cent processes at the R&D planning stage. This is 

 the conclusion of a group of Western scholars at the 

 University of Birmingham. In their recent study of 

 the technological level of industry in the USSR, they 

 note that Soviet authorities almost ignored alterna- 

 tives to their own SKB process for the manufacture of 

 synthetic rubber. New processes for making alloy and 

 quality steel other than electric slag remelting also 

 received inadequate attention. 94 As we have seen, 

 the basic Soviet organizational approach has been to 

 concentrate responsibility for industrial R&D in 

 large branch institutes and design bureaus under min- 

 isterial control. Complaints are frequently voiced 

 in the Soviet press that these units display monopo- 

 listic attitudes and an aversion to experimentation. 

 Interestingly, the new basic technical-economic in- 

 dicators, laid down in 1974 to guide R&D decision ma- 

 king, have also been criticized on the grounds that 

 they essentially preserve existing production methods 

 with only marginal improvements and tend to preclude 

 radical technological change. 95 Overall, as the Bir- 

 mingham study concludes, the Soviet pattern of inno- 

 vation and philosophy of design have been responsible 

 for the incremental and conservative mode of technol- 

 ogical advance in the USSR, as well as for the loss 

 of tempo and of technological lead, at least in some 

 areas, in relation to the United States over the past 

 two decades. 96 







THE DISAGGREGATION AND ASSIGNMENT 

 OF RESEARCH TASKS 



A large and frequently major share of the content 

 of the research plan of a management organ or research 

 establishment is composed of assignments specified by 

 a superior agency and/or contractual obligations re- 

 sulting from negotiations with organizations sponsor- 

 ing R&D. Earlier in this chapter, it was noted that 

 Soviet research assignments are delegated both on an 

 administrative basis, with a hierarchy of tasks cor- 

 responding to organizational affiliation, and on a 



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