8 



National Resources Committee 



Table II. — The distribution of 23Ji,254 positions the salaries of 

 which are fixed under the pay schedules of the Classificatimj 

 Act, summarized according to the four services covered in thin 

 inquiry 



to establish a basis for comparison by calling attention 

 to certain facts which are available with respect to 

 recent developments and expenditures in industrial 

 research. 



Writing in 1930, the Chairman of the National Re- 

 search Council made the following statement : 



Everybody knows tbat applied science has been enormously 

 developed in the United States in recent years. Where 10 years 

 ago the existence of less than 500 industrial research labora- 

 tories, maintained by commercial industrial concerns, was re- 

 corded in a bulletin issued by the National Research Council, 

 this year more than 1,600 such laboratories have been listed in 

 a revised edition of this bulletin. 



In addition to the scientific output of these laboratories there 

 is an ever-swelling tide of new applications of science coming 

 from the numerous technological institutes and colleges and the 

 university schools of engineering. 



Not all the work in the laboratories of tlie indus- 

 tries is to be classified as research. Some of it is test- 

 ing of the routine type, which, as stated earlier, is not 

 recognized in this report as scientific research. With 

 the fact in mind that there is a distinction between re- 

 search and testing, William A. Hamor, of the Mellon 

 Institute, writing in the issue of Industrial and Engi- 

 neering GhemiMry for January 10, 1938, furitishes 

 perhaps the best estimate that can be made of the ex- 

 penditures of industry for strictly scientific research. 

 He states : "In the United States, over $100,000,000 was 

 expended in industrial research during 1937." The 

 same authority estimated for the Science Committee 

 the number of research workers employed in industry. 

 In a letter dated March 10, 1938, he writes : "The num- 

 ber of industrial research workers at present is said 

 to be approximately 25,000, embracing scientists and 

 engineers engaged in basic production, plant, and mer- 

 chandising investigations. Some authorities, however, 

 believe that 20,000 is a much closer calculation." 



Tlie foregoing statements do not include the research 

 costs and personnel of commercial establishments 

 which conduct inquiries in banking, marketing, and 

 other social science fields. Estimates as to the extent 

 of such research are difficult to secure for the reason 

 stated by the Bureau of Foi'eign and Domestic Com- 



merce of tiie United States Department of Commerce 

 in the 193G edition of its publication entitled Market 

 Research Sources. The statement made in this pub- 

 lication is: "The preparation of Market Research 

 Sources is an attempt to bring together projects of cur- 

 rent value in the field of marketing. * * * There 

 are many organizations conducting research of a con- 

 fidential nature not included in Market Research 

 Sources.''^ 



Expenditures by the Government 

 in Support of Research During the 

 Fiscal Year 1936-37 



A complete statement of the expenditures of the Fed- 

 eral Government for reseai'ch during the fiscal year 

 ending on June 30, 1937, is presented in a later sec- 

 tion of this volume. It is there shown that in the 

 fiscal year 1936-37 tlie Federal Government spent on 

 research about one dollar for eacli person in the United 

 States. About 70 million dollars came from regular 

 funds and an additional 50 million dollars from emer- 

 gency funds. If Federal contributions for research 

 carried on by non-Federal agencies are deducted from 

 these amounts, the expenditures in the fiscal year 1936- 

 37 for research within Federal agencies were about 65 

 million dollars from regular funds and about 20 mil- 

 lion dollars from emergency funds. 



Research has never been a large part of the Federal 

 budget and still remains insignificant in the work of 

 many governmental agencies. Since the World War, 

 however, the trend of research expenditures has been 

 upward despite the rather severe retrenchment in 1932 

 and 1933. Research expenditui'es in the social sciences 

 and statistics have increased markedly since the adop- 

 tion of the recoveiy programs. The percentage of 

 governmental expenditures for researcli is less than 

 the percentage of expenditures for research in uni- 

 A-ersities and in some industries. According to the 

 studies made by the members of tlie staff who prepared 

 the report on research in universities, about 25 per 

 cent of the expenditures of 20 leading universities is 

 for research. Some industrial concerns are known to 

 be spending more than 4 per cent of their gross in- 

 come for research. The f)art of the regular current 

 expenses of the Federal Government appropriated for 

 research is about 2 per cent. 



The regular research activities of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment are largely in the fields of the natural sciences 

 and their applications. Researches in the social 

 sciences and statistics account for about one-fourth of 

 the expenditures made from regular funds. Most of 

 the expenditures for research made from emergency 

 funds are in the social science fields and statistics. 

 There are included in the total of approximately 65 

 million dollars of expenditures from regular funds 



