APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110012-0
from the CSAV, while the CSAV is responsible for the basic research program, subject to approval of the ministry. This ministry is also responsible for supervising international cooperation in science and technology and has jurisdiction over the Czechoslovak Atomic Energy Commission. The latter is responsible for the peaceful utilization of atomic energy and for coordinating the nuclear energy program. However, nuclear powerplant construction is the responsibility of the Ministry of Fuel and Power. Formerly the commission was not directly involved in the operation of research and development facilities for nuclear research, which were under the CSAV, but recently, the Nuclear Research Institute at Rez (near Prague) has been placed under the commission.
The CSAV, created in 1952, was formerly a very powerful organization for scientific planning and coordination of research and for carrying out fundamental and applied research. In 1969 the new government took away much of the autonomy of the CSAV. The previously unimportant Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), which functions as a branch of the CSAV, was upgraded, thus ending the ability of the CSAV to speak for the entire scientific community in opposition to the new regime's policies. Many research facilities of the academies have been reorganized or abolished in order to strengthen government control and to insure leadership by Communist Party members. The regime controls the monetary and physical resources needed for scientific and technical activities and uses them to gain its objectives.
The academies continue to play an important role in scientific education and research through the approximately 130 institutes, laboratories, centers, and other facilities that operate under the control of various scientific boards of the academies. The cover such disciplines as biology, mathematics, physics, nuclear research, technical cybernetics and electronics, materials research, medical science, organic chemistry and biochemistry, chemical process fundamentals, and the astrogeophysical sciences. More than 30 formerly independent scientific societies have been placed under the framework of the CSAV. This grouping under one organization has promoted better cooperation and communication among the societies.
Since 1969, government financial support for the CSAV has dropped off sharply. Until recently the CSAV has been concerned almost entirely with basic research, but under the present regime the CSAV program of applied research is being expanded. Resources previously used to support basic research are now being used to support applied work responsive to industrial needs. The applied research of the CSAV has included work proposed by top government agencies on problems too complicated and too diversified to be handled by industrial research institutes.
Most applied research is conducted in about 200 industrial research facilities under various economic ministries. Many of these facilities are connected with industrial plants in major industries. In some cases the research facilities conduct work for a group of industrial enterprises.
Most of the research done in the higher educational facilities is fundamental in nature, although the technical universities are engaged in some applied research. Some pressure has been exerted on the universities to bring their research programs under the government program for scientific development which has been set forth in the directives of the Government Plan for Development of Science and Technology.
The Czech and Slovak National Councils have parliamentary authority to pass legislation concerning science and research in relation to the requirements of the Czech and Slovak state economies. The federal government as the supreme executive power is concerned with the direction of planned expansion in scientific fields and with the general applications of research in the overall economic program. The government has the power to prepare long-range plans for science projects and assigns specific research work connected with the country's development to the relevant state agencies and scientific institutions. In these activities, the federal government is advised by the Czech and Slovak Ministries of Construction and Technology in collaboration with each of the academies of sciences and the Federal, Czech, and Slovak Planning Commissions. Although detailed planning of research and development activities has long been practiced by the Communist government, the present regime has insisted on stricter centralized planning than previously.
Only limited information is available on the financing of scientific and technical activities in Czechoslovakia. Government support for scientific research, including funds available for the CSAV, has been cut back drastically in recent years, and the degree of accountability for expenditures has increased greatly. Funding has been controlled by antiliberals since at least 1971. Cuts in funding have led to infighting among competing scientists, and only those with strong party connections prosper. Research and development spending is being made more responsive to industrial needs.
According to the Czechoslovak Federal Statistics Office, total spending for research and development
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110012-0
