SCIENCE PLANNING: GENERAL PREREQUISITES AND MAIN CONTENT

Yu. S. NEKHOROSHEV

The most important, though not the only, way of increasing the productivity of scientific labor is to improve the planning of scientific work.

The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On Measures to Increase the Efficiency of the Work of Scientific Organizations and to Accelerate the Use in the National Economy of the Achievements of Science and Technology” (Pravda, 1968, October 23) regards the strengthening of the planned principle as a necessary prerequisite for raising the efficiency of research and for the most rapid practical assimilation of its results.

At present the question of the possibility and necessity of planning science no longer arises. Discussions in the press on this topic have ceased. The country has accumulated experience in concentrating scientific forces on the most important directions; many well-thought-out plans of scientific inquiry have been drawn up, which have brought about progress in many fields of Soviet science.

However, even now one may encounter scholars who believe that the solution of many scientific problems is determined by the availability of existing methods, that it is impossible to plan the development of new methods of research, new scientific factors, etc.^1 These judgments reflect the state of science at a time when its movement was ensured by the work of isolated individuals, on whose abilities and inclinations the priority of investigating one question or another depended. Prof. P. K. Martens wrote in 1929 that “the creative activity of man is not regulated by anything, is not subject to any rules; it simply flows from the unconditional instincts of creativity that exist in human nature.”^2 Of course, the qualifications of an individual scientist, his talent, organizational abilities, etc., are of great importance in a particular field of science, but only as the importance of an element that must be taken into account in planning and organizing work on a problem. The planning of science is objectively conditioned both by the needs of production and by the character of science itself, which cannot develop without a “reserve,” without a perspective. Otherwise it will stop in its development and cease to be science.

Every step in the development of production poses new tasks before scientists, requiring rapid solution. Production needs

^1 See on this in the article by L. Z. Zilber, “Once Again on the Planning of Science,” Izvestia, 1964, September 26.
^2 See Izobretatel’, 1929, No. 1.

indicate not only the posing of creative tasks, but also the direction of efforts toward their solution. Precisely because science is called upon to satisfy emerging production needs, there is the fact of the simultaneous, independent creation of one and the same scientific theory or one and the same invention in different parts of one and the same country, or even in different countries.

At approximately the same time molecular generators—masers and lasers—were constructed. In the USSR their creators were N. G. Basov and A. M. Prokhorov. In the USA the author of this invention was Ch. Townes, whose right was challenged in court by another American physicist, Gordon Gould. For work connected with the creation of masers and lasers, N. G. Basov, A. M. Prokhorov, and Ch. Townes were awarded the Nobel Prize³).

It was no accident that F. Engels wrote that scientific achievements do not fall from the sky, and that if society develops a technical need, it advances science more than a dozen universities⁴).

One should not imagine matters in such a way that the link between the needs of production and the supply of science (and conversely, between the needs of science and the supply of production) is effected directly and automatically. As if the supply of inventions fully corresponds to demand. And whenever a need arose for some technical novelty, inventions capable of satisfying that need immediately turned out to be at hand. Such an incorrect position was held, in particular, by the founders of organic chemistry Justus von Liebig and the now-forgotten nineteenth-century economist William Edward Hearn⁵). In reality, in order to know the needs of production and to influence technical progress, it is necessary—especially under contemporary conditions—to conduct constant techno-economic analysis and to study the development trends of the corresponding branches of production. And on this basis it is already possible to forecast and plan the development of science.

The objectivity of the planned development of science is also conditioned by the relative independence of science (in relation to production), which is expressed in the fact that a given branch of science is basically determined by the state and development of the productive forces and, at the same time, is in a relation of continuity with the scientific system of the preceding period. Moreover, this emergent scientific system, developing independently, serves as a source of further progress in technology and production. As was said at the Twenty-Third Congress of the CPSU, today science must provide more distant prospects for scientific and technical progress. These are, for example, new economical methods of transforming energy and transmitting it, atomic power engineering, and the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion. The program drawn up by Academician V. A. Obruchev in his address to youth has not lost its relevance: it is necessary to extend the average human life span to 150–200 years, learn to store energy for future use, predict and neutralize natural disasters, learn to control the weather, etc.⁶).

