Interacademy Programs Between the United States and Eastern Europe 1967-2009 The Changing Landscape (2009) / Chapter Skim
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1 New Approaches to Cooperation
1 New Approaches to Cooperation
Pages 7-22
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From page 7... ...
The countries of the region soon were members of the Warsaw Pact, tightly bound to the USSR in many ways. At the same time, Soviet troops took control of a newly created state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
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More often than not, the Soviet Union was the leading state and often the primary beneficiary of collective actions. An important mechanism for exerting direction of the research and development activities of the Eastern European countries was to be a newly established Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)
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Box 1-1 presents a list of most of the centers. At the same time, however, the Soviet government apparently was reluctant to place too much responsibility for controlling economic or BOX 1-1 Research Coordination Centers of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance • Improvement of Nutritional Content of Food Products, Sofia • Economic Requirements and Standards for International Highways, Sofia • Industrial Robots Research and Development, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria • Preservation of Ecosystems and Landscapes, Bratislava • Utilization of Raw Materials in Lumbering, Bratislava • Mechanization and Automation in Crop Raising and Livestock Husbandry, Prague • Computer Technology and Mathematical Methods in Transportation, Prague • New Chemical Consumer Goods, Berlin • Defense Against Atmospheric Pollution, Dresden • Biological Problems in Livestock Husbandry, Dummersdorf, GDR • New Types of Mineral Fertilizers, Leipzig • Synthesis of Fuel Supplements, Schwedt, GDR • Utilization of Industrial Wastes, Budapest • Economic Forecasting in Development of Automotive Transport Equipment, Budapest • New Methods of Utilizing Coal, Katowice • New Pesticides and Plant Production Methods, Poznan • Economic, Social, and Legal Aspects of Pollution Control, Warsaw • Crating and Packaging in the Food Industry, Warsaw • Economic Forecasting in Development of Railroad Rolling Stock, Warsaw SOURCE: NRC Office of Soviet and East European Affairs.
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From page 10... ...
In parallel with the expansion of CMEA activities into the area of science and technology was an expanded role for the Soviet Academy of Sciences as a de facto coordinator of basic scientific activities throughout the region. The Soviet academy established an array of bilateral agreements with academies of the other members of the Warsaw Pact that frequently went beyond basic research into the technical sciences and engineering.
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From page 11... ...
Dozens of technical experts from the United States visited Yugoslavia each year to advise the government on agricultural and industrial developments, and dozens of Yugoslav engineers and agricultural scientists traveled to the United States for specialized education and training. All the while, a significant diaspora of Yugoslav émigrés who continued their scientific careers in the United States helped ensure that vibrant scientific relations developed between the United States and Yugoslavia during the 1960s and 1970s.
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From the scientific viewpoint, NSF was particularly interested in supporting expanded ties. It correctly believed that the long legacy of important scientific achievements in the region continued to permeate local research institutions that could make significant contributions in advancing international science INITIATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Beginning in 1965, several successive foreign secretaries of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
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They and other influential leaders of the NAS had repeatedly met leading Eastern European counterparts at international meetings -- national and regional scientific conferences, sessions of the societies of the International Council of Scientific Unions, and meetings of other professional societies, for example. They received many invitations to visit the region, and they became convinced that strengthening contacts with Eastern European colleagues through a formalized interacademy program would benefit the United States in a variety of ways (see, for example, Box 1-2)
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For about a decade beginning in the late 1960s, the NAS foreign secretaries traveled to the capital cities of seven countries of the region. There they signed agreements on scientific cooperation between the NAS and the counterpart academies of sciences of the individual countries.
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Because similar arrangements for scientific exchanges had been adopted by the NAS and the Soviet Academy of Sciences beginning in 1959, there was only limited concern in Washington that national security interests would be jeopardized through access by adversaries to U.S. scientific achievements. With regard to Eastern Europe, the U.S.
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The level of financial support provided to local scientists to cover some research costs and to scientists in the United States as well as in the region to cover international travel costs varied from year to year but generally was in the range of local currency equivalent to $500,000 to $1 million per year per country. While at the time there were other collaborative programs supported by various U.S.
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The Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund supported American social science scholars interested in the region and also pioneered many environmentoriented activities. Finally, the Open Society Initiative (George Soros's organization)
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Government leaders in all of the countries advocated strong support for sizable scientific complexes despite the economic difficulties, although adequate funding seldom followed such political pronouncements. High on the priority lists of these countries were the future configurations, policies, and leaderships of the academies of sciences. During the 1990s, strong political attacks were launched against the Soviet-style academies by critics within the region and in the West.
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science, more than 90 members of the academy now live in the United States. As to the international cooperation activities of the academies, many cooperative programs and supporting staffs at the academy level remained See www.learned.cz/main.php?
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Over the years, the annual reports of the individual academies as well as reports of the Central and Eastern European Network of Academies of Sciences published by the European Commission's Joint Research Center often discussed the changes in the academies. In 1986 several intellectual leaders associated with the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts prepared a memorandum entitled "Topical Social Questions in Our Country." The memorandum blamed Croatia and Slovenia for the disintegration of Yugoslavian unity.
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SCOPE OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES Against this background, this report addresses some of the activities that followed the signing of the interacademy agreements. Also, other types of activities that were supported by the NAS and then the National Academies as the political landscape in the region and interests of funding sources changed are considered.
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