247 
and makes work recommendations to the different agencies involved 
in ocean research.'*® The State Committee is represented in interna- 
tional forums on ocean issues. Delegates, for example, have been 
included in the U.N. discussions. Representatives of the committee 
also participated in discussions with the United States on planning 
the International Decade of Ocean Exploration.'*° 
The State Committee for Science and Technology and the science 
council system is structured to facilitate interagency communication 
and bring together leading figures in different disciplines. It is a high 
level body, but it is probably most important for its consultative and 
coordinating authority. Assuming that interagency law of the sea 
meetings have occurred in the Soviet Union, as they have in other 
countries, it is possible that they have been organized under the State 
Committee system. 
THE U.S.S.R. ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
The U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences and the affiliated Republic 
Academies deal with the coordination of fundamental and social 
science research. The Academy’s mandate in science policy and coor- 
dination has been narrowed over time. The shortcomings in the work 
of the Academy of Sciences in research coordination were openly 
discussed in the Soviet Union, and the Central Committee in June 
1959 approved a statute which defined the institutional powers and 
interaction in the Academy system more precisely.'*? The Academy’s 
responsibility for applied research was cut back in 1961 with the 
creation of the State Committee for the Coordination of Scientific 
Research. 
The tension between centralized direction and institutional auton- 
omy that affects Soviet science management is also apparent in the 
Academy of Sciences. The Academy can exert major influence 
through the superior knowledge and prestige of its members. The 
many technical considerations and analyses of appropriate hardware 
and design in ocean research require expertise which the Academy 
can provide through several of its institutes.142 As is the case with 
other agencies, there is membership overlap with the Communist 
Party. Some of the major figures in the Soviet Academy of Sciences 
are also members of the Central Committee, and this may work to 
provide both oversight opportunities for the party and increased au- 
tonomy for the Academy. 
89The work of the Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea Basin section has been described. In 1969, for 
example, there were two plenary meetings that resulted in a variety of recommendations and requests 
for future work. The Plenum sent requests to the Atlantic Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries 
and Oceanography and the All Union and Polar Institutes to develop proposals for studies to assist 
the fishing industry; to the P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, the Scientific Research Institute of 
the Geology of the Arctic, and the All Union Scientific Research Institute of Marine Geology to 
study the geological structure in the Arctic; to the Ministry of the Navy and the Hydrological and 
Meteorological Center (Gidromettsentr) to formulate proposals to improve safety at sea; and to the 
Baltic Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries and the Hydrometeorological bureaus of the 
Northwest Territory of the Baltic republics to study water exchange in the Baltic in connection with 
fishery forecasts. In V. L. Tsurikov, ““The Conference of Investigators of the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Baltic Sea,” Oceanology no. 4 (1970), pp. 578-9 and V. L. Tsurikov, Plenary Meeting of the Atlan- 
tic Ocean and Baltic Sea Basin division,’ Oceanology no. 9 (1969), pp. 601-2. 
“9 Wenk identifies E. I. Sklyarev and K. V. Ananichev, p. 234. 
‘'Helgard Weinert, “The Organization and Planning of Research in the Academy System,” in 
Zaleski et. al., Science Policy in the USSR, pp. 200-201. 
'2L1.D. Papanin and Ye..M. Z. Suziumov state, for example, that the research vessel R/V 
Akademik Kurchatov was built at the suggestion of the Department of Marine Research of the 
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. See ‘““‘The Development of the Sovict Research Fleet,’ Oceanology, 
no. 5 (1971), p. 656. 
