Solar Energy Materials 24 (i 791 ) 624 North-Holland

Solar Energy Materials

Introductory note by the Organizing Committee

It has been known for years that the Soviet Union has a solar thermal program and many pretended that it was quite substantial. However, these were rumours; practically no first-hand information was available.

At the time of the preparatory work for the Davos Symposium, travelling for Soviet scientist~ became easier in the course of "perestroika" and "glasnost". Thus, the Organizing Committee tried to contact Soviet colleagues and to invite them to the symposium. This was not as easy as anticipated. Finally, however, a g:oup of three scientists, representing some 500 colleagues at their home institu- t'~ons, managed to attend the symposium. Obviously, everybody was eaeel to get first-hand information on solar thermal research going on at these institmes and the USSR in general. An ad h ~- session was organ!zed to this end. The papers to follow were given in the more ;mal part of this special event, which was outside the original scope of the symp~ .um.

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