BASIC RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES 



the demands of applied research and development, industry's 

 participation and contributions must continue to increase. 



It should be noted, also, that the years since the war have 

 marked the rise of new organizational forms for the furtherance 

 of basic research. These include research centers, such as the 

 national laboratories, of which Los Alamos, Argonne, and 

 Brookhaven are major examples, and are run by a university, a 

 group of universities, or an industrial concern, under contract 

 to the federal government. In general they are engaged in both 

 basic and applied research, where considerations of both cost 

 and security have dictated that the work be carried on under 

 direct government sponsorship. 



More recently, groups of universities have begun to col- 

 laborate in similar fashion for the conduct of basic research 

 in other fields. In the field of astronomy, for example, the 

 National Science Foundation is supporting two major projects: 

 the radio astronomy facility being constructed and operated at 

 Green Bank, West Virginia, by Associated Universities, Inc., 

 and the optical astronomv facility on Kitt Peak, in Tucson, 

 Arizona, being constructed and operated by the Association of 

 Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. A recent group 

 to enter the field is the University Committee for Atmospheric 

 Research, organized by a group of fourteen universities. This 

 group is proposing to the National Science Foundation the 

 establishment of a national institute to do basic research in the 

 atmospheric sciences. The proposal is the result of a recommen- 

 dation made last year by the Committee on Meteorology, of 

 the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. 



It is clear that certain broad fields, such as astronomy, 

 atmospheric research, oceanographv, materials, and space re- 

 search, lend themselves well to cooperative effort. The research 

 institute has for many vears been a hiohlv successful establish- 



J J O J 



ment in a number of European countries, notably Germany, 



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