Some of the special STCU characteristics particularly worth noting:

1. The STCU's funding (as of 15 December 1996 - officially declared) equals $18.5 million, or about 35 million hryvnias. Hence, the STCU's project funds equal a full one-quarter of that of the entire network of establishments of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. This makes the STCU today the second largest source of R&D funds in Ukraine. The STCU's contributions take on even greater importance when one considers that they are nearly totally dedicated to the direct support of scientists, and not of institutional infrastructures.

2. In contrast to most other technical assistance projects, the STCU's contributions are decidedly nontypical when one considers that nearly all moneys pledged by the STCU donor countries are to be spent in solely in Ukraine for direct support of individual researchers and for research equipment needed by them.

3. The intellectual property (IP) developed by projects supported by the STCU remains with the Ukrainian researchers. Donor countries reserve first negotiation and use rights for the use of that intellectual property in their countries.

4. The STCU actively encourages and helps to identify and establish long-term links and cooperation between Ukrainian institutes/researchers and interested Western industrial, academic and governmental organizations. This should help make Ukrainian scientific capabilities better known and facilitate the Ukrainian researchers' access to the world scientific and industrial community.

5. The STCU contributes in an important measure to Ukraine's economy development and stabilization by the direct and official infusion of considerable hard currency, directly into the hands of the scientific researchers.

6. The STCU contributes to the development of new world-class technologies to the benefit of Ukraine as well as of the rest of the world community.

7. The STCU fulfills an important component of its mission by its highly significant contribution to the prevention of valuable brain drain from Ukraine (in line with the project's 'non-proliferation' objectives) and redirecting it to peaceful and economically important uses.

8. The STCU has exerted a very significant influence on the reorientation of the Ukrainian scientific research environment's application, research reporting and contract audit/accounting processes from a system formerly used in a centralized military economy to one better suited to the more competitive, market-driven research environment prevalent in Western market economies.

9. The STCU is contributing to the encouragement of entrepreneurial activities resulting from R&D outputs based on former weapons technologies.

10. The STCU has made a special and successful effort to maximize the participation of Ukrainian women scientists and other professionals into its own staff.

Leo Owsiacki

Executive Director of STCU

Tel: (380-44) 227-81-50.

Fax: (380-44) 227-81-56