THE SUPPORT OF BASIC RESEARCH 



facts and uses but also the wonder, the beauty, and the processes 

 or science. The symposium said to all scientists, "Get busy on 

 this task." 



Industry has a special opportunity to help to change the 

 climate of opinion. For industry has high prestige in a heavily 

 industrialized society. Consequently the statements that indus- 

 trial leaders make about science, the support they give to basic 

 research, the form in which industrial grants to universities are 

 made, and the way in which they are announced are all im- 

 portant in creating the climate of popular opinion. 



The climate of opinion could also be influenced by the 

 more balanced use of money. Newspaper headlines and budget 

 statements have emphasized again and again the billions of 

 dollars being spent on science. But there are not billions spent 

 on basic science; the amount is only a small fraction of the 

 total — ten, or six, or perhaps as little as four per cent, depend- 

 ing upon how one defines basic research. In public press and 

 in official statements, the lumping together of science and 

 technology, of basic and applied research, confuses the public, 

 and conceals both the differences between basic and applied 

 research and the relative support going to each. 



The role of the university in research has been affected 

 by this imbalance. Through financial necessity and as a result of 

 governmental and industrial pressure, they have been forced 

 into increased engagement in applied research. This change in 

 university research activity has probably contributed to the 

 general confusion between basic and applied research. 



A better balance between basic and applied work and a 

 better balance between science and other fields of scholarship 

 would help to alter the climate of opinion. One participant, in 

 a particularly vigorous statement, proclaimed that "We ought 

 to encourage the old tradition of the university scholar biting 

 the hand that feeds him and telling societv, 'We do not think 



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