The scale of research is so enormous that it requires very substantial accumulations. And their experimental verification is possible only with large capital investments. Some sufficiently

³) Voprosy izobretatel’stva, 1967, No. 1, p. 42.
⁴) See Marx and Engels, Selected Letters, 1953, pp. 469–470.
⁵) See on this F. Machlup, The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the USA. “Progress,” Moscow, 1966, pp. 202–203.
⁶) Academician V. Obruchev, “Travelers into the Third Millennium.” Izvestia, 1967, March 30.

the development of science in general becomes impossible without state planning, financing, and regulation. The solution of a number of problems of scientific and technological progress far exceeds the material capabilities not only of individual enterprises, but also of sectoral associations. In the USSR such capabilities are fully possessed by the socialist state. And this makes it necessary to carry out a unified planned policy in the field of science and technological progress.

The concentration of expenditures on science is also taking place in capitalist countries. The state has become the main source of financing for scientific organizations. Although expenditures on science as a whole yield a high return (sometimes up to 700 percent, as, for example, the profit on capital invested in research on the hybridization of corn seeds), the return of funds does not occur immediately, but sometimes after many years. In addition, investments in scientific research are associated with risk. On average, 67 percent of all scientific research in U.S. industry proves fruitless. These circumstances deter private investment. State financing, however, creates a need for the programming and regulation of scientific activity.

In 1950 a Central Scientific Administration was created in the United States. By this means the U.S. government attempted to transfer scientific research from its spontaneous path into the channel of planned research. In the United States a long-term techno-economic forecast up to the year 2000 was prepared which, despite its defects, may to some extent be regarded as an element of science planning^7).

But the planning of science in the United States is called forth not by the nature of capitalist production, but by capital’s striving somehow to adapt itself to the turbulent growth of the productive forces. The development of new branches, brought to life by science, such as atomic and electronic industries, is impossible without the participation of the state. Even powerful monopolies do not have sufficient strength and resources for this. Moreover, the state is compelled to assume such a function because of the socio-political upheavals caused by the struggle of the two world systems, the weakening of capitalism’s position in competition with socialism, the disintegration of the colonial system of imperialism, and the growing pressure of the masses. It is no accident that state regulation in the United States covers mainly only that part of science which is connected with military research. And it began when the superiority of the USSR in a whole series of leading branches of science had become obvious. The U.S. military department, in organizing scientific research, is guided by two principles. First, the necessity is emphasized of accelerating work in those fields which may subsequently lead to the creation of new weapons systems, although at present there may be no clearly formulated requirement for these systems. Second, work on the development of complex systems is not permitted to begin until the development of technical problems connected with these systems and their elements has yielded positive results. According to the new rules, industrial firms must define, with sufficient justification, the final characteristics, cost, and time frames for the development of the given system^8). Familiarity with these rules indicates that in the state regulation and financing of science not only the capitalist class as a whole is interested (in the development of science

^7) See L. Gatovskii. “Economic Science and the Program of Technological Progress.” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1965, No. 2, p. 8.
^8) RZh “Economics of Industry,” 1964, ref. 11E4.

sees its salvation from the advancing world communist revolution), but also individual capitalist firms. The latter not only place government orders with themselves, but also make use of the achievements of science financed at the expense of the taxpayers.

