Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



honorary, international, and temporary celebration- 

 fostering organizations are excluded. Of these 250 

 agencies where research might reasonably bo found, 

 126 have reported expenditures from regular funds for 

 some form of scientific research during one or both of 

 the fiscal years 1937 and 1938. Seven additional or- 

 ganizations operating solely on emergency funds bring 

 to a total of 133 the number of Federal agencies with 

 research activities. The distribution of these organi- 

 zations among the departments is shown in table 3. 

 The remaining agencies which conduct no scientific in- 

 vestigations number over 100, exclusive of offices such 

 as those enumerated above. 



Table 3. — Number of agencies reporting research in 1951 or 

 19S8, by departments 



Number of 

 agencies 



Total 133 



Department of State 16 



Treasury Department 13 



War Department 8 



Department of Justice 3 



Post Office Department 1 



Department of the Navy 9 



Department of the Interior 12 



Department of Agriculture 20 



Department of Commerce 7 



Department of Labor 7 



Independent agencies ' 37 



• Includes 7 agencies reporting use of emergency funds only. For 

 names of agencies, see tables 11 and 12. 



A list of the 126 agencies carrying on research from 

 regular funds, together with the research expenditures 

 of each from such funds, is included in table 11. Table 

 12 supplements table 11 by showing the seven inde- 

 pendent agencies having research activities that oper- 

 ate solely with emergency funds. Many of the agencies 

 included in tables 3 and 11 as having i-esearch expendi- 

 tures from regular funds also receive supplementary 

 aid from emergency funds for their research programs. 

 In some cases the use of emergency funds provided a 

 flexible element in the progi-am and permitted expendi- 

 tures for printing, travel, equipment, and other pur- 

 poses previously difficult to finance. However, this 

 report does not show separately for each bureau and 

 independent office the amounts of research expenditures 

 from emergency funds, as the verification of these sep- 

 arate amounts from the several emergency funds has 

 proven too time-consuming an undertaking to complete. 



Concentration of Research Expenditures 

 Among Agencies 



The Department of Agriculture accounts for ap- 

 proximately 31 percent of all the Federal research ex- 

 penditures, exclusive of grants and contributions and 

 emergency obligations. If grants and contributions 



67 



are included in the calculation, the Department of 

 Agriculture would be the beneficiary of over 35 per- 

 cent of the Federal research expenditures financed from 

 regular funds. Five of the Departments (Agriculture, 

 Commerce, War, Interior, and Navy) expend, in the 

 aggregate, approximately three-fourths of all the reg- 

 ular funds for research. The juimerous independent 

 offices, although in some cases important individually, 

 account for only about one-sixth of the research 

 expenditures from regular funds (see table 4). 



Table 4. — Research expenditures from regular funds hp Depart- 

 ments, showing bureaus and independent agencies spending 

 $1,000,000 or more for research, fiscal years 1937 and lOSS 



I Excludes contribntioa«i to international coDferences. 



3 Excludes crants to States. 



' Less than Ha of I percent. 



* Fijnires for this agency indnde some amounts for activities which are considered 

 "research" according to the definition used in this study, but which have not been 

 Included in the ofBcial amounts for research published by the Department of 

 Agriculture. 



