Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



the usual form in which industry may require further 

 development. 



(4) That field of the Navy Department's endeavor in which 

 research is required, the field and the supporting research 

 being a wholly naval field and entirely without industrial or 

 commercial application. In this field the coordination of the 

 various phases of the research activities must necessarily rest 

 with the Navy Department and many of the individual phases 

 of the research must likewise be conducted by the Navy Depart- 

 ment with its own facilities, personnel and funds, utilizing such 

 collateral research results in parts of the problem as may be 

 available in the literature or in outside research agencies. 



The Xa\y utilizes all four of the procedures above in the 

 research agencies of the various bureaus. The procedure 

 selected to handle a given research problem would depend upon 

 the type of test, ob.iectives, facilities, and also upon the type of 

 personnel which .should be available for maintaining the proper 

 coordination between research and design considerations and 

 service applicability. 



It is constantly necessary to carry on research with naval 

 facilities to find new materials for naval use, and to adapt new 

 methods, materials, devices, equipage, etc., in solving naval 

 problems. 



As a general rule the Navy endeavors to perfect itself in the 

 habit of taking advantage of nongovernmental research facili- 

 ties in so far as practical, in order to take advantage of the 

 fact that the research facilities of the country are much more 

 numerous than those of our possible adversaries. 



In certain fields the Navy's limited research experts can best 

 be used as liaison between the administrative officers and the 

 outside non-Government agencies, in keeping these abreast sci- 

 ence, and in assisting with specifications looking to solutions to 

 our particular problems. The Navy has excellent contact with 

 industrial researcb. and is constantly improving its contact with 

 university research. 



Centralization of Aeronautical Research 



The third form of coordination of research on an 

 extensive scale is best iUustrated by describing the pro- 

 cedure of the National Advisory Committee for Aero- 

 nautics, already referred to in another connection. In 

 this field the Federal Government has exercised its 

 s leadership by setting up and liberally supporting a 

 central research agency to "supervise and direct the 

 scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view 

 to their practical solution," and to "direct and conduct 

 research and experiment in aeronautics." The method 

 in this case is neither cooperation with non-Federal 

 agencies nor a division of the field between Government 

 and industry but amounts to a complete centralization 

 of the function, under a conmiittee representing both 

 Government and industry. 



The membership of the Committee includes nine 

 representatives of the governmental agencies concerned 

 and six recognized aeronautical authorities appointed 

 from private life. Tlie interested agencies of Govern- 

 ment are the War and Navy Departments, the Civil 

 Aeronautics Authority, the Bureau of Standards, the 

 Weather Bureau, and the Smithsonian Institution. 



The War and Navy Departments and the Civil Aeronautics 

 Authority, concerned with military, naval, and commercial 

 aeronautical development, do not conduct fundamental scientific 

 research in aeronautics, but as a result of their equal voice and 

 membership on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronau- 

 tics and on its subcommittees, refer to the N. A. C. A. all of 

 their scientific problems in aeronautics. Problems arising in 

 each agency are usually in some measure related to the needs 

 of other agencies. The necessary scientific laboratory investi- 

 gations are conducted by the N. A. C. A. in one central govern- 

 mental lalxiratory at liUngley Field, Va., and the results are 

 made available to all agencies interested. This procedure obvi- 

 ates the need for separate scientific aeronautical organizations 

 in each of those three Departments and makes possible the 

 meeting of the research needs of those Departments without 

 duplication. 



The results of the N. A. C. A. investig.itions provide the 

 fundamental data on which the design of American aircraft, 

 civil and military, is based. This has resulted in continuous 

 American leadership for the last decade in the technical de- 

 velopment of aircraft, which leadership is universally acknowl- 

 edged. The output of the N. A. C. A. is incorporated in all 

 American aircraft and American principles of design have 

 been copied in the aircraft of many other nations. The con- 

 tributions of the N. A. C. A. have made possible the high 

 efliciency, i)erformance, and safety of the modern airplane, 

 both military and commercial, and have been used by all 

 nations. 



Coordination of research by Federal agencies is less 

 complete in other fields, but the forms used are essen- 

 tially the same as those described above. The system 

 of cooperative agreements so extensively used by the 

 Department of Agriculture has also found favor with 

 such organizations as the Bureau of Mines and the 

 Geological Survey, although in these cases the grant- 

 in-aid is not used. A similar arrangement might well 

 be employed to coordinate industrial research through 

 the Bureau of Standards. 



Mention must also be made here of a new type of 

 coordination exemplified by the Tennessee Valley Au- 

 thority, where research in many fields, including both 

 natural and social sciences, is carried on by a single 

 agency and pointed toward a single goal. The goal 

 in this case is the planned development of a region 

 rich in natural resources, with the research program 

 designed to integrate social and technological advances. 



Recruitment and Classification of Personnel 



// the scientific toork of the Federal Government is 

 to compare favorably with that of other agencies, it 

 must he made possible to secure and retain a uniformly 

 high quality of -personnel. — Governmental research, 

 with a few outstanding exceptions, is done by good 

 average men, under a system of selection and promo- 

 tion which is not conducive to securmg or retaining the 

 services of men much above the average. The present 

 system may m fact operate to force the appointment 

 and subsequent retention of men of definitely mediocre 

 abilities. 