In the USA attempts are being made to prove the possibility and necessity of planning research and development work under the conditions of a capitalist economy. What is meant chiefly is the drafting of long-range programs of work and the corresponding allocation of available forces and funds in order to achieve the most effective results. An institute has been created—the “Rand Corporation,” financed by the air force. Its task includes planning the future, which is to inspire the state on its path in the coming decades. The institute has almost three hundred scientists of various specialties—eight aerodynamicists, twenty-two economists, fifty-one mathematicians, etc. According to Robert Jungk, author of the book Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, the scientists of the “Rand Corporation” regard military interests as a stimulus for the development of science. “Peaceful occupations with science, which from time to time did occur, were the exception, not the rule.”¹

Despite state regulation (and most likely thanks to it), scientific and technical progress in the USA manifests itself unevenly in various fields. In 1956–1962 approximately four-fifths of the total increase in expenditures on scientific research, amounting to 5 billion dollars, fell to four groups of branches of production—the aircraft industry (2 billion), electrical machine building (1 billion), the chemical industry (510 million), and general machine building (400 million).² The cost of R&D performed in 1961 in industry, on average per one employed person (not a researcher), was equal to 970 dollars. In individual branches this indicator ranged from 4,470 dollars in the aircraft industry to 90 dollars in textiles.

If under capitalism there are possibilities for concentrating creative thought in certain directions, then all the more, under the conditions of socialism, the labor of scientists can and must be included in the general channel of planned work. The planned organization of production also requires the planned development of science and technology. “It is precisely through the plan that the proletariat is able to conduct its class policy on the research front in a more rational manner; through the plan the most rational adaptation of scientific-research thought to the needs of socialist construction is possible.”³ Since economic activity is ever more closely intertwined with achievements in science, the planning of the latter must be an inseparable component, and even a principal part, of the national-economic plan. Economic planning must be built first and foremost on taking account of the tendencies of scientific and technical progress. First, because social production has now entered such a period of development that its dynamism, rates, and proportions are in many respects determined by scientific and technical achievements and their technological use. Second, scientific and technical progress lies at the basis of the growing economic effectiveness of the expenditures of every hour of labor. In the current five-year plan, more than 70 percent of the planned growth of productiv—

labor productivity and about half of the task of reducing the cost of production must be ensured through the introduction of new technology. Third, the level of development of science and technology determines the territorial distribution of productive forces and the comprehensive use of natural resources.

However, science as an object of national-economic planning is still its weakest link. And this is despite the fact that an error made here can not only nullify all the work done in some area of science, but also distort the technical policy of a branch, and give rise to undesirable structural shifts in production.

In order to take the needs and achievements of science into fuller account in national-economic plans, the September (1965) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU instructed the State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers for Science and Technology, together with the USSR Academy of Sciences, with the participation of ministries and departments, to develop and submit to the USSR Council of Ministers in good time, before the preparation of national-economic plans, proposals on the main directions of the development of science and technology and on the use in the national economy of the most important scientific and technical achievements.

The main form of state planning of science and technology is now the five-year plan, the preparation of which is preceded by the development of scientific and technical forecasts for a long period (10–15 years and more). In addition to the five-year plan, which is a component part of the State Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR, coordination plans and annual plans for the use of new equipment and technology in the national economy are being developed. Sectoral and republican five-year and annual plans of scientific and technical work are also drawn up.

Similar work is being carried out in other socialist countries. In Poland, a two-year plan for the development of science and technology has been developed, in which special attention is paid to the rapid and effective use in practice of concrete scientific and technical solutions. In Czechoslovakia an institute for the planning of science has been created.

The structure, specific content, and methods of compiling plans for scientific research work, as well as plans for introducing the achievements of science into production, depend on: 1) the socio-economic system, 2) the degree of development of the productive forces, including science and technology, 3) the general educational level of the population, 4) the sources and scale of financing science, 5) the national and cultural traditions of society, etc.

In planning, primary importance attaches to the development of a system of indicators for the plan of scientific research work and a system of economic incentives. Through the system of indicators, the objectively existing links and interdependencies between science and the various branches and spheres of the national economy must find their expression.

In accordance with the features of the various levels in the organization of scientific creativity, several groups of indicators are distinguished. These are the group of indicators of the State Plan for scientific research work; the system of indicators of the plan of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the academies of sciences of the Union republics; further, the system of indicators of the plan of the scientific and technical administrations of ministries and departments; and, finally, the group of indicators of the plan of a scientific institution. So that any set of indicators should not be a simple summary, each system presupposes its own specificity, its own special requirements as to their number and their internal coordination with one another.

