FOREWORD 



Scientific research in the United States has grown up in close relation 

 with other parts of the national life, at once affected by and affecting 

 intellectual, social, and economic developments. An assessment of the present 

 state of the American research enterprise therefore merits inclusion in our 

 national self-accounting at the Bicentennial. This Eighth Report of the 

 National Science Board is offered as part of that accounting. 



Specifically, the Report is intended to show what critical problems 

 appear to be developing in the operating research sectors that will decrease 

 the effectiveness of research unless properly addressed. A question to that 

 point was put to broadly-informed persons in the research community. This 

 Report provides the means by which their responses can be made widely 

 known. 



The circulation of these views initiates a two-part task. The second part, 

 for which the first is essential, is devising the means by which the critical 

 problems can be "properly addressed" so that any decrease in the effec- 

 tiveness of research in the United States may be avoided. 



The National Science Board undertook this collection of views in 

 response to clear evidence that scientific research, after a period of relative 

 well-being, is today exposed to severe stress. That stress originates in 

 fundamental changes in such matters as age patterns in the population, the 

 availability and distribution of economic resources, and the order of values 

 guiding national directions. 



To obtain the views of the research community, the Board sent letters of 

 inquiry to more than 900 persons active in the administration of research, and 

 in some cases in performing research, in its four main sectors: universities, 

 industry, Federal laboratories, and independent research institutes. Manage- 

 ment, policy, and the institutional environment for research were designated 

 as the principal areas in which identification of critical issues and problems 

 was sought, but no definite limitations were placed on the possible answers. 



The responses provide a rich resource for consideration by the National 

 Science Board and the various readers to whom this Report is addressed: the 

 President, the Congress, the scientific community, and the public. 



The National Science Board found two outstanding features emerging 

 from the hundreds of replies. One feature was the commonality of judgment, 



