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Poland Struggles To Forge New Policy for Science Despite country's huge problems, ambitious program has set up new scientific peer review system; lack of development plan impedes technology policy Wil Lepkowski, C&EN Washington η a side street that comes to an end in central War saw sits a gray, four-story office building of squared-off Stalinistic design. Though nondescript, the edifice houses perhaps the most revolutionary agency in all of Eastern Europe—Komitet Badan Naukowych (State Committee for Scientific Research) or KBN. In modern-day annals of international science and technology policy, KBN is more than worth noting because it marks a new scientific and technological era in Poland. Its fledgling efforts to bring Polish science and technology up to Western standards are being watched by the rest of Eastern Europe. Poland's problems are huge. And it is certainly naive at this turbulent point in Polish history to believe science and technology are any magical solution to them. They in clude Poland's $45 billion international debt, deteriorat ing industrial plant, present and anticipated waves of unemployment, inflation, social unrest, political apathy, legislative chaos, an underproductive agricultural sec tor, and stupendous environmental problems. Recited together they rob the breath and inspire desperation. As in most things, there's also the other side. Po land's leaders may be fatalistic but they have always embraced Western values, contributed to the West's in tellectual tradition, and nurtured their share of rebel lious visionaries. (One of that ilk perhaps best known to Americans is Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Koscziusko.) So the prospects stirred by Western science and technology do pierce Poland's grayness with their promise of newness, freshness, openness, and anticipa tion of emerging worlds. Poland's technical community knows that without a vigorous technical sphere, the country cannot possibly enter the mainstream of Europe, solve its monumental environmental problems, and then move on to partici pation in a global, high-technology economy. KBN's di rector, 62-year-old neurophysiologist Witold Karczewski, has to keep his eye on that future as KBN attempts to craft a policy for science and, later, to select technol ogies critical to Poland's future. While KBN, by doling out research funds through a newly established peer review process, is most akin in function to the U.S.'s National Science Foundation, it is the nearest thing Poland has to an Office of Science & Technology Policy. Karczewski knows he has to make the most of the power he has in a political situation
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Polish humorists like to term "demokrazy." The electoral law passed in 1990 gave parties seats in Parliament accord ing to the proportion of votes received in the 1991 election. The result is that Poland has 29 squabbling political par ties forever forming, then dissolving, unworkable coalitions. "Parties that are poles apart on one issue may take an iden tical position on another," comments Krysztof Jasiewicz of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. "There is no one yardstick to measure how far apart or close together they are. The traditional left-right di mension seems irrelevant. Is there any way to make sense of this swarm of parties, groupings, and organizations? The answer, regrettably, is no." Jasiewicz was writing his views in the April issue of the Journal of Democracy. Last week the Poles were once again thinking about
Poland's chemical and related industries are fairly widespread
Sosnowiec
Key: • Chemicals • Petroleum refining Textiles & clothing
Φ Light industry (wood, paper, glass, ceramics) % Ferrous & nonferrous mining & metallurgy
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forming a new government, balanced, as usual, between satisfying the people's demands for retaining social services, while hewing to fiscal restraints mandated by the International Monetary Fund. President Lech Walesa, meanwhile, said he lacked faith in Prime Minister Jan Olszewski's government and wanted a new one. At the same time, Walesa sought Parliamentary approval of constitutional changes that would give him more power to govern in the prescriptory manner of the 1920s Polish hero, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Walesa, complaining that his office was merely symbolic, said his goal was a government patterned after the current French system. Poland today is in reality two distinct countries—one very confident and prosperous; the other poor, angry, and depressed. The problem Karczewski and other policymakers face is that Poland's scientists and engineers are by and large part of that second category. Even the top researchers in Poland make a mere $300 a month, less than factory workers and miners. As a result, Poland's youth shows little interest in pursuing technical careers. University departments are desperate for help. Warsaw University chemistry department chairman Wlodzimierz Kolos reports too many students are not interested in scientific careers. "There's no money in it," he says, "and industry isn't interested in hiring Ph.D.s." Moreover, because of lack of funds, the department he heads will be forced this year to terminate 25 young Ph.D. teacher-researchers. "It will be difficult for