Research And Technology In The Former German Democratic Republic by Raymond Bentley

Author:Raymond Bentley [Bentley, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367301194
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

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Source: R. Rothe, R. Schmidt. Baubestand der Hochschulen in der DDR. Statistischer Überblick, (Hannover: HIS Hochschul-Informations-System GmbH, 1990), pp. 31-85.

Domestic computers, electronic equipment and scientific measuring instruments were, as seen in Chapter Three, at a lower technological level than corresponding products in the FRG. Equipment imported from other Comecon countries was often unsatisfactory.45 Moreover the GDR's debt crisis in the early 1980s meant that its research institutions were provided with a substantially lower level of foreign currency to buy research equipment from Western firms. In the higher education sector, the amount of such foreign currency decreased from about 10 million Valuta Marks in 1976 to zero in 1983. No funds were available again until 1986, when the sector was provided with about 7 million Valuta Marks.46 The Cocom regulations were also stiffened in the early 1980s. Despite the efforts of Schalck-Golodkowski and his "KoKo" organisation to procure Western products and instruments on the Cocom list, the overall import level of research equipment from the West decreased substantially from the beginning of the 1980s to 1989.

There was a problem of domestic supply both of research tools such as computers, scientific instruments and photocopiers and even of relatively minor research materials. Export of research equipment had priority over domestic supply. An academic establishment that developed a new scientific instrument and then passed it on to a combine for manufacture could not expect preferential supply of the product.47 Although research establishments had plans for investment in research equipment, these were seldom fulfilled. This situation led to persons in combines and ministries being entrusted with the task of trying to procure scarce supplies from wherever possible and setting up special stores. Such "procurers" operated according to the optimistic motto "everything is available in the GDR: you just have to know where".48 The problem of supply also led to enterprises, the Academy and institutions of higher education becoming self sufficient in the development and manufacture of scientific instruments. This involved a significant proportion of R&D personnel which might have been more usefully deployed on other tasks. In the academic sector, instrument building was regarded as a necessary but unattractive proposition for it meant that some researchers could not participate in normal research activity. Roughly 60—70% of the capacity of the Academy's Centre for Scientific Instrument Building was engaged on development work that should have been undertaken by industry.49 On the other hand, the equipment produced by these self-sufficient instrument building establishments was usually not of a level which could compare to that in the FRG.

The range and technological level of scientific equipment manufactured in the GDR decreased during the 1980s.50 From 1986, when the party leadership ordered close cooperation between the academic and industrial sectors, institutions in the academic sector expected their partners in industry to provide them with research equipment for contract work. This had been prescribed by the party leadership but in practice negotiations between the academic and industrial partners often proved difficult.51 The academic sector stood the best chance of

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