Tomsk Institute of Radioelectronics and Electronic Engineering: Scientific contribution to the development of specialized industries

Abstract

Based on the materials of the periodical press, office documentation, memoirs of contemporaries using systematic, historical and genetic approaches, diachronous historical analysis, the article interprets the scientific contribution of Tomsk Institute of Radioelectronics and Electronic Engineering to the achievements of specialized industries in the 1960s - early 1970s. The fact is emphasized that the scientific development of the Institute in the 1960s and early 1970s took place against the backdrop of a number of contradictory processes that encouraged and hindered scientific work. There was a favorable regulatory, legal and institutional climate for the development of the Institute, however, the very nature of the institution in the form of a higher school and its peripheral position in the scientific and educational space of the USSR did not favor active scientific research. This was reflected in problems related to personnel, logistics and maintenance, which the Institute had to solve until the end of the first decade of its existence. Success here was ensured thanks to the help of the leaders of the region in the second half of the 1960s (Yegor Ligachyov), due to the competent policy of the Institute's leaders and the enthusiasm of the younger generation of the Institute's employees. Almost immediately the Institute began to position itself as an educational and research institution that, developing specialized industries, incorporates at the level of state and economic contractual relations with institutions located both in the center and on the periphery. Setting up R&D was successful, which, among other things, shows at the level of the Institute's quantitative indicators. As a result, by the beginning of the 1970s, the Institute became an integral part of the scientific and educational space of the region, which, in turn, provided it with additional opportunities to contribute to the development of the USSR's core industries. The conclusion is formulated that in the first decade the Institute faced logistics- and personnel-related problems; however, it was at this time that the foundation was laid for subsequent successful scientific development. Further research on this issue in two directions is desirable: (1) a comparative historical study of higher schools in the field of electronics and radioelectronics to analyze indicators and identify efficiency; (2) biographical and prosopographic studies of the graduates of Tomsk Institute of Radioelectronics and Electronic Engineering to determine their contribution to the achievements of Soviet science and technology in the 1960s and subsequent decades.