them to find work in industry," he says. Kolos knows that one look by a student at a typical Polish factory is enough to repel him or her forever. But he hopes that in time and with help from Western investment capital, several new high-tech industries will open up in Poland. But he is the first to admit that the universities have no experience in preparing students for such careers. If Poland's scientists are losing their careers, its entrepreneurs are busy harvesting capitalism's fruits. Almost 1.5 million private businesses opened between December 1989 and December 1991. A walk along Warsaw's main street, Nowy Swiat, is not unlike a stroll down Chicago's Michigan Avenue. Boutiques, jewelry shops, men's clothing emporiums, camera and electronics stores, and car dealerships adorn the avenue. And the Poles are buying. Probably a fifth of the Polish population of 38 million is enjoying this bounty. The rest are depressed and grumpy because they either have no money coming in from relatives abroad, have no side ventures in the underground economy, or haven't yet learned the skills of becoming an entrepreneur or importer in a Poland that hungers for a share of Western prosperity. The boom could be lowered on the Polish economy in a few months, when the Poles' cash trove shrinks and Poland finds itself unable to produce enough for itself. That is why these months of building a basic technical structure for Poland are so important. The trouble is that the Poles are impatient. They are Western enough to know what could lie ahead, but haven't quite decided how much to sacrifice to get there. Add to that the difficult death of old welfare state habits—free medical care and education, cheap housing, and skirting the law—and it is easy to understand the trauma the country is going through. The Poles are trying, but almost nothing has been done so far to privatize and modernize Poland's heavy industry, 8
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Meats and produce as well as other consumer goods are in plentiful supply in Polish stores despite the gloomy economy built mainly to serve the needs of the Soviet Union. These industries—metals, arms, heavy machinery, commodity chemicals, textiles, and agricultural products—are so polluting and outmoded that they are unable to find markets other than those that have been drying up in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. Cynics refer to Poland's environmental contamination as one large Superfund site. The analogy is an exaggeration because Poland has some of the best soil in Europe. But it is true that heavy-metal contamination makes tomatoes and lettuce too poisonous to eat in industrialized Silesia; and the Vistula River's water, which drains Poland from south to north, is too polluted even for industrial use. About 10% of the country's land mass is believed to be so contaminated that it is hazardous to the 12 million people that live on it. Sewage treatment is almost unknown anywhere in the country. Fortunately, Poland doesn't have to worry about future contamination from nuclear power plants. With its abundance of coal (presenting its own massive problems), Poland has no such plants. Such is the sort of panorama before which Karczewski operates at KBN. And, taking first things first, his focus as essentially Poland's scientific "czar" is to make Poland's Western-style research system work. A lot of advice came early on from NSF. Now KBN and only KBN controls the flow of money to researchers and their laboKarczewski: we are not going to ratories throughout Poresuscitate poor or dying land. scientific institutions
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But there is only so much money to go around in these austere days. By the end of the year, he will have cut off government support for some 40,000 of Poland's scientists and engineers in its 300 research institutes. The terminations involved decisions by a KBN committee consisting of several of Poland's research elite who with Karczewski devised a performance grading system based on such criteria as frequency of publication, prestige of journals in which papers were published, and various other indicators of competitive research activity. "What we are doing sounds cruel and probably is," Karczewski declares. "But we are not going to resuscitate poor or dying scientific institutions. Poland has almost as many scientists and engineers as France, whose population is almost 60 million, against Poland's 38 million." Estimates fluctuate widely, but some reckon that the Ph.D. pool in Poland could number as many as 70,000. At least three quarters of the 40,000 left to fend for themselves are from government ministries that were notorious for staff-padding, cronyism, and mediocre research. Most will not be missed. The rest are from universities and institutes that are part of the very same Polish Academy of Sciences that nurtured Karczewski so well during the darkest of the Cold War years. During "happier" days, the academy exclusively ran science policy in Poland. It does no more, and to say it is displeased with Karczewski is to understate the animosity. Thus, a war is raging in Poland between KBN and the science academy over the control of Poland's science policy. Karczewski's battle, he is quick to explain, is not so much with the academy (indeed, of 82 of its institutes graded, only eight received either a "C" or a "D") as