UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION. Address by Mr Federico Mayor

Transcription

1 l DG/93/15 Original: English UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the opening of the Conference on The Role of Science in Rebuilding Central and Eastern Europe Leeds Castle, U.K. 5 April 1993

2 Mr. Chairman, Fellow scientists, Ladies and gentlemen, The past few weeks have been overshadowed by events in the Russian Federation. I do not need to tell this audience of the gravity of the situation there, nor of what is at stake. The Russian Federation's best opportunity - some would say its first opportunity ever - to adopt a genuinely democratic form of government is now in the balance. Our hopes are with all concerned. Our focus tonight and over the next few days is on science and technology. Reports reaching me from Moscow have confirmed that the situation has in fact worsened since Sir Anthony Epstein went there six months ago, on behalf of ICSU and as my personal representative. The Russian Federation is only one of many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, but it is a major actor, and its difficulties typify, and have their impact upon, the region as a whole. In present company, I also do not need to labour these problems, whether economic, structural or professional. From inflation, indebtedness and a fall in production comes a massive brain drain, the inability to maintain collections of international importance, to keep prestigious institutions alive (except by diverting them to commercial ends to which they are often little adapted). We are told that 70,000 scientific researchers have left the former Soviet Union since 1989: that in 1990, 500 high-level scientists were lost: that one out of every six emigrants is a scientist, engineer or doctor. The legacy of an obsolete command structure, an industrial base geared towards military production, uncharted new relationships between science and technology and the State compound these problems. The old relationship between science and the State - part patronage, part authoritarian no longer functions, but nothing has as yet settled in its place. There is a danger of isolation, and a drop in intellectual output, relevance, quality and standards. Links with the international scientific community are eroded as it becomes more and more difficult to keep up with journal subscriptions, to benefit from scholarships and research visits, or even to communicate regularly. This was the situation which Sir Anthony found, against which any debate on the role of science in rebuilding Central and Eastern Europe has to be set. The problem has both short-term and long-term dimensions and, not for the first time, ICSU and UNESCO have joined forces in trying to address them. UNESCO's interest in Central and Eastern Europe is nothing new; indeed, during the period of the Cold War, we provided one of the few channels

3 2 for the professional scientific community on both sides of the Iron Curtain to maintain a dialogue. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there was an impetus for a new kind of approach, one much more geared to action. Initially, there was euphoria: a sense that all barriers were now down, that the future could only be constructive. But very soon the problems of transition surfaced: we were rid of one intolerable situation, but this did not mean that the difficulties had disappeared. The "other side" of the border was totally unprepared, and the "domino effect" initiated by President Gorbachov took Western Europe by surprise, geared as it was to reacting to business and short-term issues. As a result, the difficulties intensified, as we entered upon new territory, where relationships and strategies were ambiguous and uncharted. This was the main reason why I decided, in 1992, to establish a new UNESCO Programme for Central and Eastern European Development (PROCEED), which runs across all sectors, whether science, education, culture or communication, and appears as a transversal action in our next biennial programme, for Over the short term, following Sir Anthony's report, ICSU embarked on its own campaign, asking members of its network how they could pool experience and resources to help maintain the flow of publications, research and researchers. In UNESCO, I made a sum of $300,000 available, as an initial step in creating a fund to assist the Russian Academy of Sciences, and half of this has already been disbursed. Another urgent problem was the presence in the universities of Central and Eastern Europe of large numbers of African students, who were blocked without stipend or governmental support; here again UNESCO provided assistance of $400,000 as a temporary measure, and launched an appeal in conjunction with the Secretary-General of the OAU for broader support. A case-by-case study has been made, with a view to: (a) helping students on the point of completing their studies to remain in the countries concerned, and (b) helping those about to return home or finding them alternative places of study. The short-term need is important, because if it is not met, there will be no longer term to consider. But this should not inhibit us from considering longer-term needs and policies. A few weeks ago, Jacques Attali, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, said in an article in the UK Guardian "The challenge in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is not only to build markets but also to rebuild nations, because only nations can uphold the rule of law and protect the weak from the strong." That sentiment should surely be borne constantly in mind by the international and regional banks and by intergovernmental organizations. It is certainly at the heart of our discussions here. To relate it to science and technology policy, I shall take my cue from a recent OECD publication: "... the internal logic of scientific knowledge and that of the needs of economy and society... are different in nature, but scientific research is not outside the economy or society, and the latter needs science in order to develop. The task

