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educational objectives or community service goals of our universities. 
Mr. Crinean. Thank you, Doctor. 
I would finally ask briefly about your confederation of ocean infor- 
mation centers. Is this something that can be done within the existing 
framework or do you feel that this requires some action on the part 
of Congress ? 
Dr. Grirris. The present effective information dissemination centers 
capable of participating in the field of engineering information are 
generally scattered within many agencies, some duplicating , and I 
think some handicapped by the lack of adequate facilities. I believe 
that a confederation to coordinate the activities of these within a 
single agency will be most effective in bringing about a total ocean 
capability. 
The volume of information which is arising these days particularly 
in the last few years and which is bound to expand into the future 
more rapidly requires that there be less numbers of centers of informa- 
tion and better communication among them so that any one inquiry 
in a given area can be transmitted throughout a network of informa- 
tion centers and that all the information not be required to be in all 
of these centers. 
Mr. Crincan. Am I correct in assuming that this 1s something that 
could be worked out among the information centers themselves? 
Dr. Grirris. It would be more effective to have a central coordina- 
tion function in the central national agency if this becomes, indeed, 
a possibility. 
Mr. Crrnean. ‘Thank you. 
Mr. Lennon. Doctor, this is not germane to the subject you are 
addressing yourself to, but off of the top of your head, do you know in 
round dollars, and when I say round dollars, how many billions of 
dollars the Federal Government expends for research in the colleges 
and universities of this country just in the DOD or the services alone, 
outside of the many other agencies which have research and develop- 
ment, R. & D. contracts? 
Dr. Grirris. $2 billion ; $2 billion to $3 billion a year. 
Mr. Lennon. That is my recollection of the figure. I wonder what 
our colleges and universities would do, or what the Government would 
do if we didn’t have these approximately i in round figures $3 billion 
a year of taxpayers’ moneys going into research contracts at the uni- 
versities and colleges of the country. I think the colleges and universi- 
oe would suffer and the people would suffer, too. There is no question 
about it. 
Dr. Grirris. Mr. Chairman, you have raised an important ques- 
tion about how essential these funds are, both to the universities and 
to the Federal Government, and what would they do if these dollars 
did not go into research contracts at our colleges and unversities. 
In judging how to reply to this question, I “feel constrained to sug- 
gest that any answer should include consideration of several basic mat- 
ters including the following: 
1. Is the university the best possible source of competence and 
project effort which can be enlisted for solving the defense problems 
under consideration ? 
2. Is the solution to these defense problems properly compatible 
with the central objectives of the university ? 