with encrusted attitudes developed under 40 years of communism. "I hope the time is approaching," he says, "when the scientific community will understand that the concept of scientific merit—not affiliation, not organization, not scientific degree, not the title of professor—has top priority. Very frequently in the past these titles were obtained without any real scientific background but [rather] for political reasons. Some people feel that because they think they are good, they will get money. That's wrong." A science policy bill now pending in Parliament would define the future role of the academy and make a start toward reorganizing the scientific and technological bureaucracy in Poland. "In about a year," he says, "we should start to know what works and what doesn't. Maybe our rules are too stiff. We may have to introduce the kind of flexibility that might allow the minister for agriculture, for example, to develop his own research programs." Karczewski says Poland's science and technology needs a uniform
agency structure rather than the present jumble of ministries and agencies that outsiders can make no sense of. "There is no law that allows us to organize agencies. This is one thing we have to introduce." And the old communist guard is always around to make use of the changes to their own advantage. "The old-boy lobby is certainly supporting each other in getting grants or getting financial support for its institutes," he remarks. "There are still many former communists heading the institutes, especially those that work closely with the big state factories. We are aware that they exist, and probably will modify our organization to break the chain so that there will be no permanent links between the old boys." But the prospects of coordinating science and technology from any one place is almost alien to the individualistic spirit of the Poles. For now, KBN must concentrate only on ensuring the health of basic research in Poland. Critics may say that's too narrow a perspective, that a science policy must be designed with technological strategies in mind, too. Karczewski has an answer for that objection: "We have a policy for the basic sciences that says we are going to support good science absent of any strategic directions. It is much more difficult with applied science because we have to know what the government will decide about directions of development. After this we will know whether to support more fields of chemistry, or less, or biotechnology, or whatever. The Council of Ministers will have to decide. We have proposed several times to stir this debate. But the government is too busy with everyday problems." Karczewski's life draws the kind of historical backdrop necessary for any contextual discussion about today's Poland. Like everyone else over 55, he is a survivor of the most hideous era of Polish history, World War II. He and his parents lived out the war in a small village in southern Poland. But 27 other members of his family perished either in battle, by execution, or in concentration camps. The Russians and Germans in World War II killed or deported to a slower death most of Poland's scholars, engineers, military officers, and intellectuals. Historians may argue over motivations and stratagems, but both dictatorships in their separate ways were deliberately attempting to wipe the country off the map once and for all. About 6 million Poles lost their lives during the war—almost 20% of Poland's entire population. Half that number were the Jews who were executed at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other death camps in Poland. The decimation of leadership because of the war is one big fact of modern Polish history. The other big fact, of course, is the 45 years under communism. Stalin, in a turnabout after the 1945 Potsdam talks that gave Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union, decided not to annex Poland as a Soviet republic and allowed it to exist as a separate communist state, as a buffer area between the Soviet Union and Germany. In the back of his communist mind was the hope that the Poles could be socially and politically engineered into that new "Soviet man." In time, the Poles evolved their own version of communism, including privatized agriculture, freedom of religious worship, and the right of scientists to travel abroad fairly freely. Such flames of individuality led to the revolution of 1989, capping the 10 years of political catalysis known as Solidarity. Karczewski was one of the original scientific JUNE 8,1992 C&EN
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Big need is for technical development strategy Edwin Przybylowicz is a technically academy labs are overloaded. The trained American well positioned to as- challenge is how you slim those labosess Poland's spastic moves toward a ratories down to a concise size. science-based, technologically driven There's a naivete in all those places market economy. Until mid-1990, when relative to how you move ideas to inhe retired, Przybylowicz was director dustry through the technology transfer of research and vice president for East- process. I think industry and the reman Kodak. Przybylowicz still con- search community, with a few excepsults with Kodak and has been advising tions, have been very insulated from the company on Eastern Europe's in- each other in Poland. There are excepvestment potential. He currently