NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
251 
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 
EXECUTIVE ORDER ISSUED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
MAY 11, 1918 
The National Research Council was organized in 1916 at the request of the 
President by the National Academy of Sciences, under its Congressional char- 
ter, as a measure of national preparedness. The work accomplished by the 
Council in organizing research and in securing co-operation of military and 
civilian agencies in the solution of military problems demonstrates its capacity 
for larger service. The National Academy of Sciences is therefore requested 
to perpetuate the National Research Council, the duties of which shall be as 
follows : 
1. In general, to stimulate research in the mathematical, physical and biological sciences, 
and in the application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine and other useful 
arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthening the national defense, and of con- 
tributing in other ways to the public welfare. 
2. To survey the larger possibilities of science, to formulate comprehensive projects of 
research, and to develop effective means of utilizing the scientific and technical resources 
of the country for dealing with these projects. 
3. To promote co-operation in research, at home and abroad, in order to secure concen- 
tration of effort, minimize duplication, and stimulate progress; but in all co-operative under- 
takings to give encouragement to individual initiative, as fundamentally important to the 
advancement of science. 
4. To serve as a means of bringing American and foreign investigators into active co-opera- 
tion with the scientific and technical services of the War and Navy Departments and with 
those of the civil branches of the Government. 
5. To direct the attention of scientific and technical investigators to the present importance 
of military and industrial problems in connection with the war, and to aid in the solution of 
these problems by organizing specific researches. 
6. To gather and collate scientific and technical information at home and abroad, in co- 
operation with Governmental and other agencies and to render such information available 
to duly accredited persons. 
Effective prosecution of the Council's work requires the cordial collaboration 
of the scientific and technical branches of the Government, both military 
and civil. To this end representatives of the Government, upon the nomina- 
tion of the National Academy of Sciences, will be designated by the President 
as members of the Council, as heretofore, and the heads of the departments 
immediately concerned will continue to co-operate in every way that may be 
required. 
(Signed) Woodrow Wilson. 
The White House 
May 11, 1918. 
