76 Research and National Purpose 



proposals for change are automatically resisted. One reads 

 about fixed research budgets being adjusted, and of dying 

 points in research giving way to growing points, but one seldom 

 hears about deliberate efforts to bring about the demise of a 

 project once it has been started. The tendency is for a piece 

 of research to go on till it dies a natural death because of intel- 

 lectual, leading eventually to financial, inanition. Nonetheless, 

 the new and inexpensive good research worker usually gets 

 what he wants after the quality of his ideas and the excellence 

 of his performance have been endorsed by the more experi- 

 enced scientists who are usually called upon to act as judges 

 by money-giving institutions. This happens even for scientists 

 belonging to countries where very little money is spent on 

 science — for if a man cannot get at home what he feels he need' 

 in order to pursue his researches, he usually finds a way of 

 obtaining it somewhere else — usually in the U.S.A. 



The situation is very different when big money is wanted 

 for some major new departure in basic science, say, for the 

 provision of a new radio-telescope or an accelerator. In these 

 circumstances, the men who pronounce in the national in- 

 terest on the quality and promise of scientific ideas have to 

 agree among themselves that the resources which are being 

 sought would be better spent on the new scheme than on some 

 other expensive work to which they are already devoted — and 

 it is very difficult either to get agreement to such a decision 

 or to implement it if it is agreed. There is always resistance 

 to this kind of change. Basic scientists are usually specialists 

 so far as field of interest is concerned, and redeployment, which 

 would result from any such decision, does not always follow 

 the rules of the market place. 



Alternatively, the judges will have to agree that if new 

 money can be raised, which is the usual way research budgets 

 are adjusted, it would be better spent on the new scheme than 

 on any of, say, a half-dozen other schemes in different areas of 

 science which are also on the table awaiting decision. And 

 someone else would have to agree that the new money could, 

 in fact, be provided. 