is a tions, such as the Institute for Chemical member of the commission that over- Technology, which relates well with Posees the $3 million Marie Sklodowska land's chemical industry. Curie fund jointly supported by the U.S. There seems to be a preoccupation and Polish governments. In a recent in- with continuing to support good sciterview with C&EN, Przybylowicz ex- ence. While that shouldn't be dispressed his thoughts about issues in Po- counted, the important thing is to emland's science and technology policy. phasize technology that will generate the manufacturing that will generate What is your overall assessment of Po- the income that will put science on a land's scientific and technological base?firmer financial base from internally In Poland, the science base has some generated wealth. strengths, but there is essentially no technology base. The structure of sci- Yet we hear that Poland has many very ence and technology in the govern- good scientists. ment sphere consists of three ele- The system did produce good scienments—the Academy of Sciences labo- tists. If you look around the laboratoratories, which are graduate-degree- ries here at Kodak, for example, you granting institutions; the universities, will find working here probably a which also generate graduates; and the dozen people that graduated from Polministry laboratories. The statutory ish institutions within the past 10 funding for those three groups used to years. We must have five people from come through separate government Wroclaw Technical University alone. routes. Now all the money comes from They're all well-trained chemists and the Komitet Badan Naukowych chemical engineers and they do very (KBN)—State Committee for Scientific good work. And our experience at Research. Kodak is not unique. During the communist regimes, those laboratories became very self-fo- What can the Polish government do to cused and politically oriented. My help? Or maybe more basically, what sense is that the academy laboratories isn't the government doing to help? graduated a mixture of good and not The one thing the government is not so good people. These people didn't doing in Poland is insisting on local have real jobs to go into, and the acad- content. Maybe this is a small examemy took them on as staff. Today, the ple, but it's a real one in Poland. The
members of Solidarity. One of his jobs was to plan with hundreds of his colleagues the rebirth of Polish science and technology in a market economy. Poland is, of course, hardly starting from scratch in modernizing its science and technology. The communist regime did, after all, produce large numbers of top scientists who could hold their own internationally in field after field. The challenge now is to tie Poland's quality in science to technology. One of the best examples of the potential of Poland's Academy of Sciences labs for a high-tech future for Poland is reflected in the Institute for Catalysis & Surface Science near Krakow. Its director since its 1968 founding is Jerzy Haber, a physical chemist with extensive travels and work in the West, and a stout defender of the Polish academy. 10
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heating systems in major cities are central heating. You have a power plant that's generating steam that is piped to office buildings, hotels, businesses, and homes. There are very few, if any, controls in the system. You control the temperature in your house by opening and closing your windows. The energy loss in this system is horrendous. The point is this. As Poland's economy gets turned around, it's going to have to conserve energy. It will have to start installing valves, thermostats, and other controls. The thermostats that it does have are German or American made. You have to ask why the government isn't insisting that such needs be filled by joint venture assembly of foreign technology by Polish workers. What you're saying is that Poland doesn't even have the beginnings of a technology plan for the country. All the people I have talked with agree that there isn't a plan that's coherent
Haber has made sure that his research staff of around 80 has similar backgrounds to his in Western research and education. He says he has always sought industrial applications for the institute's work. "We created this institute simply because I thought that in catalysis I had to have different specialties. "For example, those working in gas-solid interface studies were speaking a different language from those working in the liquid-solid interface. But the physics behind the phenomena were the same. So we felt we could gain a lot of cross-fertilization if we organized an institute in which all three interfaces were represented—gas-solid, liquid-solid, and gas-liquid. We decided early on that we would study one problem attacked from different points of view." The field he picked was oxidation.
in forming partnerships that will put Polish workers to work. Many minis try laboratories could become inven tive in terms of Polish-based technol ogy. Any helpfromthe U.S. along that line? The Commerce Department's Technolo gy Administration ran a workshop last October in Poland involving a group of licensing people to discuss moving tech nology from university and government labs to the commercial sector. That kind of interest is very high in Poland. I'm in the box to put together a follow-on work shop this fall.