Any of the above-mentioned systems of indicators for the plan of scientific-research work, taken as a whole, must make it possible to implement a unified, centralized scientific-technical and economic policy in solving cardinal scientific and economic tasks; it must be comparable with, and fit into, the unified national economic plan.

In the planning of science, as in industry, indicators are distinguished as approved (directive) and calculated. Indicators may also be divided into thematic and cost indicators. Thematic indicators include: the name of the problem; the research topic; the leading organization and co-executors of the topic; the stages of work, their scope and sequence; the personnel composition of the executors. The plan specifies the dates for the beginning and completion of the work and the sources of financing.

Cost indicators may include: the amounts of material and monetary expenditures; the approximate economic effect from introducing the planned research into the national economy. The importance of cost indicators is determined by the fact that they make it possible to establish the degree of efficiency of expenditures on science.

At present, the compilation of planned indicators in many scientific institutions proceeds subjectively: depending on what can be agreed upon, and not on the basis of objective data that would reflect the interests of the development of science and production and would take into account the real creative and material possibilities of the scientific institution. In branch institutes, up to the present time the planning of scientific work is often carried out according to the volume of commodity output, commodity release, and gross output. These indicators are applied to a scientific institution mechanically, by inertia.

The indicator of gross output has already been recognized as unsuitable for industry. This indicator is also undesirable in scientific institutions, since it encourages them to take on work that is not labor-intensive but is expensive; it causes the growth of unfinished production; it makes it possible to make addenda, and so on. The directors of institutes, laboratories, and so forth, from year to year, strive with all their might to increase topics and allocations, instead of taking up complex scientific and technical tasks. With such an indicator, it is even advantageous for a scientific institution to make simple solutions complex and expensive. Then the institute will receive more money with less effort. After all, complex, bulky, and expensive equipment is often simpler and easier to create than cheap and reliable equipment. Therefore we still have institutes and their branches that for years give nothing useful to industry and live as dependents of the state.

The indicator of realized output is also unlikely to be expedient. The plan of an institute, by its nature, differs essentially from the plan of an industrial enterprise. If in the latter the plan for the release of output and its final result are sufficiently clear, then the plan of a scientific-research institute, especially the thematic plan, cannot be so concrete. The result of work cannot be foreseen with sufficient precision. A study may be carried out with different degrees of depth, at different scientific levels. Consequently, the very fact of fulfilling a plan for realized output will be insufficient for assessing the activity of a scientific institution.

The most important task in improving the planning of science at the present stage is to determine the optimal number of centralized directive indicators both for the basic “production” unit that is a legal entity (a research institute, a higher educational institution), and for the governing scientific institutions. The broader the range of such indicators,

the less creative and operational-economic independence is left to the research institute and the higher educational institution. For example, the Ministry of the Oil-Refining and Petrochemical Industry approved for its scientific institutions 22 plan and cost-estimate indicators, broken down into 16 items⁴. This fetters the creative life of the scientific collective. It makes it difficult to use scientific personnel and economic reserves. The process of repeated changes and refinements of detailed plans drags on for many months. If circumstances make it necessary to change the order in which the stages of a topic are carried out, the plan has to be coordinated with the ministry all over again.

On the other hand, it is likewise impossible to narrow the range of indicators to one, as proposed by the prorector of MVTU, K. Kolesnikov. He believes that, for example, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education should set for higher educational institutions only a single indicator: either only the volume of contract work in rubles, or only the wage fund⁵. Meanwhile, a single indicator cannot be a sufficiently objective criterion for evaluating the socially useful activity of a scientific institution. It is necessary to find several directive indicators that supplement and correct one another.

