

 lems and processes to permit any convergence of sci- 

 ence policy with economic policy. 



Increasingly, however, the planning of science and 

 technology has become a separate and consolidated ac- 

 tivity in the Soviet Union, especially since the late 

 1960s. Like the basic approach to organization and 

 structure, the orientation in planning is to treat 

 the research-to-production cycle as a single complex 

 of activity integrated along highly formal and hier- 

 archical lines. Containing a variety of individual 

 and sequential components that together constitute an 

 integrated unit, the R&D plan itself is but one ele- 

 ment of a larger plan governing all aspects of pro- 

 duction activity. In the State Plan for the Develop- 

 ment of the National Economy, the chapter incorpora- 

 ting the Plan for the Development of Science and Tech- 

 nology is accompanied by chapters devoted to planning 

 sectoral development (including industry, agriculture, 

 transport and communications) and capital construc- 

 tion, as well as to planning functional areas, such 

 as labor and manpower, various financial indicators, 

 and foreign trade. There are similar collections of 

 targets at all plan levels, and each collection for 

 all types of indicators in principle is mutually re- 

 inforcing and internally consistent. 



Figure 10-1 demonstrates the interrelatedness of 

 the separate features of the various plans as well as 

 the hierarchical structure of plans described in chap- 

 ter 9. At the national level, S&T problems are clear- 

 ly one of the several types of national problems. The 

 problem orientation of the plans must be rendered con- 

 sistent with the task of establishing the appropriate 

 "proportions" in the national economy, or in other 

 words, ensuring that sectoral and regional develop- 

 ment is proceeding as intended and that the plan as 

 a whole is internally consistent. At the intermedi- 

 ate level, the task of reconciling plans with differ- 

 ent orientations — branch of the national economy or 

 industry, program, and geographical region — is illus- 

 trated. At the level of the performing organization, 

 the establishment generally must be responsive to the 



84 



