economy move. One legacy of the war, however, 

 was the Naval Research Laboratory, which, 

 though small, received continuous support for 

 long-range research. 



Social science became of greater interest to the 

 Government during the Depression; medical re- 

 search also prospered in the Public Health Serv- 

 ice. Efforts to relieve financial distress and unem- 

 ployment of professionals in the natural sciences 

 ran into many complications, however. 



Fortunately, the Nation had a wealth of very 

 competent scientists, and they succeeded in call- 

 ing attention to our poor state of preparedness for 

 war. With the outbreak of World War II, the 

 Office of Scientific Research and Development 

 was formed. Its scientific contributions were criti- 

 cal to winning the war. The development of the 

 atomic bomb, radar, sonar, influence fuzes, supe- 

 rior aircraft, and electronic countermeasures con- 

 vinced the Government of the need for ongoing 

 research. The Government continued support of 

 research after the war with the Office of Naval 

 Research, the Atomic Energy Commission, and 

 the Public Health Service, followed shortly by the 

 National Science Foundation. A great deal of this 

 research was performed in universities. Although 

 the universities were concerned about where this 

 support would lead them, they have been an im- 

 portant element of Government-supported basic 

 research ever since. 



Important in-house laboratories and Federally 

 Funded Research and Development Centers also 

 came into being following World War II, but the 

 postwar enthusiasm for research soon began to 

 wane. Interest in research was renewed, however, 

 when the Soviet Union put the first satellite into 

 orbit. The USSR succeeded in sending a man into 

 space and bringing him back safely. The Govern- 

 ment responded by establishing the National Aer- 

 onautics and Space Administration and a large 

 man-in-space program. At the same time it in- 

 creased its commitment to basic research in other 

 fields. 



The present program of basic research, al- 

 though somewhat less in constant dollars than it 

 was at its peak, is still large and varied, and that 

 which is supported by the mission agencies is 

 important not only to them but also to the Nation. 



Limitations of the Report 



Accurate description of the extent and accom- 

 plishments of basic research within the mission 

 agencies is limited by several factors, including: 



• The difficulty of making a sharp distinction 

 between basic and applied research; 



• The absence of submissions from agency 

 laboratories; 



• The absence of submissions from some agen- 

 cies; and 



• The exclusion of program and agency reports 

 and reviews that were underway or complet- 

 ed during preparation of this report. 



Several agencies expressed difficulty in distin- 

 guishing between basic and applied research, and 

 the definitions used by some agencies differ ap- 

 preciably from those employed by NSF. The fol- 

 lowing quotations from agency submissions are 

 illustrative: 



• Agriculture: . . . Within the (Agriculture) 

 system, basic research is generally insepara- 

 ble from other research in both planning and 

 conduct. 



• U. S. Geological Survey: . . . The Geologi- 

 cal Survey's operating definition of basic re- 

 search is research that advances man's un- 

 derstanding of earth science and related natu- 

 ral science processes and phenomena. . . . 

 Most of the activities of the Survey are 

 founded on the information gained from the 

 basic research program. In short, basic re- 

 search is the cornerstone of the Geological 

 Survey's mission. 



• Energy Research and Development Adminis- 

 tration: . . . Even within ERDA, different 

 definitions of basic research are used in dif- 

 ferent contexts. The concept poses difficul- 

 ties whenever the utility of expected results 

 is a criterion for choosing research tasks. 



• Environmental Protection Agency: . . . There 

 is no official differentiation between basic 

 and applied research in EPA. . . (W)hich 

 research falls into which category is open to 

 debate. 



• National Science Foundation: . . . (Basic re- 

 search) is systematic, intensive study direct- 

 ed primarily toward greater knowledge or 

 understanding of the subject studied, rather 

 than a practical use of this knowledge or 

 understanding. 



• Smithsonian Institution: . . . For basic re- 

 search, the end product is commonly thought 

 of as investigation for the advancement of 

 scientific knowledge in general. The goal of 

 applied research is usually described as the 

 discovery of new scientific knowledge with a 

 specific objective in mind. 



The following quotation from the National Insti- 

 tutes of Health perhaps sums up the dilemma best: 

 Although these conceptual distinctions can be 

 made, it must be noted that basic and applied 

 research form a continuum, and a specific re- 

 search project may be basic from one point of 

 view and applied from another. This fact makes 



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