T. J. Killian 
Thus ONR became the first agency of the U.S. Government to be established primarily 
to support scientific research across the board in any discipline. It underlined the Navy’s 
belief that all future attempts to maintain our national defense through seapower would 
depend in large part on the cooperation of the country’s scientific community with the naval 
authorities. 
To achieve this goal, at its inception the office established the guiding principle that 
it would foster fundamental research in universities and nonprofit institutions. Furthermore, 
we decided that such support should be given whether or not the projects might hold promise 
of immediately foreseeable applications for naval use. This was rather revolutionary 
doctrine in those days. 
In other words, the Navy is quite willing to risk its funds on research projects without 
being certain we will get definite results for our money. The scientist himself, of course, 
cannot predict his results in advance, even though he starts off fully confident that he will 
throw some new light on his particular subject. On the other hand, itis quite possible that 
after a year or two of research he will discover that he has been proceeding up a blind 
alley. But ONR accepts the view that even negative results often have great value. The 
point is that uncertainty is a fact of life in scientific research. As one American scientist 
has stated, “the most important facts that wait to be discovered are those whose existence 
we do not even suspect at the present time.” 
There were other policies we inaugurated which were also innovations in support of 
academic research by the military services. For example, we insisted that the freedom of 
basic research from security restrictions was essential to the quality and rapid progress of 
the work being carried on. Today only a slight percentage, less than 1 percent, of our 
research contracts are classified, and these are not in the category of basic research. Our 
early policy also stated that the Navy should cooperate with, rather than attempt to direct 
and control the work of, the scientists engaged in research on its projects. 
A brief summary of the administration of our contract research program today will 
illustrate how we have continued to carry out this early policy. About 80 percent of the 
funds in this program.are used to support contracts in the basic research category. These 
contracts are awarded on the basis of proposals submitted to ONR, which are unsolicited. 
Normally we receive many more proposals than we could find if we had to seek them. 
Selection is made by evaluating the scientific merit of the idea, and the competence of 
the principal investigator; finally we must have some idea as to how the results of the 
research to be undertaken could conceivably influence the Navy of the future. The size of 
the organization to which the investigator is attached or the type of organization, whether 
academic, nonprofit or industrial, is not a factor in our consideration. ONR seeks only to 
support the best research in any particular field. 
We recognize also that few projects can be completed in one year. Therefore, research 
contracts let by ONR are not limited to one year; they average three years’ duration or more. 
Not infrequently they are extended. This has made possible long-term basic research pro- 
grams where several years were required to achieve fruition. In referring to the policy and 
operation of ONR, Dr. Nathan Pusey, President of Harvard, has said: “Backing of this kind 
gives the scientist confidence and frees him from the burdensome and wasteful necessity of 
making yearly special plans, special budgets, and special appeals for funds.” 
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