There's the whole issue of the privati zation of large companies. The faster that occurs the sooner you're going to get to some sort of trade balance with the external world and bring some hard currency in. The longer it's de layed, the bigger the problem, because there is no offset against goods from the West which keep flowing into the Where would you rate technology poli country and costing hard currency. I'd cy in terms of Poland's pnonties? like to see the government step in and I think Poland needs to debate a tech insist on a graduated plan for Polish nology policy, but there are more ur content in goods consumed in Poland. gent problems to debate right now in This will stimulate foreign investment volving the social and political infra and put the Polish people back to structure of the country. Everywhere work. there are problems. The 200-mile train The U.S. and Poland are in the process of renewing their five-year research ex ride from Wroclaw to Warsaw takes What are the main attitudinal prob change agreement under the Marie seven hours when it should take only lems the Poles need to overcome? Sklodowska Cune fund. You are on the two or three. The problem is that the Cooperating and competing at the commission involved in that. Any new roadbed is so bad the train isn't al same time. That's what's very different lowed to go more than 40 miles an about Poland and the U.S. In the U.S., technology policy wnnkles there? During the meeting of the joint com hour. So there are problems that are when you start a company and fail, mission in May, I proposed that we just sitting there. An industrial society you can pick yourself up and start modify the agreement to allow eco needs to have a modern infrastructure. again. In fact, most entrepreneurs in The question is how long this all is this country will tell you that their nomic development activities to take place under it. When it was first writ going to take, and will the people's pa failures taught them as much as their ten in 1987, the agreement just talked tience run out before the first evidence successes. In Poland, it's my impres about scientific collaboration. What comes that the democratic process is, sion that the culture is such that if you we want to do now is maintain the sci in fact, a better system than what they fail, you've had it, and there probably will be five people rejoicing over your entific collaboration but also move had. failure. Status is so dominant. Also into collaborations that will require there is the attitude that says, Ί am a If you were to spend the next couple of third-party funds. We want to position things so that years there, what would you want to scientist; don't dirty me with these in dustrial interests.' Culturally, that's we start seeing proposals a year from do most? now that will include the dimension Establishing an agenda and strategy something they're going to have to get for economic development from their over. of economic development. technology base would be first. There On the other hand, we have seen What do you believe should be the out are lots of infrastructure jobs that have that motivated Polish workers can ac lines of any technology transfer process a technical component. Take the envi complish outstanding science and in Poland? ronment. Everywhere you go, there are technology, as well as be good busi It would be a good idea to bring togeth environmental problems. The technol nessmen. The challenge is how this er some of the more successful people ogy to control pollution is here today. can be orchestrated to be the dominant in Poland and train them in the com It's a question of applying it to the cir theme in the Polish economy ... as mercialization process. In strategic loca cumstances and raising the capital. soon as possible. tions, these people could provide the necessary "champion" role for those with commercialization ideas. This would be high-level leadership that un derstands the commercialization pro cess well enough and is willing to help those who come up with a whacky idea and counsel them.
"We now have practically all fields of oxidation covered here," Haber says. "But this isn't the whole story. I was al ways of the opinion that the research institutes of the acad emy should be more than fundamental. We should also use the knowledge to solve some applied questions." In the institute's electrocatalytic studies, for example, Haber says his researchers found a way to selectively oxi dize various hydroxyl groups on organic molecules, one being acetylsorbose in the reaction forming gulonic acid. The reaction is a key step in the production of vitamin C. "In this way," he says, "we were able to propose a new electrochemical technique for production of ascorbic acid." But in probably a more spectacular development, insti tute scientists developed a technique of partial oxidation that is finding use in burning the flue gas emissions from
manufacturing plants. Haber says the institute has licensed the technique to several Polish firms and to Volvo of Swe den. Broadly speaking, the technique involves oscillating small increments of heat to selectively burn the compounds that need removal. The technique avoids the usually waste ful necessity of heating areas that are larger than needed. Haber believes with many others that Poland's science is already fully developed, maybe even overstocked. It just needs to be sustained. "What we really need is competitive industry," he says. "It's not just Polish science that should be the basis of Polish industry. It's world science that needs to form that base. Polish science should be contributing its part to world science. We are lacking people who are able to analyze the state of our technology." Haber defends the science academy's system of institutes JUNE 8,1992 C&EN
