Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR

a scientific institution founded in May 1957 to organize and carry out comprehensive theoretical and experimental research in the physical, technical, natural, and economic sciences and to solve problems related to the development of the productive forces of Siberia and the Far East. The Siberian Division was founded by a group of scientists headed by Academicians M. A. Lavrent’ev, S. L. Sobolev, and S. A. Khristianovich. Its activity centers on working out all aspects of the basic problems in the fundamental sciences, the practical applications of research, and the effective organization of the training of scientists. The organization’s headquarters are in Novosibirsk.

In 1975 the Siberian Division comprised 47 scientific institutions, including 15 physicotechnical and mathematics institutes, seven chemistry institutes, eight biology institutes, eight institutes of geology, geography, and geophysics, and four humanities institutes. It also operates the Public Scientific and Technical Library, containing some 7 million volumes, three specialized design bureaus, and the Experiment Plant. There are institutions of the Siberian Division in Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk (Eastern Siberia Branch), Ulan-Ude (Buriat Branch), Yakutsk (Yakutsk Branch), Kemerovo, Tiumen’, and Chita. Also affiliated with the Siberian Division are about 70 magnetic-ionospheric, seismic, permafrost, biological, and integrated scientific stations. In 1975 the Siberian Division employed some 33,700 persons, among them 21 academicians, 44 corresponding members, more than 300 doctors of sciences, and about 3,000 candidates of sciences. In 1969 eight institutes were transferred to the Far East Scientific Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

A number of major scientific trends and schools in the main branches of modern science have evolved within the Siberian Division. By the beginning of 1975 the division had received six diplomas for scientific discoveries, more than 2,500 inventor’s certificates, and more than 300 foreign patents, for eight of which licensing agreements were concluded. The division works directly with more than 300 enterprises and organizations throughout the country. A system of design offices and pilot plants financed by various ministries is being established under the scientific direction of the Siberian Division.

The division conducts joint research with the academies of sciences of other socialist countries on numerous scientific problems, and it works with scientists in the USA, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan. The main scientific journals published by the division are Izvestiia Sibirskogo otdeleniia AN SSSR (Proceedings of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; since 1957; four series since 1963), Ekonomika i organizatsiia promyshlennogo proizvodstva (Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, 1970), Sibirskii matematicheskii zhurnal (Siberian Journal of Mathematics, 1960), Zhurnal prikladnoi mekhaniki i tekhnicheskoi fiziki (Journal of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Physics, 1960), Fizika goreniia i vzryva (Physics of Combustion and Explosion, 1965), Kinetika i kataliz (Kinetics and Catalysis, 1960), and Geologiia igeofizika (Geology and Geophysics, since 1960).