Document created: 9 September 02
Air University Review, July-August 1979

The scientific potential of a nation, its ability to solve future scientific and technological (S&T) development problems, is an important measure of its industrial and military strength. This scientific potential depends largely on the degree to which a nation has developed four aspects of its scientific and technical community.

• A nation must have enough research and development (R&D) institutions and the specialized equipment required for the performance of research.
• The research establishment must be manned by adequate numbers of qualified professional R&D scientists and engineers in the critical areas of research endeavor.
• The research and development programs of the nation and the efforts of individual R&D personnel must be organized and managed in the most effective and efficient manner and focused on the most important problems.
• The scientists and engineers must be kept informed of the S&T achievements of the rest of the world through a highly developed scientific and technological information system.

Underlying these parameters are those original ideas, the amount of scientific creativity possessed by scientists and engineers, which ultimately determine the extent to which a nation's scientific potential is realized.

Concern has been expressed repeatedly that the Soviet Union is exceeding the United States in scientific and engineering manpower and, hence, may eventually surpass us in R&D achievements. There is no difficulty in finding statistics that support such concerns. The number of full-time-equivalent scientists and engineers employed in R&D in the Soviet Union surpassed the analogous figure for the U.S. in 1969-70 and stood well above the U.S. total in 1976 (755,000 versus 566,000) The number of kandidat nauk degrees (roughly equivalent to the U.S. Ph.D.) conferred in the Soviet Union reached a record level in 1976, while awards of Ph.D. degrees in the U.S., though exceeding the Soviet figure (about 33,000 versus 31,000), were on the decline from a peak in 1973. In the field of engineering, the comparisons are striking. In 1972 the Soviet Union employed 2,820,000 diploma engineers, while the U.S. employed only 1,243,000. This gap will probably widen, given relative numbers of first-level degrees being awarded in this field (275,500 in the U.S.S.R. versus 39,100 in the U.S. in .1976).

There is at present no reliable way of estimating the number of students in specialties that are inputs into military-related R&D. The Soviet reporting system aggregates large groups of related specialties under single headings for statistical purposes. Some of these specialties clearly have military applications; others are of doubtful relevance to military interest. Five out of 11 Soviet engineering specialties have at least potential application within the defense industry: metallurgy; machine and instrument building; electronics, electrical equipment building, and automation; radio engineering and

communications; and chemical engineering. Between 1971 and 1976, enrollments in defense-related engineering fields increased at a slightly higher rate (1.0 percent) than between 1966 and 1970 (0.8 percent). Soviet graduates with these specialties comprise a manpower pool available for use in the defense industry as needed. Since these specialties represent fields with broad economic application, it cannot be hypothesized that all students in these specialties will enter the defense industry. Again, these students will enter a pool of professional manpower available for use in the defense industry.

Comparisons such as these may be misleading, as can be illustrated with the often-cited example of engineers. Statistics on the numbers of engineers employed in the Soviet economy give an inflated impression of the amount of engineering activity going on in the U.S.S.R. Such impressions result because the Soviets count all persons who have received an engineering degree as engineers, regardless of their employment. Also, the Soviet definition of "engineering" includes such fields as cartography, geodesy, exploration for mineral deposits, forestry, wood-technology, hydrology, meteorology, and agriculture,* which would not be considered engineering in the U.S. Many engineers in the U.S.S.R. have received their undergraduate degrees through evening or correspondence programs, which are acknowledged to be inferior to full-time programs. It has been noted, for example, that correspondence program students typically can devote only 25 percent as much time to reading technical literature as can full-time students.¹ Furthermore, one may ask why the Soviet Union needs so many more engineers than the U.S., when it has a smaller economy. Doubts on the wisdom of training so many engineers have even been expressed by Soviet commentators. In 1974, after a tour of West German and Japanese tool manufacturing plants, G. Kulagin, director of the Machine-Tool Association imeni Sverdlov, stated that "one can hardly find justification for the fact that having 2.7 times the number of engineers as the US, we continue to train them in quantities several times higher than the Americans," and that "for equivalent volumes of production and introduction of new technology they use 3 to 4 times fewer designers and researchers than we do. Is this not simply a waste of precious engineering labor on our part?"²

*In 1975 approximately 00 percent of all Soviet engineering graduates were trained in these fields.

The point, of course, is not that one should dismiss these Soviet manpower figures as hopelessly exaggerated. Rather, one must be cautious in drawing conclusions about Soviet and American potential for scientific advancement based on simple comparisons of a few manpower series at a point in time. Manpower series should be examined in the light of what is known of other indicators used to assess R&D capabilities. One such indicator is the number of Nobel Prizes received by various nations. A pertinent fact is that from 1946 to 1976 the U.S. accounted for 85 Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology/medicine, out of a total of 171, while the U.S.S.R. accounted for only 7.³ In short, this Soviet army of scientists and engineers may be a sign of systemic weaknesses as well as strengths.

