Co-operative Research

Abstract

AT the first meeting of the British Association, held in 1831, the Rev. W. Vernon Harcourt proposed that the Association should “employ a short period of every year in pointing out the lines of direction in which the researches of science should move; in indicating the particulars which most immediately demand attention; in stating problems to be solved and data to be fixed; in assigning to every class of mind a definite task; and suggesting to its members that here is a shore of which the soundings should be more accurately taken, and there a line of coast along which a voyage of discovery should be made.” This early suggestion adumbrating the organisation of scientific research met, apparently, with no response, and academic research continued to be conducted entirely on individualistic lines until a few years ago, when a Government department undertook the organisation of certain investigations which were realised to be of fundamental and national importance. In applied science the picture is a different one. Whereas the field for academic research is so vast and so ever-widening that the fear of duplication or mutual interference seldom arises, the problems of applied science, though very numerous, are more restricted in range, and therefore more amenable to organisation. For a long time past, organised research has been carried out by a few large manufacturing firms, but it was not until the British nation recognised, early in the War, that its existence depended upon certain industries which were based upon science, that steps were taken by Government to organise industrial scientific research.