SUPPORT FROM GOVERNMENT 



of investigators may themselves be moved by considerations 

 other than to provide objective information about government 

 money obligated for basic research. 



Questions of expediency may affect the reporting of data, 

 not only in government but also in the universities, which are 

 the principal and proper beneficiaries of funds for basic research. 

 In the data for one particular year, universities reported about 

 twice the amount indicated by the government agencies as 

 having been allotted to universities for basic research. It may be 

 that universities want the record to show that their research is 

 truly basic, and that agencies want to emphasize their "practical" 

 approach. Such differences cast doubt on the reliability of 

 figures. However, the National Science Foundation is striving 

 to obtain an increasingly dependable picture of government 

 support of science. 



Parenthetically, we probably agree that dollars are not the 

 most suitable measure for either quantity or quality of research. 

 In a particular held, where its needs for apparatus and equip- 

 ment are stabilized in some pattern, the numbers which express 

 cost make possible some internal appraisals and comparisons. 

 Among fields where differences in method and needs for facili- 

 ties are wide, such comparisons must have fairly low signifi- 

 cance. More significant would be man-davs or man-months ap- 

 plied to research by competent scientists. 



Having laid a foundation of uncertainty, let me make a 

 few observations to aid in drawing our thinking together. In 

 doing this I have in mind a concept rather than a definition of 

 basic research. It is what a member of a university faculty would 

 do to advance scholarship in his field of learning if he had com- 

 plete freedom of action, with needed financing. The concept is 

 consistent with the conviction that basic research and higher 

 education are inseparable; indeed, that basic research is essential 

 to maintaining the highest level in higher education. 



187 



