Парадоксы иностранного финансирования научно-технической деятельности в Украине. Часть I

Abstract

На основе статистических данных за последнее десятилетие о зарубежном финансировании исследований, разработок и научно-технических услуг раскрыты особенности спроса зарубежных заказчиков на соответствующие работы, производимые украинскими организациями.

На основі статистичних даних за останнє десятиліття щодо закордонного фінансування досліджень, розробок і науково-технічних послуг визначено особливості попиту іноземних замовників на відповідні роботи, що виконуються українськими організаціями.

The domestic science policy in Ukraine is believed to evolve in a way to make Ukraine integrate in the international science & technology area, the European one in the first place. It is supposed that practices and potentials of Ukrainian researchers will be demanded in the West, with the benefits for all the stakeholders and a powerful impulse to the development of domestic R&D. It is argued that the domestic science & technology potential, if even created in the soviet era, will in any way be utilized in EU countries. In spite of the propagandist rhetoric, facts give the vice versa evidence: foreign customers do not appear to see a good reason for heavy investment in domestic research and science & technology organizations. In view of the above, this study is devoted to the analysis of the dynamics and structure of foreign financing of science & technology activities in Ukraine through the prism of domestic reporting formats, and the study’s objective is to find out the priority areas of foreign investment. The pattern of foreign customers’ demand for works performed by Ukrainian research and science & technology organizations is found using statistical data on foreign financing of research, development and science & technology services over the latest decade. According to results of the study, the number of legal recipients of foreign funds in science & technology sector has been steadily decreasing, with their distribution by amount of received funds becoming more and more uneven. In the field of natural sciences, foreign customers showed demand for research in physics and mathematics, medical and biological sciences, a lower one — for chemical and agricultural sciences, whereas the demand is virtually null for geological, geographical, pharmaceutical and veterinary sciences. Foreign customers do not appear to have any demand for research in economics. In the field of technical sciences, the highest demand is for aircraft and spacecraft devices, power machines and instrument making with inclusion of works focused on defense purposes; it is followed by power engineering, metallurgy, electrical engineering, radio and telecommunications, electronics, computer devices and automation; the low demand is for material sciences and welding, transport, shipbuilding and theory of mechanical engineering; the demand is miserable for technologies of foods and agricultural machines, and the demand for geodesy and mining operation technology is null.