But the matter is not only, and not so much, a matter of reducing the number of indicators. As the experience of industry shows, a reduction in the number of directive indicators by itself does little to improve the quality of national-economic planning. The number of indicators in the 1963 plan was seven times smaller than the number of indicators in the 1953 plan and three times smaller than the number of indicators in the 1957 plan⁶. Yet the entire system of indicators was still aimed only at increasing the output of products and did not stimulate other aspects of the economic process. Meanwhile, proceeding from the spirit of economic reform, scientific institutions too must have created for them such a system of planned indicators as would stimulate an increase in the efficiency of scientific labor, growth in the economic effectiveness of scientific research, and would interest the entire collective and each scientific worker in better, higher results of work. Such indicators need not be invented; they must be inherent in the activity of a scientific institution under the conditions of a socialist planned economy, when the law of value exerts a certain regulating influence on reproduction.

For scientific institutions, the directive planned indicators could be:

1) a list of the most important scientific research;

2) the actual savings from work implemented in the national economy, or the value of products manufactured on the basis of the results of scientific work;

3) profit (the source of its formation will differ for budgetary and self-supporting institutions). Profit must become the source for forming incentive funds and the science-development fund, the source for financing their own capital investments and for covering losses;

4) the volume of centralized capital investments;

5) the commissioning of laboratory-production capacities and fixed assets under centralized investments.

At present, not only a thematic plan but also a financial plan is approved for scientific institutions.

The volume of financing is set at the level of the preceding year, with a slight excess. There is no incentive whatsoever for the rational expenditure of the allocated funds. If an institute fulfills its thematic plan with fewer people and less expenditure of funds, then its financing for the following year will be cut. An incentive is created to overspend money and to make full use of the staffing limit. And this occurs at a time when the Ministry of Finance of the USSR is struggling very vigorously for strict economy in the expenditure of state funds in science.

As an experiment, beginning in 1969 the Ministry of the Electrical-Engineering Industry is establishing a procedure for determining the volume of scientific work depending on the output of marketable products. The financing of this work will be carried out from a single fund for the development of science and technology. This fund is formed from deductions from the profit obtained as a result of scientific and technological progress in the branch.

Soviet scientists obtain money for science considerably more easily than, for example, American scientists. But spending it to advantage sometimes requires stratagems. The financial authorities have placed the heads of scientific institutions in conditions that greatly restrict their rights in spending the allocated funds. The time has come to grant scientific institutions greater economic independence. At the same time, they should be placed in such conditions that the interests of the people are secured in all spheres of their activity.

For example, when drawing up plans for financing scientific research, it seems advisable to determine the volumes of expenditure on science as a whole for a ministry, department, or scientific institution under only four main headings: wages; acquisition of equipment; capital repairs; and other expenses, including materials, models, and outside work⁷.

At present, for scientific institutions conducting research according to the plan of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Science and Technology, only two indicators are set from above:

— the total amount of expenditure;

— the wage fund, without the establishment of indicators for the number of personnel and the average wage.

The head of a research institute has the right:

— to develop and approve the institute’s structure and staff in accordance with the standard structure and staffing table;

— to approve and change wage rates within the limits of the wage fund and in accordance with the schedule of official salaries;

— to determine, within the total amount of expenditure, the amounts of spending by the items of the estimate, to introduce changes into it, and so forth⁸.

A scientific institution must itself form its portfolio of orders (if it is self-supporting), determine the number of employees by category, the average wage, the indicators of material and technical supply, the volume of scientific work not subject to sale, etc.

At present, departments that have scientific institutions under their jurisdiction are obliged, not less than once every three years, to assess their activity. On the basis of the results of the assessment, decisions must be made concerning their further development, reorganization, or closure.

Moreover, it must be borne in mind that evaluation of plan fulfillment in terms of thematic, cost, and financial indicators cannot fully reflect the actual contribution of scientific institutions to scientific and technological progress. It is also necessary to take into account: 1) the novelty and prospects of the scientific and technical ideas advanced and implemented; 2) the overall economic effect obtained in the national economy as a result of the use of completed work and of the potentially possible introduction of research being carried out (if such a calculation is possible: savings in the national economy, in rubles per ruble of expenditure by the scientific institution); 3) the number and importance of inventions used in the USSR and patented abroad.

