153 



technical interest. Our objectives were to: i) acquire information about the operation of 

 the Commission's Russian counterparts, the Arctic Scientific Council of the Russian 

 Academy of Sciences, ii) develop more extensive contacts with the Russian Academy 

 of Sciences and the regional academies and their institutions of mutual interest and 

 potential cooperation, and iii) observe relevant field conditions that affect scientific 

 research in the Russian Northeast. 



In summary, we learned that: 



a. Organization of science in the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as the 

 government ministries is undergoing redirection and new appointments. The 

 trend is toward more regional and local representation of people and issues, 

 more applied emphasis, and more effort to coordinate among institutes and 

 between central and local units. 



b) Priorities in Russian northern science appear remarkably similar to U.S. arctic 

 priorities. Perhaps this is not surprising considering decades of exchanges and 

 international conferences in the scientific community. To elaborate the areas of 

 priority research and current international cooperation. Table 2 lists eight 

 scientific areas and cooperating U.S. organizations for tiie Far Eastern Branch 

 of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 



c) To illustrate the capacity of the Russian science enterprise. Figure 1 presents 

 the 30 research institutes of the Far East and assigned staff (7.935) in 1988. 

 Although numerous observers have noted that Russian research institutes have 

 large numbers of technicians and are greatiy overstaffed; none-the-less. the 

 numbers of technical personnel engaged in arctic science is impressive. 

 Because of a favorable dollar to ruble exchange rate and because salaries of 

 Russian scientists are notoriously low, science done in Russia is a great buy if it 

 addresses relevant problems and meets western standards. 