The U.S.S.R. continues to experience both surpluses and shortages of professional scientific and engineering manpower in several fields of training. Disproportions occur due to the changing demands of science and industry for specialists, misuse of available manpower, reliance during planning on staffing tables that unnecessarily inflate manpower needs, and shortages of material and staff support for professional manpower.

The Soviets' unusually high definition of their scientific and technical manpower demand has increased the number of these people being trained over the years. Since science and technology enjoy top priority in the Soviet Union, it follows that most professional manpower shortages would occur in new technologies. Shortages of qualified faculty are also reported, especially in Siberia and rural areas.

Industrial production enterprises still report acute shortages of advanced degree holders,⁴ and experienced plant engineers and scientists continue to leave industry for the research institutes, where the work is more attractive and the pay higher.⁵

An additional problem, which aggravates shortages of engineers because it leads to their misuse, is a deficit of business and industrial administrators and executives. The Soviet Union has not trained adequate numbers of economists and administrators for industry. Without the economists to participate in economic and planning functions, the Soviets have often been compelled to use engineers in administrative positions that require no technical education. Several institutes of management have been set up recently to remedy this situation. Eventually, new cadres will permit better employment of engineers who are now in administration.

Shortages and surpluses of scientific and technological manpower are also caused by individual enterprise employment practices. The pressures to hire more professional S&T cadre than needed at an enterprise are strong, as is the reluctance to fire personnel in these categories. This practice can be partly attributed to the existence of an incentive to increase the enterprise's wage bill or the total amount of money allocated for wages and salaries. Many regulations governing the organization of wages and bonuses continue to reward enterprises that employ the largest possible staff. Premiums, including those affecting the director personally, are calculated, using the wage bill as a basis.

Another factor that causes disproportions of manpower and which has contributed to the steady growth in the numbers of scientists and engineers is the common practice of organizing new departments, either directly or through reorganization of existing departments, employing these people in order to increase the wages and salaries for people in these occupational categories. Once a new department has been created, an experienced engineer or scientific worker is then promoted to head the department, and new personnel are hired to staff it. An underlying reason for this practice is the relative deterioration in the salaries of such people in recent years compared with most industrial workers and state farm employees. The reduction in wage and salary differentials since the late 1950s has not been a turn to egalitarian principles of distribution; rather it is a reflection of shifts in economic priorities in favor of traditionally neglected and low-paid sectors. As a result, the overall number of engineers and scientists in the country has grown continuously.

Misuse of engineers' time also creates a need for additional cadre. Time spent in typing, drawing graphs, attending meetings, composing correspondence, and engineering administration is considerable and often leaves as little as 10 percent of the work week for substantive engineering activity. In addition, absenteeism due to personal leave, responses to summonses from courts and investigative agencies, and party obligations is a serious problem; at many industrial enterprises, losses of working time run as high as 15 to 20 percent of the total.⁶ Thus, for fear of finding themselves shorthanded, managers commonly try to keep as many employees as possible in reserve. Losses of substantive working time also result from interruptions in material and technical supply necessary for the performance of scientific research. Difficulties in obtaining scientific instruments and laboratory equipment, as well as an enormous amount of equipment downtime in research institutes, cause delays and periods of relative inactivity.

Other misuses of S&T manpower have further aggravated the surplus/shortage problem such as the employment of diploma engineers outside their fields of specialization or as technicians or skilled labor and the employment of praktiki* in engineering and technical positions.

*Persons employed in a job for which they have no formal training but are qualified by on-the-job experience.

Thus, while definite specialist shortages exist in the U.S.S.R., the main problem appears to be in the effective planning and use of the vast manpower pool, which, if corrected, would eliminate disproportions currently experienced.

Notwithstanding the tremendous strides the Soviet Union has made in R&D over the past 20 years, the economy remains essentially labor-intensive, as opposed to capital-intensive, despite generous and regular capital improvements. Analysis of present trends in Soviet S&T manpower and educational policies indicates that the current requirement is to turn from extensive (e.g., growth in the numbers of workers and increase in investments) to intensive factors (e.g., raising the productivity and improving the organization of work involving research workers, professors, and students). As Western students of Soviet R&D efforts try to gauge future R&D achievements in the Soviet Union, it will be important for them to keep in mind both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of professional R&D manpower and put these factors in perspective with other R&D indicators.

Notes

1. M. Anuchin, Izvestiya, 6 January 1973, p. 5.

2. G. Kulagin, Trud, 10 January 1974, p. 2.

3. National Science Board, National Science Foundation, Science Indicators 1976, 1977, p. 195.

4. S. Zhitmitskiy, Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta August 1975, p. 15.

5. D. Orechkin, Izvestiya, 21 October 1972, p. 1.

6. Ekonomika i Organizatsiya Promyshlennogo Proizvodstva, March-April 1978, pp. 75-87. Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press vol. 30, no. 16, 1978, p. 5.

Jill E. Heuer (B.A., M.A., Northwestern University) is an analyst in the Foreign Technology Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where she previously served as a translator of Russian. She is currently completing a major study on Soviet manpower to be published this year. She has studied and traveled in the Soviet Union with the Foreign Study League" and formerly worked with the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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