In 1985 COMECON countries published more than
64 thousand documents indexed in the US-produced Web of Science database, of
which only 1-2% were coauthored with American scientists. USSR alone accounted
for almost 40 thousand publications, or 4,4% of the total world output, not
counting numerous quality Soviet journals missing from the Web of Science. By
2013 Russia ’s share was only
1,6% and all former partner communist states switched to EU or USA
Communist scientific system at its peak
By the end of the
1980-s R&D system in the USSR was firmly established as the second largest
in the world with more than 1,5 million researchers (including university
lecturers) and gross expenditures amounting to 1,5% of GDP. The largest part of
it was not basic but applied, with thousands of research centers and design
bureaus across the Union , usually controlled
by sectorial ministries. Basic research was done mostly in 330 institutes of Academy of Sciences USSR
by 1988 was 150 thousand. University research was very limited comparing to the
US ,
its share in soviet R&D by 1990 was estimated to be ca. 10%.
Similar organizational
models were actively promoted in virtually all countries under soviet
influence, which led to establishment of Academies of Sciences in all COMECON
countries, Yugoslavia , Albania , China
and North Korea .
Together these Academies had hundreds of research institutes active in all
branches of modern science and humanities. However, those countries that had an
established tradition of university research (notably Poland and Czechoslovakia ) were fully allowed
to foster their HEIs alongside academic research centers.
Degree of cooperation
between COMECON researchers and
organizations was varied. Ambitious integration project called “Comprehensive
Program for Scientific and Technical Progress up to the Year 2000” was adopted only in
December 1985, near the end of the Soviet era. With 93 projects and 800
subprojects within 5 broad priority areas it was a centrally planned analogue
of European Framework programs. Each project was led by a soviet institute,
which awarded R&D contracts to COMECON partner organizations. International
coauthorship between Eastern Bloc and between Communist and Capitalist states
clearly did exist, but we can’t correctly estimate it with WoS data because of
frequent omissions of affiliations information in this database prior to
1990-s.
Overall coverage of
soviet science by western citation databases remained very limited until
1983-1985, when Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information added
many new soviet journals to their Web of Science database (WoS), leading to a
massive increase of publication counts for USSR and its allies. In 1989 USSR had published 40,823 WoS documents, only surpassed by the US , UK
and Japan .
Poland had 6,326, Czechoslovakia 4,859 - both ahead of Austria , Finland
or Norway .
Top disciplines for COMECON countries were physics and chemistry, which
contrasted with both US and Japan
(biochemistry) and UK
(medicine).
After the fall
Demise of the USSR,
collapse of Eastern European communist regimes and removal of the Iron Curtain
in 1988-1991 led to several drastic consequences for R&D. Funding was
severely reduced, priorities shifted, and new national systems emerged free
from Soviet influence. All countries reacted very differently.
Figure 1. Total number of publications in the
Web of Science, 1993-2013 (all document types and all indices)
Russian gross
expenditures on R&D (GERD) dropped more than fourfold in 1990-1992,
GERD/GDP ratio plummeted from 1,43% in 1991 to 0,85% in 1995. Lack of demand
for new Russian technologies led to prolonged crisis of applied research
centers. Scientific personnel shrank
from 130 researchers per 10.000 workforce in 1990 to 60 in 1995. By 2012 we still
have almost two times less GERD than in 1990 (in constant prices) and Russia ’s
GERD/GDP ratio is 1,12%. Nevertheless, Russia saw a marked increase in
government spending on R&D in 2000s and rapid growth in number of PhD
students, PhD holders and universities. Sadly, these statistical achievements
had little effect on publication counts (see fig.1) and on total number of
employed researchers, which dropped from 425 thousand in 2000 to 372 thousand
in 2012 (not including university lecturers).
Figure 2. GERD in 1993-2013 for several former
COMECON countries (million 2005 dollars - constant prices and PPP. Data source:
OECD)
A number of former
Eastern Bloc countries suffered similar decline but had much more success in
revitalizing their R&D. Poland and Czech Republic Kazakhstan ,
Vietnam and Baltic states also showing promising growth (see tab. 1).
