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. . I 111 
our highly technical society. Three groups—industry, 
technical societies, and the government—have con¬ 
tinued to support research programs in engineering 
experiment stations and other university-affiliated re¬ 
search organizations. 
Industry, either as private companies or through 
its trade associations, has supported applied research 
in a variety of fields. Recently a number of industries, 
recognizing the importance of basic knowledge to 
their progress, through gifts and grants have sup¬ 
ported projects of a fundamental nature. 
Technical societies for many years have supported 
research programs in their areas of specialization. 
Furthermore, through their technical advisory and re¬ 
search committees, they have served as coordinating 
agencies for industry-sponsored research being con¬ 
ducted by universities. 
The government agencies supported relatively little 
research prior to World War II. However, the work 
they did support was very productive. For example, 
the highway programs they have supported have in¬ 
creased safety and reduced costs of highway systems 
all over the country. During and immediately after 
World War II, various defense agencies and the 
Atomic Energy Commission sponsored a considerable 
amount of both basic and applied research. Often this 
research concerned complex problems dealing with 
defense systems and requiring many research work¬ 
ers from different disciplines. Such “team” operation 
brought natural and physical scientists and engineers 
together and provided a very satisfactory method, if 
not the only method, for solving complex system prob¬ 
lems of interest to the defense effort. 
This is a golden anniversary in another important 
sense. The application of research results from these 
two experiment stations alone has saved millions of 
dollars. Often the returns have been several hundred 
times the cost of the project to the sponsor. The re¬ 
sults of research on problems related to our national 
defense are hard to put in terms of dollars saved, 
but benefits from new equipment, simplification and 
improvement of existing equipment, and fundamental 
information needed to make technological advances 
for the future are vital to the defense program. In 
these activities, universities, industry, and the govern¬ 
ment have worked together—each contributing to the 
over-all program. In addition to conducting compre¬ 
hensive research programs, our experiment stations, 
as well as those of other universities, are providing 
training for research personnel needed to man gov¬ 
ernmental and industrial research posts. 
Research, being a quest for answers to the unknown, 
has provided new principles of engineering and the 
sciences on which engineering is based. Even in ap¬ 
plied research, where application of known principles 
is the primary objective, the projects provide a better 
understanding of fundamentals. By maintaining a 
close working relationship between the research and 
educational activities, these new principles and elab¬ 
oration of known principles that are obtained through 
the research program provide valuable educational 
material. In fact, it is largely due to research con¬ 
ducted in engineering colleges that we can attribute 
our present emphasis on teaching fundamentals and 
the concomitant decline in student time spent on 
merely manipulative and descriptive techniques. 
Nearly all curriculums show the effects of these 
changed concepts; progress has been especially notice¬ 
able in such fields as mechanics, thermodynamics, 
electronics, and solid-state science. At the present 
time, the concepts derived from research in solid- 
state physics are being utilized in various fields such 
as metallurgical, ceramic, electrical, and mechanical 
engineering. Plans are now being formulated for the 
introduction of course material into the curriculums 
of these departments through conferences sponsored 
by the American Society for Engineering Education 
and the National Science Foundation. A similar pro¬ 
gram is being conducted to introduce the concepts of 
nuclear engineering to various engineering curricu¬ 
lums. 
Technical advances through research have also in¬ 
tensified the need for continuing education for engi¬ 
neering and science graduates. Research results pro¬ 
vide material for such adult-education programs as 
short courses, conferences, and seminars. Publication 
of research results also provides an educational me¬ 
dium for those who wish to keep abreast of new 
developments. 
The complexity of modern engineering research has 
introduced several problems that are currently affect¬ 
ing the method of conducting our research programs. 
One of the major problems has to do with the large 
amount of technical material published in various 
fields. Today a comprehensive study of the literature 
covering past works in a given field of interest often 
requires more effort than was necessary to complete 
an entire project on the subject of 50 years ago. This 
situation has resulted in specialization of research 
personnel in order to minimize the time required for 
a survey of background material. A group of such 
specialists then works as a team to handle the large 
complex problems. In many cases, the team method 
of operation produces results that would not other¬ 
wise be practicable. However, this method of research 
is expensive and tends to inhibit individual crea¬ 
tiveness. There is need for better support of the 
individual researcher through computing services, ab¬ 
stracting services, literature-search facilities, instru¬ 
mentation services, and so forth. There is also a need 
for better methods of indexing material and for the 
communication of research results to avoid undesir¬ 
able duplication of effort and wasted time and motion. 
The complexity of research also introduces the 
problem of maintaining close relationships between 
teaching and research. As previously mentioned, this 
is desirable if education is to get maximum benefit 
from research. An individual research worker can 
divide his time between his project and teaching with¬ 
out undue complication. However, when he is part 
of a team working on a large project, it is much more 
June II, 1954 
825 
