ABSTRACT
Societal developments in the short term serve to determine the present state and conditions for science and technology but, in a more distant perspective, science itself will become a crucial factor in the new liberal and democratic world to be. In the former Soviet Union the main body which determined to a remarkable extent the policy and high status of science was the Academy of Sciences which had among its members many scientists of great distinction. Science in the Soviet Union was overstaffed and top-heavy. The industrial impact, and even the general impact, in applied sciences of the newly emerging countries of Asia and the Pacific are far greater than their contribution to fundamental research. The main way in which fundamental science has such a profound effect on our civilization is due to the extent to which the following generation is exposed to the ideas and concepts of new science.
