A strategy for integrating science and industry in Uzbekistan
Introduction. The decay of isolated structures
The present fragmented structure of universities and the Academy of Sciences, with dozens of isolated research institutes, has completely outlived itself. It breeds “encapsulated” minds: specialists in automation, for instance, do not know chemistry, while chemists do not understand the physics of plasma processes. This leads to “selling air”, to paper reports and to technological blindness on the shop floor.
The new model means a complete break with bureaucratic strings in favour of a single interdisciplinary research-and-teaching mechanism built on end-to-end integration, hard practice and a concentration of minds.
I. Streamlining the management structure and creating the Hub
Instead of dozens of institutes scattered across Uzbekistan, each with its own director, accounting office and car fleet, a Unified Scientific and Technological Hub is created.
- Concentration in a single space: By way of illustration, the Institute of Chemistry, the Institute of Geology, the Institute of Mineral Resources and the departments of hydromechanics, physics and IT sit down under one roof in a single open space. Flows of information no longer get stuck in interdepartmental correspondence — they circulate instantly.
- A single analytical centre (the “Brain”): The managerial superstructure is cut by 90%. One centre coordinates every line of work, distributes the tasks coming from industry and puts together end-to-end interdisciplinary teams for them.
- Eliminating parasitic spending: All the billions freed from maintaining hundreds of science officials are redirected to buying advanced equipment — chromatographs, spectrometers, linear accelerators — and to paying practising scientists directly.
II. Interdisciplinary teams and turnkey end-to-end tasks
Breakthrough technologies — and the foresight of emergencies — are born only when a task is turned over from every side at once.
- A turnkey end-to-end chain: Any production task — say, the processing of refractory gold-sulphide ores or in-situ uranium leaching — is taken apart by one team. The geologist models the deposit, the mechanical engineer computes the hydrodynamics and filtration of the bed, the chemist tunes the bio-oxidation reagents, and the automation engineer writes these variables straight into the process control algorithms.
- The end of blurred responsibility: The whole Hub answers, led by the single Brain. A situation where “the chemists’ formula is perfect, but the automation let us down” becomes impossible. The result is judged solely by what is put to work in the shop and at the mine.
III. Integration with industry on the basis of NMMC practice
Science must come down from the rostrum to the ground. Priority goes not to armchair hypotheses but to the living experience of scientists who work in production. The experience of the specialists of the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC), for example, can be taken as the basis.
- Engineering special forces at the cornerstone: The core of the Hub is made up of specialists trained in the hard school of leading world universities (Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow State University, the Mining Institute, the Geological Prospecting University, research centres in the USA, Germany, Japan, Australia and so on) who have, for example, cemented that knowledge with decades of the most difficult practice in the Kyzylkum desert.
- The digital modelling model: Software and technological suites are built, for instance, on the Australian experience (Datamine). IT specialists write the algorithms while standing in the shops and open pits themselves, putting into the code the real, “dirty” experience of engineers in clearing accidents, controlling ore dilution and coping with changes in the hydrogeology of the bed.
- A geographical shift: The Hub, or at least its key applied branches, must sit not in the quiet of capital-city offices but on site — in the Navoi region in particular (Zarafshan, Uchkuduk). Scientists should see the open pits from their window every morning and breathe the dust of real production.
IV. Modernising higher education and a new system of academic degrees
The “temple of science” is fused tightly with higher education of a new type, so as to close the catastrophic generation gap completely.
- The death of narrow departments: Students are taught across disciplines from the first year. A future automation engineer must pass tests in process chemistry and geology, and a future geologist must understand digital dispatching and block modelling.
- Field rotation as law: No professor has the right to teach or to lead a project unless, once every two years, he goes through a compulsory six-month placement in real production. Theory without the open pit is dead.
- Reform of academic degrees: The defence of dissertations and the stamping out of doctoral diplomas are tied strictly to a proven economic effect in production, or to patents that have resolved a concrete dead-end problem in industry (for example, using gold-mining waste for the needs of uranium geotechnology).