Implementation of the Results of Completed Scientific Research into Production

L. I. Safonova

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Political Economy)

Under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, the level, pace, and direction of development of scientific research activity exert a substantial influence on the growth of social production and on the political and military potential of the state. Science is increasingly being transformed into a direct productive force of society. The use of its results—new discoveries, inventions, and improvements—in the production process is becoming a necessary prerequisite for rapid and stable progress in production.

In general, the application of science in production, which has always been a factor of social development, is not in itself new. Scientific labor and its results have been widely used in practice since the development of machine production. At present, however, this use is characterized by such substantial changes that it is possible to speak of a new, special stage in the utilization of scientific knowledge, when there is a sharp expansion in the scale of scientific research activity and in the industrial application of its results. In connection with these circumstances, many problems associated with the existence, development, and use of science are becoming highly relevant. At present, Soviet economic science is extensively developing such problems as increasing the effectiveness of scientific research, the organization and planning of scientific activity, the interaction of science with various social institutions (above all with production), the problems of the future of science, and so forth.

It is generally recognized that the weakest link in the system of scientific and technological progress at the present time ...

is the introduction of scientific and technical achievements into practice. It is this circumstance that accounts for the special importance of studying this problem.

As we see it, the implementation of the results of scientific research into production should be considered in two aspects:

1) as a special stage in the movement of the scientific product;

2) as a special sphere of activity that mediates the connection between science and production.

With such an approach, the implementation of the results of scientific research into production appears as one of the stages in the movement of a scientific idea from its inception to its use in production. It is preceded by scientific activity itself, in the course of which information suitable for productive use is created; implementation is then followed by the direct use by production of science, which ensures the growth of the productivity of social labor and the increase of national income. Implementation, as we see, occupies an intermediate position between scientific and production activity and has as its aim bringing an experimental or laboratory prototype up to industrial requirements and organizing the one-off, serial, or mass output of new products. And only after that comes the use of the results of scientific activity in the proper sense of the word.

For analysis, the stage of implementation should be distinguished from the use of the results of scientific activity. In general, in a broad sense implementation may be regarded as the initial step in the productive use of the product of science. But this step is so specific that it requires being singled out as an independent field of research.

Scientific investigation of the stage of implementation has a definite theoretical and practical significance. Theoretical analysis is necessary in order to reveal the nature of the economic relations that arise in the process of implementing scientific and technical innovations. The starting point in this analysis is that, occupying an intermediate position between scientific and production activity, implementation is determined, on the one hand, by the laws of science itself and, on the other hand, by the laws of production, where this product of science is realized.

The practical significance comes down to finding ways to accelerate this process. It is known that the existing practice of bringing the results of scientific research and development to productive use is still far from perfect. Thus, in the opinion of Academician Trapeznikov, no more than 30–50% of the works that have passed through the stage of scientific research are brought to implementation. The remaining part either is not used at all or is mastered so slowly that after implementation it proves to lag behind the world level¹.

An analysis of implementation as an independent field of research should begin with determining its economic expediency. The point is that the possibilities for successful implementation of the planned research are in many respects already determined at the planning stage. It is very important that the chosen direction actually correspond to the urgent needs of production, for practice shows that the scientific and technical innovations proposed to enterprises do not always meet this requirement.

It is known, for example, that the leading tendency in a number of branches of machine building, including agricultural machine building, is to increase the capacities of the machines being created. But the consumer often expects from a machine not so much greater power as greater reliability in operation, less complexity in repair, and so on.

Further, the national economy needs not simply technical novelties, but economically effective solutions that reduce production costs for consumers. Meanwhile, there are many examples in which expenditures on new equipment grow significantly faster than the indicators of its productivity rise. Thus, for example, a technical novelty—the self-propelled drilling rig “ABSh”—costs ten times more than the widely used “NKR—100M” rigs, while its productivity is only twice as high. In the textile industry the productivity of new automatic looms has been increased by 10% in comparison with previously produced models, while their cost has risen severalfold²). Establishing economic expediency must in practice become the starting point and an integral part of all stages of conducting research and development. This requires a radical shift in the attention of scientific workers toward questions of economics. As Academician A. Rumyantsev says, “economic substantiation must be perceived by them as an element of the creative process itself”³).

Together with identifying the national-economic need for a given scientific study and its economic expediency, the real or potential consumer of the idea being developed is also determined. Hence follows the necessity of a theoretical analysis of the subjects of the relations of “implementation.”