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and their role in postgraduate education, and he opposes groups. Its weaknesses included ill-equipped laboratories, attempts to erode the academy's influence. "The Polish poor pilot plant facilities, anemic funding, lack of strategic academy has always had good links with the universities," planning, and poor liaison with Polish industry (a fact unihe says. "It never took over the whole research system like versal with the institute structure in Poland). the academies in other countries. We were always of the The institute's most well-known development is the synopinion that it is impossible to split research from teachthesis of cyclohexane from benzene, a process that has been ing." licensed in Taiwan, India, South Korea, Thailand, and Spain, according to Marek A. Borowiak, deputy manager of Nevertheless, Haber is in general supportive of KBN, R&D at the institute. Despite its high ranking, Borowiak since most of the academy's 320 members had a hand in essays the institute will be far short of the budget needed to tablishing KBN and its peer review process. "KBN is doing maintain its present staff of 700. Industry is currently of litits best, but has to cope with very difficult problems. Our tle value in providing help because ties were never close political elites now are thinking that in present circumstancunder the previous regime. 'There just aren't enough big es you can postpone the problems of scientific research to companies in Poland to support us," Borowiak says, "althe future because there are more pressing present probthough we do the kind of work research departments of lems. You cannot. It must be done now. If not, the situation Western companies do." So it goes in institute after instiwill be lost because in 10 years we won't catch up with Eutute: high potential, little capital, a rope. So KBN is having a very difficult need to learn promotional techniques, time to convince the Parliament to give a feeling of isolation. it money. Karczewski, with the rank though "The main help the U.S. could give not the voting power of minister, us is to help train in American industry knows he has to play a stronger role young Polish scientists. I would pick in positioning Poland in the global two fields—technology development technological economy. He knows and product development. Those are that Poland must develop a list of its the two fields we do not have." own strategic technologies to emphaHaber currently is organizing a twosize for future planning—technoloor three-week course on technology degies around which to build a revelopment and product planning that search, development, and industrialwould mainly be taught by Americans. ization program for the country. "We 'There are many people here who are are trying to get the government to very good but have been frustrated by decide about strategic directions of the many limitations imposed by the development," he says. "But the communist structure. When placed in a country is in a sort of a turmoil, so it competitive world, I think Polish inis not easy. People are not very enthudustry could very easily use its present siastic about the future. But it's time capabilities and transform itself into to decide. Otherwise we are left with something." heavy industry, which is obsolete, enAnother of Poland's institutes that is vironmentally harmful, and the rest." Haber: Polish science should be almost certain to play a role in its highOne area in need of strategic sciencontributing its part to world science tech market economy is the Industrial tific and technological direction is PoChemistry Research Institute in Warland's agriculture. Advisers believe it saw. [Other prominent chemically recould be twice as productive as it is and could help restore lated institutes are Organic Chemistry (Warsaw), Petroleum the country's balance of trade. Poland's Agricultural MinisProcessing (Krakow), Heavy Organic Synthesis (Blachowtry has hired an American, James Smith, to assist in buildnia), Physical Chemistry (Warsaw), Organic Industry (Waring a research and extension capability modeled after the saw), and Inorganic Chemistry (Gliwice)]. American system. Smith's job is to bring together different The Research Institute of Industrial Chemistry, which agencies such as KBN, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the with Habeas institute received the top "A" ranking from education and environment ministries, and rectors of uniKBN, already has considerable ties with the West and is versities so that all relevant units can focus on common agseeking licensing ventures with Western firms in fields that ricultural research problems. His hope is to form essentially include coal and coal tar processing, synthesis of new zeoa council of agricultural research. lite catalysts, corrosion inhibition, separation and purificaSmith says the ministry has a lot of labs with a lot of good tion techniques for organic compounds, polymer processing people but hasn't got the hang of establishing a research extechnology, synthesis of polyesters and epoxies, various potension that really works. "Out here," he says, "they do lymerizations, and a large range of household chemistry have a large extension system on paper but they are all cells products and processes. unto themselves. They're each autonomous, with very little A chemical industry team sponsored by the British coordination or assistance from above. In my view the sysChemical Industries Association visited the institute last fall tem has to be better managed. With that autonomy comes as part of a general fact-finding visit to Poland. The group the wish to be unique." Smith points out that all 49 of Pofound that the institute's strengths included its personnel, land's soil analysis laboratories want the prestige of being its good record of overseas licensing, its inexpensive refull-service, fully equipped facilities sporting the latest search costs, and its established reputation with European 12
