Ion Bostan’s scientific contributions

This book contemplates on the evolution of engineering sciences development in the Republic of Moldova in the postwar period. The author emphasizes the place and role of engineering sciences at different stages reflected in the decisions of the party (until 1990) and State powers, reveals chronologically the establishment of and support to the priorities regarding science development by directions and fields. Also, the author discloses the reasons for reticence in supporting engineering sciences in the first 15 years of the postwar period and highlights the factors which favored the rapid expansion of their development later. By the way of material exposed in the paper, the author aims to annihilate the information vacuum imposed in the Soviet period on the engineering sciences achievements on topics considered tangible with the military complex, or as very important for the industrial and technological development of the country. Thus, the author tends to tackle the thesis, rooted in our society so far, that Moldovan economy has grown mainly as agricultural one and scarcely industrial. In fact if we analyse, for example, the State Budget – 1987 we can see, for sure, that in the structure of revenues the share of industry prevails over those coming from agriculture and services together. For the first time, the author presents a picture of the Moldovan engineering performance exemplified only by a few top achievements, obtained due to the intensity and prestige of cooperation between the scientific researchers and institutional structures empowered with research‐innovation and directly dependent on the efficiency of mechanisms and instruments of research funding. The author makes reference to the complexity, high quality and importance of scientific‐practical engineering accomplishments achieved in just one of 30 institutions authorized with research and innovation, which were later implemented into a vast listing of scientointensive industrial products, manufactured at the production facilities of the domestic industrial complex. This book contemplates on the evolution of engineering sciences development in the Republic of Moldova in the postwar period. The author emphasizes the place and role of engineering sciences at different stages reflected in the decisions of the party (until 1990) and State powers, reveals chronologically the establishment of and support to the priorities regarding science development by directions and fields. Also, the author discloses the reasons for reticence in supporting engineering sciences in the first 15 years of the postwar period and highlights the factors which favored the rapid expansion of their development later. By the way of material exposed in the paper, the author aims to annihilate the information vacuum imposed in the Soviet period on the engineering sciences achievements on topics considered tangible with the military complex, or as very important for the industrial and technological development of the country. Thus, the author tends to tackle the thesis, rooted in our society so far, that Moldovan economy has grown mainly as agricultural one and scarcely industrial. In fact if we analyse, for example, the State Budget – 1987 we can see, for sure, that in the structure of revenues the share of industry prevails over those coming from agriculture and services together. For the first time, the author presents a picture of the Moldovan engineering performance exemplified only by a few top achievements, obtained due to the intensity and prestige of cooperation between the scientific researchers and institutional structures empowered with research‐innovation and directly dependent on the efficiency of mechanisms and instruments of research funding. The author makes reference to the complexity, high quality and importance of scientific‐practical engineering accomplishments achieved in just one of 30 institutions authorized with research and innovation, which were later implemented into a vast listing of scientointensive industrial products, manufactured at the production facilities of the domestic industrial complex. The paper highlights the valuable scientific achievements of some outstanding personalities – founders of scientific schools of reference in engineering, which have had a positive impact on the development and consolidation of engineering sciences and engineering as a whole nationally and internationally. For better understanding of the context of the treated theme in this book I feel indebted to give some specifications. ● The intellectual potential of Republic of Moldova impoverished in the early postwar period due to imposed in 1940 and 1944 massive refuge of intellectuals 8 Вtiințele inginerești și cooperarea cu industria în Republica Moldova over the Prut river, and also by recruiting of young people on two fronts of the war, including waves of deportations and organized hunger etc. ‐ has demonstrated enormous capacities for spiritual and identity regeneration, for recovery in a very short terms of the intellectual elite on all dimensions of a creative society, so that the achievements diversity of the complexity stated in this paper can fit during a lifetime. ● Due to the positive impact of the science at the crossroads of the immediate years before and after gaining independence, the Republic of Moldova sets the state budget in a proportion of 54‐61% by industry and the agricultural sector ‐ with only 0.152% of the USSR territory ‐ ranks on the sixth place according the total amount (!) of agricultural production among 15 soviet republics,... mistakenly equaled and impoverished by obscure pricing policies. ● Republic of Moldova has been developing as an industrial‐agrarian country with significant capacities for research, technological development and innovation, with an infrastructure composed of 107 research institutions and imposing human potential that ensured the production of material and intellectual scientointensive goods. ● The funding of science is 􀈈The Litmus Test􀈈 which denotes the degree of understanding by the state structures that Republic of Moldova can affirm as a prosperous state and can offer its citizens a decent living only by supporting and expanding of the production of material and intellectual scientointensive goods. Unfortunately, in the period following the independence, the state of affairs is different in comparison with 1985: in 1992 the science funding from the state budget decreased by 2.5 times; in 2002 – by 13 times; in 2005 – with 16%; and in 2016, engineering sciences funding was reduced by 26 times in comparison with 1987. ● The economic development in the industrialization period (1960‐1990) correlated to scientific research development, reveals a proven fact: Republic of Moldova can thrive by relying on the gray matter, but this requires that science and education should not be only declarative priorities but also priority funded. Keywords: Engineering sciences, scientific schools, electro erosion, mass and heat transfer, space technology, precessional planetary transmissions. Academician Ion BOSTAN