Self-Conception, Strategies of Transformation, and Moods in Coping

Abstract

The reports of the transformation processes of selected research institutes in former socialist countries draw a picture of dramatic institutional change. Budget cuts, sometimes by half, staff reductions of similar magnitude, drastic shifts in the orientation of research: all of these changes brought about by the political turmoil of 1989 and after far surpass any experience made by the scientific community in the West. The political changes in the different countries affect science in very similar ways not least because of the similarity in organizational structures which the systems had acquired under Soviet influence since the end of World War II. It is all the more surprising to see how very differently scientists and science administrators in these countries face up to the challenges of institutional re-building and re-orientation of research.