| Abstract: | A very judicious planning for the development of sciences and technology is very important in developing countries. Planners should define those fields which are susceptible of progress, taking into consideration the availability of human resources and of technological infrastructures already existing in the country in those particular fields. To create a condition in which domestic scientific and technological capacity might become autonomous, the planning should be incorporated into the long term socioeconomic development of the country, and it should be relevant to the country's needs. A link must be established between the production of new knowledge and new technology, and the economic and political systems. Domestic scientific and technological culture must be advertised, to create a preference by consumers for domestically produced knowledge, bearing in mind, however, that totally autonomous production is very seldom achieved in developing countries, and that overplanning can be not only frustrating, but economically disastrous. |
