THE SUPPORT OF BASIC RESEARCH 



tory can retain first-rate personnel without permitting the right 

 and freedom or basic questioning. . . . No scientist of quality 

 would remain where the frontiers of science are closed to him." 

 Each laboratory director is responsible for the arrangements and 

 the intellectual climate of his own laboratory. What he does 

 determines the quality of the staff and of their work. 



Promotion of Excellence 



Basic research is a product of able, trained, supported, free 

 scholars. Such scholars and such research are found in in- 

 dustrial, government, and private laboratories, but it is the uni- 

 versities that have evolved as the institutions with the greatest 

 responsibility to produce such scholars and to assist their en- 

 deavors. One of the most certain ways in which society can 

 promote excellence in science and other areas of scholarship is 

 by building strong universities and insisting that creative 

 scholars be given time, facilities, and freedom of choice to carry 

 out the studies that seem most likely to extend fundamental 

 knowledge and understanding. 



Clearly a basic requisite is that the universities have suffi- 

 cient unrestricted money to be able to carry out at a level of high 

 effectiveness their continuing responsibilities of teaching and 

 creative scholarship. With such funds, the university can be 

 trusted to maintain a fair balance between teaching and re- 

 search and among the various fields of scholarship. With such 

 funds, it can attract and hold an able staff, who will attract 

 and educate able students. 



Within the faculty, however, there will inevitably be 

 some men of greater competence than others. There will be 

 some who need more expensive facilities than others. A univer- 

 sity can recognize these differences, but it cannot adjust to their 

 full range. Some men deserve a kind and level of support that 

 cannot be defended from the university's internal point of view, 

 for only by depriving many colleagues of what is due them 



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