An important task of science planning is to ensure the smoothness of the research process, beginning with the search and ending with the mastering of industrial production of the product. This will be served by coordination plans for the development of major scientific and technical problems, which must encompass the entire complex of work, beginning with research and ending with the practical use of its results in the national economy. It is especially important to think through carefully and to substantiate economically the financial and material support of scientific work at all stages, from the moment when the fruitfulness of the exploratory period has been demonstrated to the introduction of the scientific development.

To overcome such a shortcoming as the absence of a clear work schedule from the formulation of ideas to the experiment, the network method of planning—long studied and well proven—should be applied more widely. Network planning is the determination, by a graphical method, of the most rational organization of work, taking account of interrelations and mutual dependence. This system originated in the United States in 1950–1955. Studies conducted by Harvard University revealed two widespread maladies in research work: 1) constant failure to meet deadlines and 2) systematic excess of actual costs over planned ones. The cause of these maladies was also established—the absence of the necessary coordination of the various works in time and in the expenditure of resources. As a remedy, a method was proposed that abroad received the name “critical path method,” the PERT system. The method is widespread there in rocket and aircraft construction, in the production of computers, in the construction of chemical plants and power stations.^17 PERT is a system of calculations with whose help, at certain stages of the process of design or of carrying out R&D, it is possible to predict, with a sufficiently high degree of accuracy, the completion dates of the work, its cost, etc. The calculations use a graphical method, which reflects:

— a scheme of various interrelated events occurring in a given sequence;

— the time expenditures required for the researchers to carry out the activity connecting these events in the scheme;

— the mathematical similarity of the convergence of deadlines provided for by the intended work plan, which is reflected in the language of probability theory.

The advantages of PERT in comparison with traditional methods of organizing research work consist in achieving: 1) clarity; 2) simplicity of calculations; 3) orderly planning. According to an estimate by the U.S. Navy, which used the PERT system in developing the ballistic missile “Polaris,” the cost of its application amounts to approximately 0.1 percent of the total sum for carrying out

^17) RZh “Economics of Industry,” 1963, ref. 7403.

of this program. The use of this system made it possible to complete the development of the Polaris missile three years earlier than the originally planned date⁹.

Network diagrams are widely used in organizing scientific research in France. There this system is called “Pointage” (point—work), or the “method of potentials.” As a rule, the client does not pay the contractor (the scientific institution) the cost of preparing the network diagram. The expenses are recouped through the shortening of the time required to perform the work. The payment system provides for a bonus when the duration of the work is reduced and, on the other hand, for the payment of a penalty in the event of a delay in performance. The network diagram is a legal document on the basis of which the court collects the penalty in an uncontested procedure. The use of standard network diagrams is considered inadvisable, since constructing a new one each time makes it possible to find new opportunities for organizing the work in order to shorten the time required for its completion¹⁰.

This progressive system is also being used successfully in our country. (Here it has been given the name “SPU.”) As an example one may cite the completion of construction of the “1300” blooming mill in Chelyabinsk¹¹.

The use of the network method in planning scientific research is essentially an objective necessity. A “network,” in the form of a complex system of interrelations in the national economy, exists in real life. But very often the workers called upon to manage these relations are not able to grasp them even in their own consciousness. Academician V. Glushkov once observed that in 20 years, with the planning methods now existing in this sphere of activity (that is, in management and planning), the entire population of the Soviet Union would have to be employed. It has been calculated that, in order substantially to improve guidance and planning, under the established methods the administrative-economic apparatus would have to process, every day, 50 times more techno-economic information than it does now¹². The tasks of network planning are easily solved on computers. The costs of network modeling amount on average to about 1 percent of the project cost, while the savings sometimes reach tens of percent¹³. Calculations show that the effectiveness of the method increases with the increasing complexity of the objects in whose creation it is applied.

