PAUL E. KLOPSTEG 



may be set to stamp the activity as basic. One is freedom for 

 the investigator from commitments to reach specified goals. 

 Another is freedom of publication solely at the scientist's dis- 

 cretion. 



Within the past decade it has become accepted practice to 

 provide federal money for research in annually increasing 

 amounts. To allocate the funds wisely necessitates not only 

 recognition and understanding of the kind of research to be sup- 

 ported, but, to serve as a future guide, a fost hoc record of 

 obligations or expenditures. The National Science Foundation 

 in its task of collecting such data from the various government 

 departments and agencies and of analyzing and presenting them 

 annually in its publication, Federal Funds for Science, adopted 

 the following "working" definition to identify projects as basic 

 research : 



Basic research is that type of research which is directed towards 

 increase of knowledge in science. It is research where the primary 

 aim of the investigator is a fuller knowledge or understanding of 

 the subject under study, rather than a practical application thereof. 



Even a working definition cannot avoid descriptive aspects. This 

 one was designed to be hopefully submitted to the agencies 

 having to do with basic research, so that they might produce 

 cogent, comparable fiscal data, comparable both in successive 

 years in a given agency and among different agencies. The data 

 are supplied mainly by fiscal officers with some guidance, one 

 may hope, from science administrators. Wide variation in the 

 interpretations of the working definition are inevitable. Since 

 the intent of the investigator is involved — a matter not usually 

 disclosed by the accounting records — this requires an unaccus- 

 tomed effort by the fiscal officer to appraise motives. One may 

 further suppose, in observing the budgetary procedures from 

 year to year, that those having the task of assessing the motives 



1 86 



