WASHINGTON—Research administrators in the Soviet Union are joining their counterparts around the world in bringing together university and industrial scientists to encourage commercial applications of basic research.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s repeated calls for perestroyka (restructuring) have reverberated through the Soviet government and bureaucracy and are being heard in the staid halls of the country’s universities. His goal is to make the entire university system more responsive to the needs of the nation’s economy and its antiquated technological base.
One step in increasing the transfer of technology is the formation of “temporary associations” between the two sectors. Soviet enterprises are also being asked to support graduate students in scientific and technical fields by providmg more equipment and more space to carry out applied research. Unlike typical university-industry arrangements in the United States, the Soviet companies and industrial institutes do not provide any money for the desired research.
One example of ...