4 3 of science policy is to bring together their objectives while respecting their separate logic. Technology policy consists neither of "picking winners" nor of leaving everything to the "lottery of the market", but rather of promoting the development of good stables from which the largest number of winners may emerge." Certainly UNESCO, often alongside ICSU, has been substantially involved in the new policy debate and, we hope, in promoting good stables saw the completion of a project on the transformation of management systems for science and technology in Central and Eastern Europe, and a series of studies on brain drain, coordinated by UNESCO's regional science office in Venice. Just a few days after this meeting, in Manchester, leading British science policy experts will discuss with their Russian colleagues the needs for new science and technology legislation for Russia in transition. This meeting is organized jointly by UNESCO, the Programme of Policy Research in Engineering Science and Technology (PREST) of the University of Manchester and the International Science Policy Foundation. The role of governments and parliaments in the creation of a new S & T legislative base will also form the agenda of an international meeting in Sienna, Italy, in May 1993, organized in collaboration with our Italian partners. By now, five inter-university networks and 22 UNESCO Chairs have been established in Europe, to serve as the nuclei of centres of excellence and to lead to an accelerated transfer of knowledge. All of this activity is managed in partnership with other agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental. The magnitude of the task confronting the countries of Central and Eastern Europe today is of the same order as that faced by the Marshall Plan half a century ago. It presupposes not only the same level of investment, but in particular the same breadth of vision on the part of the G7 countries. But the question prompts some reflections that go beyond the economic sphere. One major challenge involves a reconciliation within Western countries of different views on how best to utilize Western influence on Eastern European S & T evolution. Looming over this is the even more elusive issue of whether openness and cooperation in international research can be maintained and developed under conditions of severe economic competition. On a personal note, it seems to me that the emerging nations of Asia have already taken the lead in establishing close relations with Central and Eastern Europe in both economic and S & T matters. Over the last few years, in the wake of the collapse of communism, their economic ties have expanded dramatically.

5 4 For example, South Korea increased its trade exports with former socialist countries from $192 million (in 1981) to $1,095 million (in 1991) and its imports from $242 million to $822 million in the same years. In comparison with those efforts, existing "humanitarian" assistance to East European countries from the West is no more than a beginning. But apart from direct aid, surely other, imaginative approaches are possible? One example may be found in the experience of MECCO, the "Common Market of Knowledge", a multidimensional programme recently launched in Latin America and the Caribbean to meet the region's urgent need of frameworks for cooperation and integration in higher education, science and technology. Or we can cite the organization of joint research centres and laboratories like JRC (the Joint Research Centre of the Commission of the European Communities situated in Ipsra, Italy), with its nine research institutions; the encouragement of cross-border multilateral studies and research networks (for example UNESCO's European research network "Man against Virus"); the twinning of universities of various countries, as under UNESCO's UNITWIN project; the funds set up in Poland by the Institute of Bio-Chemistry and Bio-Physics, which make their own modest contribution to slowing down the brain drain. These are all simple measures which can help to transfer knowledge and know-how rapidly from developed European countries to their less prosperous neighbours. You will no doubt come up with many more. Human talent is the greatest wealth and a crucial factor for the consolidation of democratic trends. Russia is a very important country - in terms of culture, creativity, industry and scientific achievement, and in competitive fields such as space and energy. But it has been under the shadow of oppression for much longer than the other Central European countries. They have a considerable potential of inventions, innovations and discoveries ready to be patented everywhere and exploited productively. Russia is a rich country, but nothing can be expected in economic terms if it loses its "know how", its "how to know" and, above all, the "who" in the knowledge equation. To conclude, science must have not one, but several roles to play in rebuilding Central and Eastern European society, because of its critical involvement: in defining development, in setting its parameters, and in finding development solutions. These roles can be paradoxical. On the issue of environment, for example, science is necessarily both a factor in environmental degradation and in restoring ecological and environmental health. One consequence of the debate that began at Rio de Janeiro is that the concept of sustainable development has merged with a parallel concept of human development. When I spoke recently at the inauguration of the United Nations University in Tokyo, I argued that society is a continuum, in which growth which is "economically, socially and ecologically sustainable" is the sum total of many factors, including those

6 5 of human creativity and human values. If this broader vision is to be realized, we have to assume a new perspective of science and technology policy, and a new vision of the relationship between science, scientists and scientific institutions and industries on the one hand, and the State and the individual citizen on the other. And, as so often happens in discussions of this kind, the need is not confined to a single region, to Central and Eastern Europe: it is a universal requirement for the reconfiguration of science in democratic societies.