In the early 1990's, across Eastern Europe and what used to be the Soviet Union, far-reaching political and economic changes were in progress.  Single party rule had given way to political pluralism, and efforts were initiated to move from an economy dominated by central planning and state ownership to one in which market forces and private property predominate.  These changes presented considerable implications for the work of scientists and engineers, their relations with policy makers and the general public, and the issues of scientific freedom and responsibility they face. 

In the interest of investigating the impact of political and economic changes on scientific freedom and responsibility, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsored a project in the Fall of 1991 to determine what scientists, engineers, science journalists, and policy makers viewed as the most pressing concerns about scientific freedom and responsibility in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. The project researched what institutional reforms and related actions were under consideration to resolve the concerns, and explored the possibility of fostering an East-West dialogue and long-term cooperation in this area. 

The resulting report, Breaking From the Past, was published in September of 1992.  The investigators' findings are set out in three sections: 1) the political and economic reforms enacted to date and their impact on the scientific and engineering communities in the countries the researchers visited; 2) the scientific freedom and responsibility concerns of those the investigators met; and 3) proposals for further action. 

The project was directed by Dr. Mark S. Frankel and Jane Cave at AAAS. 

The project was supported by AAAS and the National Science Foundation.