The use of this progressive method of planning is being held back both by the absence of simple and reliable methodologies, which must be compiled with reference to definite kinds of research work, and by the weak use of electronic computing technology in the sphere of science and in production. This was discussed in the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Twenty-Third Party Congress.

Indeed, in the field of the theoretical disciplines underlying electronic technology, our science occupies a leading position; but the application of new methods in the organization of science and in the economy has still, in essence, not become widespread.

The task of the State Committee for Science and Technology is to place planning in its sphere on a more solid economic and organizational foundation. It may be that, for the broader application of methods of network planning and management (SPU) in creating complex obj—

...of new technology, it is advisable in the coming years, along with increasing the output of computers, to set up mass production of equipment (without computers) for organizing network planning by a simplified methodology. In France there are firms in which all networks without exception are calculated manually. Moreover, a manual calculation of a network with 7,000 events is carried out within a single shift. True, these firms resort to manual calculation only because they do not have their own machines. It is more profitable for them to calculate by hand than to pay for machine time at some computing center¹⁴.

At Tomsk Polytechnic Institute a network schedule was drawn up under the contract work “Design and manufacture of a specialized computational model using direct current for the Tomskenergo system.” The schedule comprised events of 58 denominations. In 3–4 months it was necessary to perform 64 jobs. The installation was completed on time only thanks to the use of the schedule. Thus the time and labor spent on drawing it up fully paid for themselves. From the very beginning the schedule made it possible to comprehend the work in its entirety and to reduce to the utmost the duration of the jobs lying on the critical path. The task is being set of drawing up network schedules in developing an introscope for the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant. And then to go further—to use this method in planning all the scientific and instructional work of the institute.

The network method does not provide an absolute guarantee that research will be completed on time. The method requires a high level of organization of work in all units of the institute connected with the events reflected in the schedules. For example, in the schedule of the contract topic mentioned, the probability of a delay in the work of the experimental-production workshop was taken into account. But the waiting periods provided for proved insufficient. Errors were made because of insufficient information about the possibilities of carrying out work performed outside the department and not dependent on it.

Although methods of network planning in practice do not always ensure the optimal solution of problems or their solution within optimal time limits, their advantage may be considered proven. They improve performance indicators by means of:

— establishing more realistic estimates of the time required for research and finding additional reserves of time and material resources;

— better possibilities for monitoring the research program (the use of network schedules makes it possible to look not only forward, but also backward—for analysis);

— a clear definition of responsibility in the various units of the organization.

Thus, it is impossible to determine the exact date of a scientific discovery or invention. But one can indicate the field of science where they should be expected and accelerate them in a planned way. Such planning is a difficult matter; it is itself scientific creativity. Like national-economic planning, it must necessarily be optimal.

1. Foreign Literature, 1967, No. 1, pp. 239–240. ↩

2. Abstract Journal “Economics of Industry,” 1963, abstract 5400 and 1964, abstract 4E2. ↩

3. Resolution of the First All-Union Conference on the Planning of Scientific-Research Work. Gossotsizdat, 1931, p. 4. ↩

4. Pravda, 1966, August 3. ↩

5. See Izvestia, 1966, July 7. ↩

6. See M. Z. Bor, The System of Indicators and the Procedure for Developing Them under the New Conditions. Znanie, Moscow, 1966, p. 10. ↩

7. Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1966, No. 2, p. 31. ↩

8. Izvestia, 1967, April 4. ↩

9. RZh “Ekonomika promyshlennosti”, 1965, ref. 4D20 and ref. 7E2. ↩

10. Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1966, No. 39, p. 73. ↩

11. Znamya, 1966, No. 5, p. 181. ↩

12. See Izobretatel’ i ratsionalizator, 1966, No. 9, p. 27. ↩

13. See Izobretatel’ i ratsionalizator, 1965, No. 9, p. 27. ↩

14. Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1966, No. 39, p. 43. ↩