to-production cycle has been fundamentally unorgan- 

 ized and unmanaged. We return to this theme in chap- 

 ter 12 on current issues and trends in Soviet science 

 policy. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE R&D CENTER 



The criteria for organizing the R&D center reflect 

 the nature of its work and its status with respect to 

 production. The concentration on fundamental re- 

 search, applied research, design engineering, or de- 

 velopment determines the extent to which the center 

 is organized as a scientific discipline or a respond- 

 er to the needs of industry. This, in turn, deter- 

 mines the character of its staff and the complement 

 of its internal subdivisions. For example, an Acad- 

 emy institute tends to contain a relatively homoge- 

 neous complement of natural scientists conducting 

 "paper" research and drawing on laboratory services; 

 an industry development organization tends to contain 

 a relatively heterogeneous complement of engineers 

 and technicians conducting design, small-scale manu- 

 facture, and testing work and drawing on experimental 

 and pilot production facilities. Many organizations, 

 of course, encompass more than one stage of the R&D 

 process. 



The relationship of the facility to production de- 

 termines the legal status of the facility. It may be 

 independent, with a technically oriented management 

 and maintaining a full complement of supply, sales, 

 and other functional departments to service its re- 

 quirements; or it may be formally incorporated with 

 production facilities. The internal status of the 

 R&D center is important because it determines largely 

 the degree of autonomy of the research function and 

 the relative priority of R&D vis-a-vis production. 

 If the R&D unit lacks legal and administrative inde- 

 pendence, it frequently is reduced to providing first 

 aid to industry. In Siberia, for example, only eight 

 percent of the research and engineering personnel of 



181 



