Научно-техническая политика

На этой странице incrEAST предлагает информацию о национальных научных программах и инфраструктуре НТ учреждений в Азербайджане.

Context of research policy

The draft of the law about state RTD policy in an independent Azerbaijan was given the first reading in the Parliament of the Republic in 1998. After that two readings in addition took place but the law has not been accepted yet.

The ruling organization which should regulate scientific and technological development in the country is unspecified. On the base of the President’s decree (04.01.03) the ANAS is considered to be the main organization which provides and organizes the development of science in Azerbaijan Republic. Along with this, as it is shown in this decree, the duties of the ANAS are to participate or to give suggestions in determination and qualification of the directions of science’s development, in general, the directions of the scientific and technological policy. At the same time in the regulations of the Ministry of Economic Development of Azerbaijan it is noted that the Ministry participates in the formation of state innovation and scientific technological policy i.e. at present there is no concrete body which could determine the priorities of scientific, technological and innovation policy in the country.

The emphatically imposed state control of science found its expression in the belief that science was an expensive form of social consumption.  Another consequence was the unwillingness or inability to reorganize the RTD system along the lines of some generally accepted international standards or recommended norms of transitional restructuring. The management of science was centralized and conservative. The idea of possible implementation of the strategy of development or transformation of the entire RTD complex was practically eliminated from the public and political life of the country. 
The major problems in revitalization of RTD concern the very low demand from industry for RTD results, the imbalance between basic, interdisciplinary and applied research, the need to build a stronger knowledge base in social sciences and humanities, the deterioration of physical RTD infrastructure.

There are some timid attempts to concentrate structural reforms on the government RTD sector, with the aim of adapting it to a market environment. 

In February of 2004 the National Coordination Council on organization and coordination of scientific research in the country was established. The ANAS President was elected to be a Chairman of the Council. There are 29 members in the Council, including leading scientists of the country, responsible persons from the Presidential Administration, Cabinet of Ministries, Parliament, and heads of ministries and organizations, enterprises, research institutions. The Coordination Council consists of 28 problem councils on various scientific fields. By its statue the Council should consider and approve major directions of research, and coordinate R&D activities of all research institutions and higher education institutions of Azerbaijan. However up to the beginning of 2008 the members of the Council had only several gatherings which as a rule were not attended by the Government representatives and the ministers. Apparently the Government does not consider the Council seriously.
In 2007 the Government decided to set up a fund of financing of research projects in the framework of Science Development Programme. In the State budget of Azerbaijan Republic for 2008 5.016 million manats (about 6 million USD) are allocated for this fund. The Statute of the fund and the mechanisms of financing of the projects were issued in the beginning of 2008.

The absence of a clearly formulated coordinated and publicly proclaimed science policy in Azerbaijan reflects the fact that the position of science in Azeri society and its development is not clearly defined. Lip service is paid to the social significance and achievements of science, but its true role is not recognized.

Research policy: objectives and priorities

The lack of a clear science policy is responsible for the continuous marginalization of research and development work.
The research and development organizations, primarily the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, branch institutes and high educational centers, reflect the organizational dichotomy in the Soviet science.
Neither objectives nor priorities of the research policy in Azerbaijan are determined.

Policy making and coordination

Worldwide-accepted methodologies such as foresight in science and technology never were implemented in Azerbaijan, although the R&D community generated some proposals in this direction. One usual explanation for this is that most of stakeholders are not educated and trained for implementation of foresight activities. There is a lack of confidence in the stakeholders, and an absence of systematic work in this field, as well as very strong influence of politics rather than policy awareness. The existing S&T policy documents have practically been set up without evaluation procedures and professional expertise.

The difficult economic situation in the country accounts for the R&D community to try to preserve financing from the budget as there are no other funding sources. As all initiatives to push technology transfer and the development of commercial utilizable R&D are only in a process of being set-up or even have been discontinued, the R&D system practically remains separated from the rest of the economy and society.

National research programmes

There are no national research programmes in Azerbaijan.

Source: CIT
Last up-date: 16.04.2008