XI CURRENT ISSUES AND TRENDS 

 IN SOVIET SCIENCE POLICY 



Science policy has become a subject of continuous 

 discussion and vigorous debate in the USSR since at 

 least the mid-1960s. Indeed, the great attention giv- 

 en to S&T issues in domestic and foreign policy re- 

 flects the extent to which a perceived "technological 

 imperative" has come to dominate and divide the Krem- 

 lin leadership. While many of the basic problems 

 themselves are not new, Soviet perceptions of them 

 have broadened and changed along with the scope of 

 official motivation to use science and technology 

 more effectively as an instrument of policy and tool 

 of economic progress. As a result the political lead- 

 ership has begun to reexamine some of the fundamental 

 assumptions, managerial attitudes, and organizational 

 arrangements which underlay science policy in the past 

 and to adopt some new approaches and directions for 

 the future. 



THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE POLICY DEBATE: 

 CONTEXT AND CONTENT 



The current debate has been prompted by two impor- 

 tant cognitive discoveries. First is the rather be- 

 lated awakening of the ruling elite to the full sig- 

 nificance of the development and role of science and 

 technology in the world, roughly since mid-century. 

 These changes have been dubbed the "contemporary sci- 

 entific and technological revolution" (hereafter ab- 

 breviated as STR) , largely a euphemism for the com- 

 puter age. The changing conditions and new demands 

 associated with this new stage of industrial revolu- 

 tion are seen as placing unprecedented importance on 

 scientific and technical progress. Such progress be- 



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