The next step on the path toward determining the economic content of “implementation” is identifying the economic interests of the subjects of this relation. It comes down to the problem of their participation in appropriating the effect from the application of science in production. Now, when research organizations are making the transition to new methods of planning and economic stimulation, the solution of this problem acquires special significance. Thus, 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 of the Achievements of Science and Technology in the National Economy” states quite definitely that it is necessary “to recognize as necessary that henceforth the economic stimulation of research institutes and industrial enterprises, as well as the material incentives for their workers, be placed in direct dependence on the actual economic effectiveness obtained in the national economy as a result of the use of scientific and technical developments and new equipment”⁴).

With this approach, opportunities are created to strengthen the interest of research institutes in raising the level of execution of scientific and technical developments, and of enterprises in mastering innovations more quickly. In implementing the principle under consideration, at least two concrete economic tasks arise: determining the effect of implementation (calculating the economic effectiveness of the use of R&D in production) and resolving

²) A. Rumyantsev. “Questions of Scientific and Technological Progress.” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1971, No. 1, p. 8.
³) A. Rumyantsev. “Questions of Scientific and Technological Progress.” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1971, No. 1, p. 9.
⁴) Izvestia, 1968, October 23.

the question of the share participation of research institutes and enterprises in this effect. Consideration of these problems has attracted the broad attention of many scholars. There are a number of studies devoted, directly or indirectly, to these problems. In their most complete form, these developments are presented in methodological manuals on calculating the economic efficiency of research work².

However, the methods compiled have by no means completely eliminated the shortcomings that have occurred in the practice of calculating the economic efficiency of scientific-research work; they are poorly linked with the system of accounting and reporting in force in our economy; they do not ensure the necessary unity in evaluating the economic efficiency of using the results of research and development work in scientific institutions and industrial enterprises, etc. All this indicates the need for further theoretical and practical elaboration of these questions.

In characterizing implementation as a definite stage in the science–production system, considerable interest attaches to consideration of the ways of recording the completion of scientific work—the transfer of the development to production; the obligations of the consumer at this stage; and the responsibility of scientific institutions for the results of scientific research and their implementation. In accordance with existing regulations, the acceptance of research and development work is carried out, depending on its character, scope, and the results obtained, either upon completion of the work as a whole or upon completion of its individual stages that have independent theoretical or practical significance. Completed research work is documented by scientific reports, which are prepared regardless of the results obtained—positive or negative. The reports must reflect: the aims and tasks of the research; the results of the research; a characterization of the theoretical and practical value of the investigations carried out; its novelty in comparison with domestic and foreign achievements; recommendations on the use of the results of the work in the national economy, indicating the time periods and volumes of their realization at enterprises; and data on the registration of completed work.

In addition, technical reports must indicate the technical-economic parameters, the calculated cost, the specific capital intensity, and the possible volume of application of new products in the national economy and the price level for these products; calculations of economic efficiency (the guaranteed annual economic effect) from using the development at the enterprises that will implement it and in the national economy as a whole; proposals on the timing of production of new products and the use of new technological processes at specific enterprises, with technical-economic substantiations of the costs of organizing production connected with the use of these developments; and, finally, data on the registration of original technical solutions as inventions and a proposal for their patenting.

Acceptance of the work is carried out by a special commission and is formalized by an act. For all completed and accepted works, within a specified period (from one to three months from the date of acceptance), the following decisions are made:

1) on organizing design and technological develop-

flow on the basis of completed and accepted R&D and experimental-design work, and the mastering of pilot-industrial production of the product (materials), as well as the provision of these works with the necessary financial and material resources;

2) on mastering the industrial production of new products (materials) and the use of new technological processes, with the inclusion of the corresponding assignments in the production plan and with an indication of the volumes and time periods for mastering. At the same time, a decision is made on the material and technical support for carrying out these works.

The enterprise is assigned the function of organizing the acquisition (or manufacture) of equipment for the new technological process, the performance of installation, adjustment, testing, and mastering of the processes. The task of the research institute includes designer supervision. Together with the enterprises mastering the results of R&D, they bear responsibility for the quality of new products (materials, processes, etc.), the timeliness of implementation, and the achievement of the specified parameters of the product and the most important economic indicators.

After the acceptance of pilot series (batches) of products and products of individual production (pilot-industrial samples), special commissions issue a conclusion on the expediency of serial production of the given products (materials, processes). At the same time, the indicators of the annual economic effect that will be obtained from implementation are refined. These data serve as the basis (and in the electrical-engineering industry already are the basis) for the economic stimulation of manufacturing enterprises and research institutes and for the material encouragement of their employees for the creation and implementation of new technology.

