22G 



National Resources Planning Board 



of equipment, buildings, facilities, and direction which 

 otherwise might not be available to him. The basis 

 upon which such work is done varies in different depart- 

 ments, but in general the manufacturer has a minimum 

 of control, the results are available for immediate pub- 

 lication, and the nature of the problem is usually 

 determined by its general interest, since otherwise 

 public facilities could not properly be made available. 

 Some of the industrial research conducted in Govern- 

 ment laboratories has been in fields where industrj' has 

 been apathetic and needed to be shown by some prac- 

 tical demonstration the great assistance science can 

 afford. In such instances the intention has been to 

 initiate the work but not to carry it on indefinitely, 

 in the expectation that the industry concerned would 

 see the advantages of maintaining its own facilities for 

 research and control. 



Trade Associations 



Oftentimes unsolved problems are so fundamental 

 that their solution should be undertaken on behalf of 

 all the individual concerns engaged in the same line 

 of manufacture. Some of this work has been done 

 successfully through trade associations which have 

 built, equipped, and manned special laboratories for 

 the purpose. The extent to which individual companies 

 have profited or can profit from such enterprises de- 

 pends directly upon the capabOities of their individual 

 staffs. Obviously reports of such research mean little 

 to the nontechnical man, but the company with the 

 best scientific staff is in position to apply the new data 

 at once, and thereby to obtain a substantial advantage 

 over firms lacking good scientific departments. Trade 

 associations have done much good work that has been 

 of particular value to the smaller units in that ti'ade 

 which otherwise might not have profited from applied 

 research. 



Endowed Institutes 



The endowed institute is, with one or two exceptions, 

 a recent innovation. Some of these institutes have as 

 a definite objective training men in addition to conduct- 

 ing applied research. This is a variation of the fellow- 

 ship system, usually employs men who have graduated 

 many of them with the highest academic degrees — and 

 who are well paid by the donor to attack definite indus- 

 trial problems under the direction of experienced investi- 

 gators. Engaged on a salary basis, they sometimes 

 have an opportunity to add to that income by a share 

 in patentable results of their own work or by some 

 other plan. If successful with their problem they often 

 proceed to the industry for which it was solved, there 

 to supervise the manufacture of a new product or the 

 operation of a new process along the line of their re- 



search, or perhaps to continue the work in the private 

 laboratory of the company. 



Research Foundations 



Recently, some educational institutions have set up 

 foundations within their ow7i organizations to carrj' 

 on this type of industrial research, any profit augment- 

 ing the university's funds for fundamental research. 

 It is obvious that the success of such plans cannot be 

 uniform and that many factors influence them. 



Another type of research organization is the research 

 foundations, of which there are several in the United 

 States. These foundations, for the most part, are 

 engaged in fimdamental research, with the advance- 

 ment of science or the good of the public at large as 

 their principal objective. They are well organized, 

 amply financed, and their record of accomplislunent 

 is too well known to require elaboration here. 



The question naturally arises — to what extent do 

 these various agencies exchange information? Are the 

 results of their work made public? Obviously the 

 work done by trade associations, in certain types of 

 endowed institutions, and certainly the results of 

 research in Government laboratories, become readily 

 available through publication and otherwise to those 

 who have supported the work and frequently, in 

 addition, to those known to be interested. But what 

 about results achieved in private laboratories or sup- 

 ported by individual organizations? 



It is true that many of these results are not released 

 before patents are granted, or at least until application 

 for patent is made. The reports of some work are not 

 available to outsiders until whoever sponsored it feels 

 justified in taking this step or unless the results are 

 in such form that they will give no material aid to a 

 competitor. That is a perfectly proper and natural 

 business procedure. On the other hand the results 

 of a vast amoimt of research are made freely available 

 to all who are interested. Hundreds of scientific 

 publications throughout the world regularly print 

 such information. There are abstract journals which 

 publish the meat of these articles regardless of the 

 language of original publication. 



The men who do the work congregate in frequent 

 meetings, discuss papers, and exchange information ui 

 private sessions. The rapid rise in the teclinological 

 and scientific level in some industries can be traced 

 directly to a faltering beginning of open discussion 

 between the research and teclmical men of the industry, 

 who were at first brought together infrequently and 

 who now meet semiannually imder the auspices of the 

 American Chemical Society or the American Institute 

 of Chemical Engineers. There has been a marked 

 increase in the willingness of the larger corporations 



