ALAN T. WATERMAN 



represents the most authoritative judgment available toward 

 significant progress in research. Furthermore, this means of 

 developing research programs for federal support is backed by 

 the majority of the country's research scientists. 



Following this policy, during the last decade and a half, 

 a sizable and reasonably stable program of federal support for 

 basic research has been established, primarily in colleges and 

 universities and other nonprofit institutions. Docs this effec- 

 tively meet the current needs of science? One answer to this 

 question has grown increasingly clear in recent years: Although 

 the federal support program as thus developed has the ad- 

 vantages mentioned, and although it provides for the support 

 needed by individuals and groups who carry on the research, 

 it does not recognize adequately the needs of science depart- 

 ments of educational institutions as such. In order to obtain a 

 well-balanced program in support of science, one must consider 

 the following: (a) the progress of research in science; QO the 

 development of the individual scientist; (c) the health and 

 growth of the institutions where science is taught and where 

 research is done. Present federal policy, by the support of 

 faculty members and graduate students via research grants and 

 contracts, emphasizes the first of these — progress in scientific 

 research. Through fellowship programs, both predoctoral and 

 postdoctoral, and by directing attention to the teaching and 

 content of scientific courses, the federal government contributes 

 to the second, the development of the individual. But with the 

 exception of state universities through the Department of Agri- 

 culture, and medical schools through the National Institutes 

 of Health, the broad needs of departments of science and en- 

 gineering in the colleges and universities of the country are 

 not being adequately provided for. 



Initially, it was thought that federal support of research 

 projects in educational institutions would free a portion of their 



34 