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man I know in Switzerland told me that the Polish electronequipment. He is in the process of convincing the authoriic industry is not really so bad. It is just badly organized ties that a dozen or fewer labs, distributed on a regional and the markets are not there. So it would be wrong to say basis, would do nicely. "You don't need to create 49 labs that everything is wrong and should be scrapped." with Hewlett-Packard gas chromatographs with no calibration systems on them. One of Kuklinski's pet ideas involves Poland in a more regional technological development scheme—what he calls 'The other thing is that the farmers have to be encoura developmental axis. His major aspiration is to spur conaged to use them. The thing that's broken down is that struction of "Via Baltica"—a superhighway running from there's very little transfer from the labs to the extension Berlin to Helsinki through Gdansk in Poland, Vilnius in agents," Smith says. "The basic need is to make the system Lithuania, Riga in Estonia, and St. Petersburg in Russia. accountable." "You don't look at such a road only as a highway," he says, Smith points out that while some elements of the Polish "but as a development axis. If you start thinking about it, agricultural system still dwell in the 1950s—such as using you develop a new dynamic to plan a whole set of cellular wet chemistry techniques for soil analysis—other elements events along that axis. This road would be successful not are up to date. "You have farmers that use computers, fax only in macroeconomic, macropolitical, and macrostrategic machines, and state-of-the-art pesticides and fertilizers in terms, but also in the best of microeconomic business opthe operations," he says. "But they've got to do more reportunities. Somebody has to create new physical facts in search to put things together and they've got to have some Central and Eastern Europe. A road of new international scientists that interpret modern science and make it 1992 importance is the best symbol of such an activity." Polish. Just because they still have a lot of horses in Poland Kuklinski, who spent several years working in the Unitand not a lot of tractors doesn't mean they're still farming ed Nations, believes the U.S. on 1950s technology. should be doing more to take "The whole country has to foadvantage of the opportunities cus on making the system work for development in Eastern Eubetter. I almost feel that we mayrope. "My belief is that the U.S. be made a mistake when we is missing a historic opportunity were advising these countries because it is not designing a secearly on to get things privatized ond Marshall Plan. I think it is a in a hurry. I'm not sure that it great, great mistake. Unfortuwouldn't have been better if we nately there doesn't seem to be had said let's get a democratic the leadership in the U.S. that it government working first. We're had after World War II, given having difficulties privatizing the immense opportunity in farms and industry now because Russia and Eastern Europe. I there's no credit. For credit you think it is a total mistake to leave need a banking system. For a everything to the market. We albanking system you need a set ready know the market is not of laws that regulate it. It might functioning very well in Europe have been better to get the govand cannot be any guiding force ernment functioning, then begin Kuklinski: new superhighway would not be for change. The long-term decito look at those laws needed to just a road, but a development axis sions are based on strategic conprivatize." siderations. The power of Japan Although Poland has no forwas not built on the market considerations but on strategic mal centers of science policy studies, one individual, regionplanning. At the present time there is little spirit in Poland al geographer Antoni Kuklinski, wants to see such centers for long-term thinking." developed. Last September Kuklinski helped organize a major conference on science and technology policy for PoTalk of a Marshall Plan hits the need for a more integratland that drew participants from all over the world. The ed assistance program for Poland and Eastern Europe on aim was to provide a base of thought on how Poland the part of the West. But so far, the U.S. has ignored in its should develop its technical resources. Edited by Kuklinski, assistance programs putting much emphasis on science and its proceedings were published in January and make rich technology. The roadblock has been the Agency for Internareading for perspectives on science and technology during tional Development, which controls most of the U.S.'s assisan era of change. tance money to Poland and other countries. "The problem in Poland," he says, "is the change from An interagency report just submitted to White House sciSoviet to global technology. Poland's technology was servence adviser D. Allan Bromley is highly critical of the State ing the military complex, and serving it not too badly. SecDepartment's resistance to moving away from the scatterond, it was kind of a semiautarchy technology because it shot approach to assistance. It urges instead the developwas totally isolated from the global market. But to what exment of programs that would encourage various collaboratent is this technology really obsolete? If we judge this obtions among institutions in Eastern Europe via connections solescence too harshly, we may miss out on a large percentwith American agencies and laboratories. age of this national wealth. So it's an important economic "For the first couple of years what the U.S. government question. What part of this equipment can be adapted to the has done has been just fine," says one source familiar with new conditions? What part must be scrapped? One gentlethe report. "But now Poland and the others should be gradJUNE 8,1992 C&EN
