St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia (1991)
Seminar leader in week-long training of faculty from leading USSR universities in the tools and process of technology transfer. Subsequently elected to the USSR Academy of Scientists in Higher Education.

(Note: Dr. Meyer visited Leningrad in late June 1991, before the failed coup, as an invited speaker on financing technology business ventures at the Second Annual USSR Conference on Science and Technology Parks, sponsored by the then USSR State Committee for Public Education; the key persons and activities of that Committee have since been transferred to a newly-established independent public organization known as the InterRepublican Coordinating Committee for Education.)

While the politicians inside and outside the Soviet Union were debating, for three to four years prior to the August 1991 coup attempt, whether the pace of perestroika was too fast or too slow, the intellectuals within the government ministries, universities, and research institutes were both planning and implementing programs to achieve the privatization of science and technology. In fact, a concerted program has been underway for two or more years to transfer technology from the state universities and research institutes to both domestic and foreign enterprises through the establishment of technology incubators, science parks, and international agreements.

This two-year-old program in the Soviet Union was being managed by Dr. Valentin Shukshunov, then Vice-Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Public Education and now Director of the InterRepublican Coordinating Committee for Education. At the Second Annual (1991) Conference on Science Parks held in Leningrad, Dr. Shukshunov stated that "we are the witnesses and the participants of qualitative changes in the country's economy and its structural reconstruction, which provide new possibilities for higher education and science. And even if we had started this work 10 years ago, it is hardly possible that we would have achieved certain progress. In those years, fine seeds could not grow on the soil, poisoned by a bureaucracy commanding and planning the economy and prohibiting any initiative."

As a consequence of the leadership and initiative of the USSR State Committee, Dr. Shukshunov reported "that the idea to create science parks and incubators in our country is widely supported both by scientists of the universities, Academy of Science, and industry and by authorities of several towns, regions, and republics." Representatives of ministries, universities, and research institutes of the Republics are currently each developing and implementing plans of their own to contribute to the evolution of free market economies. They are no longer bound by centralized planning. For example, the various Republics are independently and competitively creating Science and Technology Parks as a mechanism to stimulate technology transfer and business creation.

Technology incubators and science parks are seen by the planners and managers of the higher education system of the Soviet Union as an effective way to utilize limited financial resources to launch new technologies and new enterprises simultaneously. One can not accuse these action-oriented entrepreneurs of not understanding the basics of a free market economy. They have been conducting basic and applied research and advanced development work for government-owned industry applications for decades. But now they have the "opportunity" to transfer their innovations to private enterprise. And they are moving rapidly to do so. They have evaluated and concluded that incubators and parks are the most efficient and effective method, given their limited resources.

The government and university science park planners have recognized that technological innovations are the source of new enterprises, new jobs, new markets, and hard currency, all of which are essential to establishing a free market economy. They believe that close associations between their universities and research institutes and the new private enterprises within the evolving technology parks will stimulate their researchers to be more creative and innovative, will cause some of their researchers to become business entrepreneurs of start-up enterprises, and will attract both domestic and foreign technology companies to locate their operations within the parks. Therefore, these government and university officials are investing some of their higher education resources into the planning and implementation of incubators and parks at strategic locations throughout the Republics.

The first science park anywhere in the Republics was created in early 1990 in Tomsk, Siberia, Russia. As of June 1991, there were already seven up-and-running technology parks in various Republics, at least that many in advanced stages of planning, and an equal number again in early stages of planning. By the end of 1992, there likely will be twenty or more parks and incubators in full operation.

The Tomsk science park was established entirely by local and regional parties. Under the leadership of faculty members from the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, representatives of 18 organizations came together, formed an organization, put up money, and created the Tomsk TechnoPark. The founders were from the universities, research institutes, state-owned industries, and local and regional governments. Each organization contributed 100,000 roubles. That money has been used to acquire land, to build a building, to staff the organization, and to establish a permanent technology transfer exhibition, all of which was accomplished by May 1990. As a consequence of this strong local and regional initiative, the USSR State Committee held its first annual international conference on technology incubators and technology parks in Tomsk in June 1990. Approximately 100 persons from throughout the Republics attended that conference, and it marked the real beginning of current republic-wide activity in science and technology parks.

The Tomsk TechnoPark is directed by a true entrepreneur, Dr.Vladimir Prets. In the past year, Prets has entered into working agreements with science parks throughout the world, has helped create 30 private companies within the Park--each based on a technology from one of the park members, has established a client base of 50 companies throughout the regional area, and has created the Tomsk Stock Exchange. The Exchange was formed by individuals and organizations from the Tomsk area as a means to buy and sell stock in the private enterprises established both inside and outside the Tomsk TechnoPark.

In addition to Tomsk, the other six technology parks are located in Leningrad, Saratov, Yufa, Zelenograd, Tallinn, and Tartu (Estonia). The Leningrad park has been organized by the Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute and is called 'ECO-PARK,' because its focus is on the development of devices for ecological monitoring. The ECO-PARK was a co-host of the 1991 Conference.

More than 40 universities and research institutes have come together to form the Higher Education Science Park Association, including the prestigious Academy of Science, the Higher Commercial School of National Economy, and 39 universities from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Estonia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kirgizia.

The technology park program is clearly a brand new initiative, which is being designed and implemented to contribute directly to the establishment of a free market economy. The terminologies--technology incubators, science parks, technology transfer, commercialization, patents and licensing, etc.--are new power words in the Ministries of the Republics. They represent a new way of doing things and, as such, they capture the imagination of government and university officials alike. They are a cohesion-generating set of words which bring representatives of most of the Republics together for mutual exchanges and for interaction through their new Association. Most all Republics were represented at the 1991 Leningrad conference; it was attended by 125 persons from Soviet universities, research institutes, and ministries.

Very early in his leadership of the technology park program, Dr. Shukshunov recognized that "it (would) be a big mistake if we 'mechanically' combine existing scientific institutes, design bureaus, production centers, and other establishments of the higher schools (universities) and call this mechanical combination a 'science park.' 'No' and 'no' again! He believes that "the science park is an environment, supporting the people involved in the innovation activity. They are places of meetings, conversations, and self-education of people engaged in scientific business. Dr. Shukshunov is very adamant when he proclaims that "bureaucratic management and science parks are incompatible conceptions!"

But Dr. Shukshunov is a practical science and technology administrator. His experience derives in part from having managed the development of the mainframe computer system used in the USSR's simulation tests for the docking maneuvers of its outer space vehicles. On the one hand, he believes that a university's education and scientific research functions must be protected from political and economic shocks; but on the other hand he knows that "it is impossible to live in a society and be free of its problems, difficulties, and requirements." He maintains that a "science park is a peculiar mechanism that pumps the results of the research into industry and enriches the pure science with the practical demands."