2. Discretionary Grants 



Matching grants, however, may 

 well be attacked as a method of main 

 taining the status quo, in which a 

 few universities tend to dominate 

 scientific research. It is, in fact, essen- 

 tial to the healthy growth of science 

 that the Foundation should help to 

 spread the research spirit as widelv 

 as possible throughout the United 

 States. If the recruitment of future 

 scientific personnel is to proceed from 

 a suflficientlv broad base, it is impor- 

 tant that as large a number of stu- 

 dents as possible be made aware of 

 the research point of view. Many of 

 our colleges and engineering schools 

 are not now able to support a signifi- 

 cant amount of research.-'' The level 

 of research practice in these institu- 

 tions can best be raised through dis- 

 cretionary grants. 



The committee recommends, there- 

 fore, that the board of trustees be 

 empowered to expend a substantial 

 part of its funds on a discretionary 

 iDasis, either as grants-in-aid for prom- 

 ising special projects or in the pro- 

 vision of large and expensive capital 

 facilities. 



a. Grants-in-aid 



Much of the funds now granted 

 bv private foundations to universities 

 is in the form of grants-in-aid for spe- 

 cial purposes. These range in size 

 from a few hundred dollars for 1 year 

 to several hundred thousand dollars 

 for a period of 5 to 10 years. 



A Government foundation with 

 larger sums at its command would 

 presumably be in a position to make 

 appropriations of considerable size 

 and for long periods of time. Indeed 

 the very magnitude of its responsi- 

 bilities would require that it abstain 

 from frittering away its efforts on a 



^ See appendix B. 



large number of small and transitory 

 projects. 



Once proper precautions are taken 

 to avoid obvious pitfalls, several ad- 

 vantages of relatively stable grants-in- 

 aid argue strongly for their adoption 

 in certain circumstances. Of first im- 

 portance is the fact that they offer 

 what is probably the best means of 

 supporting promising projects in in- 

 stitutions whose present status does 

 not enable them to benefit sufficiently 

 under matching grants. In this con- 

 nection particular attention should be 

 given to attaining a better balance 

 of research activity throughout the 

 country. 



h. Grants for Capital Facilities 



It has already been pointed out 

 that any plans for expansion of re- 

 search in educational institutions will 

 require additional investment in 

 buildings and equipment. Increases 

 in the total number of students are 

 expected to bring student enrollment 

 considerably above prewar levels and 

 will bring great pressure on existing 

 facilities which are already over- 

 crowded. Substantial sums will there- 

 fore be required to provide adequate 

 facilities for advanced research. 



In addition the trends in many 

 fields of scientific research point to- 

 ward the increasing importance of 

 large and highly expensive pieces of 

 equipment which, at present, can be 

 purchased and maintained only by 

 fa\'ored institutions. The astrono- 

 mers were perhaps the first to face 

 this problem, but now the physicist 

 wishes to work with a cyclotron or 

 betatron, and the biochemist with an 

 ultracentrifuge or mass spectrograph; 

 and workers in many fields have need 

 for the services of computing centers 

 or for the use of complicated calculat- 

 ing equipment, such as the differen- 



96 



