On the bookshelf

That what is described in the book is not the result,
but a section of the route

On 24 July, on the eve of Dubna's birthday, the presentation of the book by Alexander Ratz "Race for the horizon" was held in the Congress Centre of the Special Economic Zone "Dubna". The book tells about the development projects of our science city, in the implementation of which the author has had the opportunity to participate in the period starting from 1990.

PREFACE

25 years ago, the first science cities of Russia were legislatively established - territories where science and innovation are the meaning of their existence. And although the history of the establishment and development of such territories in our country has already been many decades old (from the first "sharashkas" to new Federal territories built from scratch in recent years), understanding the specific experience of their establishment and the logic of development is very important for our days, when the issues of ensuring the technological sovereignty of the country are of an existential nature. After all, science cities (in the broad sense of the word) were established namely to meet such issues. And the science city of Dubna is one of the most striking examples of the successful implementation of such a project.

Coming to Dubna often and with pleasure, I always discover something new and interesting. I know a lot about the post-Soviet history of Dubna, including from the author of this book. Nevertheless, after having read the book, I learned a lot of new and interesting things not only about Dubna, but also about the history of the development of science and innovation in our country: about how the great history of the country is made by specific people in a specific place.

What is this book about? About how a small town can preserve its identity in difficult times. About a project-based approach to the development of settlements and various aspects of life within settlements. About attempts to unite the interests and capabilities of authorities and entrepreneurs. About a view of innovations from the territory where such innovations are born. About a wide field of opportunities for achieving a goal that opens up before you every time you suddenly realize that there is your goal. And it is also about a programmatic approach to the development of a territory as a tool for uniting the efforts of different people and organizations.

This book is not a fictional story. The author writes about projects in which he himself was a participant or leader. About the fact that the development of a science city is impossible without the local community realizing the goals and objectives of such development, achieving consensus around these goals, creating a team of like-minded people capable of meeting such issues.

Who is this book for? Definitely for everyone who feels part of science cities. But not only. And also for everyone who is going to engage in or is already engaged in the development and implementation of projects as a way of moving from the existing to the desired. And those who are interested in our post-Soviet history will find interesting fragments of this history in the book.

Viktor SIDNEV,
President of the Union for the Development of Science Cities,
Master of the game "What? Where? When?"

PREFACE

From time to time questions come to mind that I would like to ask my father that has already passed away and my two grandfathers, one about things I did not have time to ask in life and the other, whom I never saw, about many things... But today, I can neither ask nor read anything.

The first thought to write a book came to me after the birth of my sixth grandson. One of these six might also be interested in what their grandfather did.

On the other hand, writing a book gave me the opportunity to try to somehow systematize my and my colleagues' project activities over more than three decades. I am not sure that the systematization was successful, since all this time my colleagues and I were mainly engaged in non-systemic techniques of selection or leading projects.

Currently, in the period of centralization, the demand for non-systemic solutions is much lower than, say, in the nineties. But there is still a certain demand. Life sometimes poses issues that cannot be met head-on, according to the rules. In this sense, what is presented in the book may well be useful for those who lead projects or want to learn how to do so. Useful not as an instruction, but as an indication of the possibility and expediency of sometimes going beyond the framework of systemic solutions.

Over the past thirty years, I have been working almost exclusively on development projects for the science city of Dubna. The team I was a part of began trying to address the city's problems during the crisis of the early 1990s. This crisis had a particularly strong impact on science and technology and in general, on the life of small towns that had grown up around scientific and engineering centres. I will say right away: Dubna succeeded to successfully implement a number of programmes, first programmes to overcome the crisis, afterwards, programmes to develop the city. All these years, Dubna has been among the world leaders in nuclear physics and rocket technology development. But in these and other areas of science and technology development, the struggle for world leadership can be compared to ongoing attempts to catch up with a receding horizon. The success of these attempts depends primarily on the level of equipment of science and technology organizations, on the talents of researchers and developers. At the same time, the history of the development of science and technology in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries has more than once confirmed that a significant part of the achievements in research and development occurs precisely in areas with a high concentration of scientific and technological potential. In addressing the issue of becoming such a territory, Dubna is certainly among the leaders in Russia. However, at the world level, it is far from the leaders, it has not yet managed to reach the horizon of achievements of the best world technopolises...

That what is described in the book is not the result, but a section of the route on the way to Dubna's place among the best world territories for the development of science and technology, not the history of Dubna, but probably one of the puzzles in the overall pattern of the city's history and even the history of the country.

I thank all my colleagues that I had the opportunity to work together with on the implementation of the projects described in the book and on many other projects, the descriptions of which did not fit into the book. I apologize to those whom I did not mention here, everyone who I worked with, the results of their contribution to the common cause, with deep respect.

I thank Raisa Neapolitanskaya, Sergey Dobromyslov, Natalia Spirina for their help in the design of the book.

Many thanks to Evgeny Ryabov, Viktor Kalitvyansky, Valery Prokh that agreed to become the first readers and critics of the book.

And many thanks to my wife Natalya Nikolaevna for making my participation in what is described in the book possible.

Alexander RATZ