Support of 



Basic Research 



from GOVERNMENT 



PAUL E. KLOPSTEG 



National Science Foundation 



TllE PRECEDING papers have dealt 

 most skillfully with the central theme of this symposium, with 

 the many points of view from which the speakers and panels 

 have clarified the subject. Nonetheless, in dealing with basic 

 research in a particular setting, it is still not easy to establish and 

 preserve clarity in an unavoidably blurred image, the image 

 created by the much abused, not to say tortured word research. 



Basic Research Defined 



There are many definitions of basic research. If one were 

 to compile those which have been published, they would fill 

 many pages. This has been done, and they do. When designed 

 to enlighten the layman, including the members of the Con- 

 gress, or to set boundaries for esoteric discussions, they invariably 

 deal with the researcher's attitudes and motives. They are pri- 

 marily descriptive. Curiosity, desire for new knowledge, urge to 

 expand horizons, interest in a problem, the excitement of being 

 first in unexplored territory, absence of concern over pragmatic 

 implications — one or more of these ideas always appear in some 

 form in the definitions of basic research. Further requirements 



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