MULTIPLYING SCIENTIFIC POTENTIAL

“Since the first days of the country’s independence the national science had received a powerful impulse for advancement, for supporting the leading academic schools, shaping decent young scientific generation and improving the structure and material-technical basis of the national science.

“More than 60 normative and legal acts have been adopted in this sphere during the past period. They are aimed at improving the organizational structure, financing and implementation of academic research, and developing the promising direction of academic science. The Academy of Sciences had chosen the road of consistent structural transformations and consistent structural transformations and consolidation of relations between science, higher education and production, as well as development of international cooperation.

“In the course of reforms we have shifted to financing individual scientific projects on the basis of providing competitive grants in compliance with the government scientific-technical programs. Budgetary resources for conducting fundamental and applied research have been allocated directly to research establishments. We have radically reorganized the scientific establishments, which promoted an increased efficiency of the Academy’s activities, concentration of its potential on the most priority directions of research work, activation of innovative developments and integration of the academic science with the system of higher education and production.

“The Khorezm Academy of Ma’mun was re-created in Khiva; eight new research institutions and two museums – the State Museum of Timurids’ History and the Museum of Repression Victims’ Memory – have been set up within the structure of the Academy of Sciences.”

“The academic science has been increasingly focused on the implementation of innovative developments; have been established the innovation-oriented research institutions of a new type. These include the Center of high technology in Tashkent with the participation of the Cambridge University (UK), the International Institute of solar energy set up on the basis of the Physics and Technical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank.

“Uzbekistan has introduced a progressive system for training scientific personnel and shifted to a single-stage system of bringing up and certification of doctors of sciences. This has contributed to the accelerated training of highly-qualified scientific personnel, particularly those fr om among young and talented scientists, and continuity in the work of leading scientific schools.

“Today the scientists of our country conduct relevant studies and research work within the framework of the government scientific-technical and innovative programs, take part in the solution of urgent tasks of socio-economic and scientific-technical development. For example, for the first time in the history of our country the researchers of the Maydanak alpine observatory had discovered a new minor plant in the Solar system in 2007, and it was given the name of Samarkand.

“A new regularity recognized in the scientific world was opened in the field of supra-molecular chemistry, which establishes dependency between certain class substances’ structure and conditions of their formation. The results provide an opportunity to construct new substances with predetermined properties for practical application in various sectors of economy and industries.

“The Institute of Plant Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences prepared and the ”Springer” publishing house released the first ten volume “Natural Chemical Compounds” scientific reference guide in English, to become the first encyclopedia in the field of Plant Chemistry.

“The greatest scientific achievement in the cotton industry of the country was the creation of unique transgenic varieties of cotton, which has an extensive root system, a wide range of economically useful traits such as high yielding capacity, long and high quality fibers, precocity, salt tolerance and others. These varieties were developed for the first time with the help of gene-knockout technology and are patented in 140 countries of the world.

“More than 30 new original domestic drugs have been created on the basis of local raw materials. The formation and placement of deposits of gold, copper, platinum group metals, tungsten, and other rare metals have been substantiated with the objective of development of mineral resource base.

“The fundamentals of conservation of biodiversity, including those for the area of the Aral Sea, have been elaborated for the fauna and flora of the Republic. Centers of ancient civilization had been discovered on the territory of Uzbekistan (‘Obirahmat’ grotto), wh ere were found the oldest remains of modern man, which became the Discovery of the Year. They showed that in Uzbekistan had taken place the processes of formation of modern type human beings similar to those in Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, ancient China and other regions of the world.

“For the first time in the history of national science was prepared and published the fundamental monograph “The History of Uzbekistan’s statehood”, a collective monograph “Essays on the modern history of Uzbekistan” and a number of textbooks on history. More than 30 fundamental monographs have come off the press, including the Uzbek language thesaurus in five volumes, a brief glossary of works of the Uzbek classical literature and others designed for a wide range of users.

“Significant progress has been made in the development and use of renewable energy sources, helio-materials studies and instrument-making industry and many other fields. The research work conducted by the scientists of our country serves the basis for the further modernization of Uzbekistan’s economy, for revival and preservation of unique national values, improving the well-being of people, brining up harmoniously developed generation of young people capable to multiply the rich intellectual and scientific potential of our nation.”

Shavkat Solikhov,
Member of the Oliy Majlis Senate,
President of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan

UzA