The next aspect of our analysis is the consideration of the economic forms of the connection between science and production at the stage of implementation. As is known, the character of economic forms is always determined by the socio-economic position of the subjects of the relation (“implementation”). The latter is the product of the socialization of the given sphere of activity. On this basis, proceeding from the nationwide character of property, direct, centralized, planned forms of connection between science and production should be recognized as decisive.

At present the five-year plan, developed in accordance with the tasks of developing the country’s economy and the main directions of science and technology for the long-term period, acts as the principal form of state planning of science and technology. In addition to the five-year plan of scientific-research work, which is a component part of the State Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR, coordination plans are developed for solving the principal scientific and technical problems, as well as annual plans for the use of new equipment and technology in the national economy. It has also been recognized as necessary to have sectoral and republican five-year and annual plans for scientific-research work and for the use of the achievements of science and technology in production, and analogous plans for each scientific institution and enterprise.

It should be noted that the state system of comprehensive planning of scientific research and the use of its results in production on the most important scientific-research problems was first introduced into practice in 1966. Before this, the state—

state planning was, in essence, fragmented, covered only individual questions without their appropriate coordination, which ultimately led to a violation of the unified scientific and technical policy in the development of the country’s productive forces, etc.

At present, science is becoming separated into an independent sphere of the social division of labor; at the same time, it acts as an inseparable constituent part of all social reproduction. Therefore, on the one hand, it becomes an independent object of planning, while on the other hand, plans for scientific development are organically included in national-economic plans.

As we have already noted, in a certain sense the introduction of scientific and technical achievements begins with their planning; then plannedness appears as the most important socio-economic characteristic of implementation.

It should be noted that the possibilities for direct centralized planning of the development of science and the application of its results in production are not unlimited; it is impossible to capture at this level all cases of the connection between science and production. Therefore, alongside centralized ties, which are concentrated on the decisive directions of scientific and technical progress, contractual forms of connection between scientific institutions and enterprises also exist and are fairly widespread. In general, the development of contractual relations between science and production is connected with the existence of separate economic interests among the subjects of these relations. In turn, the prerequisite for the emergence of separate interests is the organizational separation of scientific activity. In practice, the development of organizational forms of science has proceeded along the path of adapting them to the sphere of service, to the consumer. Hence the strictly departmental character of the forms—scientific research institutes at factories, departments, ministries, etc. Apparently, this correctly reflects the needs of practice. But science, as a special sphere of human activity, must at the same time have its own logic of development (the division of labor within science itself) and, on this basis, its own foundation for separating its individual parts into organizationally independent units. In all probability, these two lines may both coincide and contradict one another. In order to give greater freedom and independence to the second line, it seems to us necessary to have an intermediary between the producer (science) and the consumer (production) in the form of a separate self-supporting firm for implementation. With the presence of such an intermediary, opportunities are created to free scientists from participation in the work, not proper to them, of bringing the product of scientific activity into use, to accelerate and expand the scale of implementation, etc.

On the whole, the allocation of the stage of “implementation” into an independent area of the division of labor should be connected with the raising of the level of socialization of science and the strengthening of its influence on production. There was no such necessity, and there is none, where this connection and influence are episodic and not mass in character. The separation of implementation as a special stage in the movement of a scientific idea toward production is possible and necessary only at a sufficiently high level of development of science itself and of its clear differentiation into an independent sphere of the social division of labor. These judgments are needed, above all, so that recommendations along the line of separating “implementation” do not assume an excessively rigid character, forbidding enterprises and departments themselves to develop...

…to conduct scientific activity and, at their own discretion, enter into contact with existing scientific institutions. It must always be remembered that an intermediary is advantageous not in general, but only in each specific case. If the direct participants (the producer and the consumer) do not seek the services of an intermediary, then, evidently, they either do not themselves understand their own advantage, or in this situation there is in fact no need for one.

In our view, examining the implementation of scientific and technical innovations in the two aspects indicated will make it possible to uncover the obstacles that exist on the path of a scientific idea’s movement into production, and to develop practical recommendations for improving the organization, planning, financing, and incentivizing of the realization of the product of science in practice.

1. Pravda, January 18, 1967. ↩

2. “Basic Methodological Provisions for Determining the Economic Efficiency of Scientific-Research Work.” Moscow, Ekonomika, 1964. “Basic Methodological Provisions for Determining the Economic Efficiency of Scientific-Research Work.” Methodological manual. Moscow, 1965. ↩