For example, number of researchers in Kazakhstan
has increased 50% in 2009-2013, and Estonia ’s ratio of GERD to GDP
reached record 2,37% in 2011. Vietnam
has seen a rapid increase in WoS publications in line with its industry-driven economic
growth and strong ties with other rapidly developing Asian countries.
Other CIS countries
achieve more modest results. Don’t let recent growth in publication counts fool
you – they are in large part provided by physicists working in CERN or EU\US-based
collaborations which now produce thousands of articles in high-ranking journals
per year.[1]
On the whole, however, basic research in Armenia ,
Georgia , Tajikistan , Turkmanistan , Uzbekistan
Shifts in international collaboration,
institutional origin and themes of publications
Table 1. Main indications of research in
ex-COMECON countries
Contrary to popular
misconception, division between universities doing mostly teaching and
institutes doing mostly research isn’t something entirely soviet and outdated.
Germany serves as the best example of an R&D system spearheaded by
non-graduate institutions, with only 1 Nobel laureate out of 9 in physics, medicine and
chemistry in 1990-2013 coming from a university, and zero universities in top-40 in QS or THE. Germany
also is an example of the most radical, quick and effective reform of an
ex-communist Academy of sciences. In 1991-1993 all the institutes of GDR Academy
The fate of other
academies is different. Russian academies
amidst decrease of funding and massive brain drain managed to markedly
increase number of research institutes and academicians before being forced
into reform, the outcomes of which are yet to be seen. Russian Academy
Another trend is an
almost universal turn to USA and EU15 countries for collaboration and
coauthorship. Russia is maintaining its role as a priority partner only for
ex-USSR states, but even Belarus and Armenia, our closest allies, now have more
papers coauthored with EU15 than with Russia.
Needless to say, new EU-member states are receiving huge benefits by
access to Framework Programs, Horizon 2020 and European Research Council
grants. Not only they provide much-needed money (€427 million in FP7 for Poland
alone), they do it in a clear and competitive way and actively foster wider
collaboration.
To sum up, there are
two distinct patterns among former COMECON members:
1. - EU member
states with growing publication counts, high rates of collaboration with EU15
countries, high shares of universities (~70-75%) and increasing priority for
medical research popular in developed capitalist countries, at the same time
focusing on relatively new areas (ICT in Estonia as a most successful example).
Their integration in European research area is definitely on the way.
2. - Russia,
Ukraine and Belarus continue to pursue a more conservative path, with only half
of publications authored by universities’ employees, and preserved dominance of
physics as “the” science. Rate of collaboration with EU and US peers in these
countries is also high, but there’s no comparable growth of publication output.
Eastern and southern ex-USSR states receiving
no direct EU support have to rely on their own.[2]
For most of them, continued financial struggles have meant widespread brain
drain of USSR-trained researchers, which makes current R&D capacity
building very complicated. The country with most marked improvements is
Kazakhstan, with its strong commitment to creating national system of research
universities that really works. On the whole, however, share of non-EU
ex-communist states in world scientific production has yet to reach USSR
levels.
[1] It is worth mentioning that in 2011-2013 LHC and other large-scale
collaborations in high energy and particle physics have severely skewed
bibliometric indicators for many countries because of extraordinary high number
of resulting papers, and authors per paper (at times more than 3000 authors per
article). Thus one physicist form a small country included in, say, ATLAS and CMS
collaborations can provide that country and his institute with 100 or even 200
articles in top physics journals each year. The percentage of physics
collaboration papers in all papers published in 2013 is 11,4% for Belarus,
15,4% for Azerbaijan, 22,4% for Armenia and 24,7% for Georgia (for other
countries in tab. 1 this share is less than 5%, according to our lower
eastimate).
[2] Perhaps the only exception is Azerbaijan with its revived ties with
Turkey becoming stronger each year.
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