Part Five 



Aids to Industrial Research and Technology 



Industrial research in America has 

 enjoyed a rapid and extensive growth. 

 There are also widespread indications 

 that industry is planning to undertake 

 applied research on a greatly ex- 

 panded scale in the postwar period — 

 an encouraging and wholesome pros- 

 pect. At the same time it is evident 

 that research in American industry 

 is concentrated to a considerable ex- 

 tent in a relatively small number of 

 industrial units and in a few particu- 

 larly progressive industries. Thirteen 

 companies emploved nearly one-third 

 of all industrial research personnel 

 in the year 1938. In the rubber in- 

 dustry, one-quarter of the companies 

 emplo\'ed 90 percent of the research 

 workers, while in petroleum and in- 

 dustrial chemicals the respective per- 

 centages were 85 and 88. This is not 

 to suggest that there should be a 

 considerable degree of uniformity 

 among the units of an industry or 

 between industries as to the percent 

 age of research effort in each. But 

 the implications of the increasing 

 concentration of industrial research 

 in this country deserve special study. 



One important fact is clear — the 

 process of transition from pure re- 

 search to its practical application does 

 not work equallv effectively in all in- 

 dustries. For example, the petroleum 

 industry has for years supported far 

 more research than has the coal in- 

 dustry. New technical developments 

 in the petroleum field have made it 

 possible to carry on an increasing 

 amount of research while the relative 



backwardness of the coal industry, 

 where small units predominate, has 

 resulted in fewer and fewer new de- 

 velopments and a less and less 

 healthy over-all situation. 



Time did not permit an intensive 

 and well-rounded investigation of 

 this subject. The Committee feels 

 strongly, however, that the National 

 Research Foundation should be 

 charged with the responsibility of 

 studying the process of technological 

 development in industry and of ex- 

 perimenting with methods of aid to 

 industrial research. The following 

 suggestions are tentative and submit- 

 ted with the thought that they might 

 be of assistance to the Board in meet- 

 ing this important challenge. 



A. Assistance to Technical Clinics 

 for Small Business Enterprise 



It is the belief of the Committee 

 that the most effective research wells 

 up from below. Our objective, there- 

 fore, should be to develop as many 

 indi\'idual centers of research initia- 

 tive in industry as is possible. The 

 seeds of industrial research that are 

 planted now in small, vigorous indus- 

 trial enterprises may yield tremendous 

 returns in the future. There is con- 

 siderable difficulty, however, in get- 

 ting research started in enterprises 

 which have not been research-minded 

 in the past. 



To meet this need a number of 

 special research clinics have been es- 

 tablished in different regions, e. g., 



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