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uating to a different situation. At this point, the most important need is for cooperative and collaborative programs. The State Department should be thinking of supporting real collaborations in the science and technology area that would be self-generating over time." Examples would be the support of university-university cooperations in areas related to high-tech development. Another would be increased program support by U.S. mission agencies. "NSF has a long history of working in the region, but it's been hamstrung by the lack of resources. ... It would make a huge difference to the Eastern Europeans if we could do more to enhance relationships among institutions and research programs." Nowhere is this more true than in environment and energy policy. As one American official points out, 'There is as yet little in the way of strategic approaches to cleanup through advanced technological thinking in Poland. Solar energy is an issue that is understood only in remote theory. Yet, the connection between science, technology, and environment is a linkage waiting to be discovered. And once the timing is set, it is easy to conclude that the Poles will waste little time relating concepts to actual remedies. Right now, though, environmental awareness, in all sectors, is pretty bleak/' What observers are expecting is that the multitudinous but scattered efforts to provide advice to Poland in a short time will begin to bear fruit as the Poles start to integrate their results. The State Department's Project SEED (Support
for Eastern European Democracy) is far from being a science and technology program, but has supported hundreds of projects that involve technical people in Eastern Europe. For example, the Center for East European Dialogue & Development at Rochester Institute of Technology under Kenneth R. Nash has formed a coalition of several Polish technological universities to help them develop management schools and establish programs in, among other things, the management of technology. An Eastern European Environmental Business Consortium put together by the Water Environment Federation has started a program in Poland to link small and mediumsize U.S. environmental firms with those in Poland. That organization's approach, says project director William J. Lacy, is not to tell the Poles what they need but to listen to what they want. But he acknowledges that Polish environmental officials need to look at the environment as an interconnected air-water-earth system. Several U.S. universities are helping establish business courses at Polish universities. One example is the University of Southern Indiana, which is organizing a series of business courses this summer with the Krakow Industrial Society, a trade group, and Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Another is DePaul University, Chicago, with Warsaw University and the Catholic University of Lubin. A third example is Central Connecticut State University with Wroclaw University.
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At the same time, the Business-Higher Education Forum of Washington, D.C., will be sponsoring a workshop on university-industry relations with Jagiellonian University. And the forum has helped establish a high-tech incubator at Warsaw Technical University with the help of Northwest ern University. Also, a Chicago consulting firm, the En deavor Group, is helping advise the Krakow business-uni versity community on establishing spin-off companies in high-tech areas. Poland has a vast reserve of scientific talent—probably too much—and needs to step back and assess its strengths and weaknesses. It is tempting to overestimate the possibil ities, but difficulties do lie ahead. And the country has the legacy not only of 45 years of communism but also of more than a century (1795 to 1918) of partition under Germany, Russia, and Austria. "You know," says one close U.S. observer of Poland's technical scene, "it's tempting to say Poland has a clean slate to write on in developing any so-called 21st century science policy. But in truth, Poland's slate is not clean. The whole Eastern European slate is pretty dirty. There are de cades of tradition that need to be burned away. These coun tries have established habits of behavior that today appear like security blankets as they face an uncertain future under a free market system. They don't know how to do it." Karczewski concurs. "We shouldn't be overoptimistic about our future," he muses. "Things won't change auto
matically. We have to work very hard, in all fields. And the mentality will have to change. The problem with the Poles is that since the partition of the 19th century we were taught to resist our rulers. The break between 1918 and 1939 was too short to change that mentality. Then there was the World War II occupation, then the communist regime. "The government even now is not a natural representa tive of society. There are strong conflicts between the peas ants, working class, and the new private sector. And the government is always accused of going too slow. It is a very difficult nation to rule because the Poles are individualistic. Discipline is not the most pronounced feature of this nation. We are notorious rebels." In this atmosphere, if science and technology are about the future, it is exciting to watch Poland struggle to create something fresh and contributory to a social and political system in formation. The word polity isn't heard much nowadays. But for Poland, the concept of polity—the corre spondence between politics and public opinion—is crucial for any functional science and technology policy. None of Poland's 29 political parties can be seen as parties as Americans understand them. As Jasiewicz points out, ex cept for the discredited communist groups, they "have no tradition, no apparatus, no organizational history." Right now, Poland is desperately seeking that sense of polity, a sys tem that would articulate group interests. For now, with the country so confused, time will have to sort it all out. •
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