Ten years from now in the absence of significant 

 social changes, the supply of highly trained 

 technical personnel will, from birth rate con- 

 siderations alone, start to fall sharply. This effect 

 will presumably add to the decreases in enroll- 

 ment in the hard sciences and engineering which 

 have occurred during the past decade. There may 

 also be some reduction in theaverage natural and 

 developed talent of those entering these areas. In 

 fundamental areas such as language mastery, 

 significant deterioration from past standards is 

 currently evident. In California, average achieve- 

 ment test scores in mathematics as well as other 

 subjects have dropped. When these lim itations on 

 the supply of personnel are compounded by 

 decreases in the size of the age groups, there will 

 be a real shortage of qualified personnel and an 

 aging work force. 



There may also be serious problems of motivation 

 in that general social trends and the academic 

 atmosphere at many universities motivate 

 students away from industrial research and 

 development. Coupling between universities and 

 industry is in many cases poor, although less so in 

 the engineering area than in the pure science 

 areas. Historically, scientific productivity has 

 been largest for younger workers and a con- 

 tinuing ample supply of highly trained, properly 

 motivated newcomers is our best assurance of 

 continuing high productivity. 



Clayton S. White from the Oklahoma Medical 

 Research Foundation, an independent research 

 institute in Oklahoma City, was more specific 

 about what attracts the best students today. 



It is a truism not disputed by many, that the best 

 talent among the country's youth is not moving 

 into scientific research today compared with the 

 case 15 to 20 years ago. Medicine and engineer- 

 ing, along with other professions, are attracting 

 much higher caliber people than the graduate 

 schools whose end product is the Ph.D. who will 

 be manning tomorrow's research benches and 

 populating the academic faculties of our many 

 universities. Not only do I believe the best in talent 

 is not being trained as professional investigators, 

 but I doubt that those in training are, during their 

 formative years, being given opportunities to 

 develop the broad and diverse perspectives that 



can maximize research progress as the individual 

 matures. 



As seen by Hans Mark, Director, Ames 

 Research Center, NASA, attracting the best 

 minds to science is a problem which goes 

 beyond the bounds of the Federal laboratories. 

 He noted that fellowship money alone will not 

 redirect the best talent. 



In my view there is only one issue that transcends 

 all others which must be resolved if we are to have 

 the kind of basic scientific research we need to 

 produce the intellectual capital which is 

 necessary for the development of our technology. 

 This issue has to do with convincing the ablest of 

 our young people to pursue careers in basic 

 research in the physical and biological sciences. I 

 have noticed in the past eight or ten years a 

 distinct drift of our very best people away from the 

 basic fields. This is not to say that there are not 

 many students today who are working in basic 

 science. What I am saying is thatthequality is not 

 as good as it once was. 



. . . Obviously, basic research should also be 

 stimulated with money and some of the 

 fellowships that have been cut back in recent 

 years should be restored. However, I honestly 

 believe that money is not the major issue. The 

 most important problem is once again to con- 

 vince our besf young people to pursue careers in 

 basic scientific research. 



Typical of university responses concerned 

 about research manpower for the future are the 

 following excerpts. The first is from Albert H. 

 Bowker, Chancellor at the University of Califor- 

 nia, Berkeley, who wrote: 



Most certainly the nation will require a supply of 

 scientists and engineers that is not only adequate 

 in numbers but of the highest quality. In the past, 

 universities have served as the primary source of 

 such personnel going into the research sector by 

 providing long-term support necessary for 

 students to complete their education. However, 

 there are some indications that the academic 

 base and climate necessary to encourage out- 

 standing students in the direction of science and 

 engineering is in jeopardy. If the flow of talented 



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VITALITY OF THE RESEARCH SYSTEM 



