CNCP projects in Uzbekistan Interview with Umar Salikhbayev, Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics Institute of Nuclear Physics

Ilkhom Sadykov, Manager of P-222 Project, Head of INP AS RUz Laboratory, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Mannab Tashmetov, Senior Researcher of INP AS RUz, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Research reactor in INP, Tashkent

Analytical laboratory

Background

Nuclear centres of the former Soviet Union employ highly qualified specialists and scientists who have developed many unique devices and equipment comprising original scientific and technical solutions. It should be mentioned that many developments have been applied only once and most technical innovations have not been applied at all. Taking into account all the above mentioned and the high qualification of these specialists, it is advisable to involve them in establishment of diversified production in nuclear institutions. To apply their developments and organize a new production on the basis of these developments, the engineers and scientists need essential knowledge to market their products. The main obstacle is the lack of knowledge in marketing, which is the main problem of nearly all technical specialists.

Activity of CNCP - UK Closed Nuclear Centres Programme is aimed at transformation of scientific activity of the scientists in the CIS who used to work with nuclear technologies for military purposes to activity for civil purposes. It helps nuclear specialists learn how to work in the market conditions and provides funding for their projects. CNCP and the Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP) in Uzbekistan have been working together since summer 2004. During that time our institute proposed over 30 projects. Three most suitable projects were selected from them. These projects are aimed at production of equipment for desalination, purification and disinfection of water, coloration of gemstones, and production of sealed Co-57 sources of gamma radiation.

Any commercial business starts with market research. At present we are carrying it out for these three projects supported by CNCP. Because recently we lived in non-market conditions, where everything was planned in advance for several years and produced according to the government's tasks, our specialists have never carried marketing and do not have experience in management of international projects. Negotiations, projects proposal preparation, and presentation of them are very important. In this respect, the course in Business English and Contract Negotiations organized by CNCP in the De Montfort University (Leicester, UK) last February was very useful for us.

Especially valuable for us was a visit to the Harwell International Business Centre in Oxfordshire, additionally organized by CNCP. There they described in detail and partly demonstrated the process of refining or, to be exact, the way to colour gemstones (topaz, beryl) with "commercial colours" (blue, light blue) using a 20-MeV accelerator (HELIOS-1; 30 kW). We saw the processed stones. Employees of the EBIS Iotron Ltd., Managing Director, Dr. Steve Sugden and Gemstones Business Manager, Mr. John Brisland, told us about their technology enabling colourless stones - topazes. Since in our project we are also involved in colouration of gemstones, although we use reactor neutrons and gamma radiation instead of electrons, this visit was very important and interesting. We learned about gemstones' customers, production volume, cost of their services, the colours which are most valuable in the market of gemstones etc. We received answers to our questions regarding marketing and colouration technologies of topaz and beryl. According to Dr. Steve Sagden, EBIS Iotron Ltd. treats with gamma-rays five tons of topazes a year and all the products regardless of the extent of colour "fullness" find their buyers in the market.

After the training in Leicester we realized that our specialists need to learn methodology and methods of market research. To meet these demands, CNCP is organizing special courses in Marketing and Business Planning which will be provided by the consulting company "Donaev Consulting Group" in Tashkent.

First project

We have already started work under the Project P-222 "Market research for technologies of the Institute of Nuclear Physics" which will carry out market research for produced goods and services, study of competitors and customers, pricing etc. which can then be used for business-planning. The work in the project will be done by three teams responsible for different directions. In total the project will involve 24 employees including 13 former nuclear weapons specialists.

The first direction of the project is to provide drinking water for people living in remote regions of the Uzbekistan Republic where the water supply is poor. The equipment is intended for families, small villages with population of about several hundred people, which can be also supplied for kindergartens, school and military units situated in theses regions. Although in the Republic there are similar equipments on sale made in Germany, France and Russia, this market has many niches because the device we offer is highly competitive because of high quality of water after its rectification, low pricing, and lower power consumption.

The second technology - the radiation coloration of gemstones, topaz and beryl in particular, was developed and patented by the institute in 70s. There are very few gemstones with natural colours. They are mainly colourless. According to the available data, the cost of coloured gemstones in comparison with original increases in dozens of times and there is a stable demand for these services.

The third direction is production of sealed sources of gamma-radiation Co-57. In INP, a large amount of this radionuclide is produced and exported in the form of a solution. However, there are fields, for example medicine and X-ray fluorescent analysis (XRF) of materials, which need hermetically sealed capsular sources Co-57. At present the XRF method is widely used in analytical laboratories, mining industry, custom service etc. for identification of materials. One of the essential components for XRF is a sealed source Co-57. In Uzbekistan, such radioactive sources are not produced and their import is much complicated because of transporting across the border.

For the market research, it is planned to use information from the Internet (mainly to gather data about potential customers and consumers), survey of people in different regions (regarding contamination and salinity of water), managers of companies which are potential customers and consumers of the products and services (regarding colouration of gemstones and production of sealed sources) etc. The consulting company "Donaev consulting group" is involved to assist institute's specialists with this research. It will start its work with marketing training.

This project, new for us in its way, will give us experience for further promotion of technologies we develop, goods and services we can offer. In this connection the CNCP Conference in Almaty organised on 15-17 March 2005 was really useful and well-timed. It allowed exchanging experience of the other CIS nuclear centres also participating in CNCP. In conclusion we want to thank the British Closed Nuclear Centres Programme and wish its representatives success in their important and generous mission.

[Print version] 

webmaster@cncp.ru