R & D and corporate planning in government

Abstract

David Peretz is in charge of the Economics Section of the Inter-Bank Research Organization, London. Before that he served as an administrative civil servant in the Ministry of Technology, being for some of that time attached to the Programmes Analysis Unit (PAU) at Harwell, and concerned with studies of the organization of government industrial R & D establishments. This article is based on a paper submitted—in their personal capacities—by the author and James Robertson (Director of IBRO) to the Government in February 1972. This paper was in turn inspired by the Government's publication of Lord Rothschild's report on ‘The Organization and Management of Government R & D’. Like other large organizations, governments are having to come to grips with the interaction between long range planning and R & D activities. Changes are called for both in the methods of choosing priorities for R & D projects and in the organization of the Government's own research resources. The implications of ‘corporate’ planning for Government science have yet to be fully recognized.