The Application of Social Research

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rN DELIVtERING this inaugural address, I regard it as unfortunate that I do not have the opportunity of refemng to an immediate predecessorJ , iand of drawing upon his contributions and expenence in discussing the status and prospects of the field of work under review. But this fotrmal occasion does give me one opportunity which I am anxious to seize-that of paying tribute to my teachers and colleagues who have offered so much help and encouragement. In particular, I wish to express my indebtedness to three people with whom I have had the good fortune to be associated. To the Director of the SchoolJ Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, I owe the first impetus in studying population questions. In the field of population studies, as in many other branches of social research, the Director has done pioneer work, and I have benefited greatly from his expenence as well as from his unfailing support. I am glad, further, to have the opportunity of expressmg in public, and to such an audience, my thanks to Professor Lancelot Hogben. The two years I spent in his department were years of continuous mental stimulationJ for Professor Hogben illuminates every subject he touches. Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the late Dr. R. R. Kuczynski, who did more than any other individual ln our generation to promote the development of demography His work was distinguished by its meticulous and disinterested scholarship, and its complete integrity. Equally outstandmg was the warmth of his personality. No one who expenenced it could possibly forget. Alentionlng those names also provides a direct link with the subject I wish to discuss to-day the application of social research. For those three people, academic ln the best sense of the term, have also been distingiished by their irlterest in social policy and in the relation of research to policy. And it is the application of social research to social policy with which I am here concerned. To be more specific, I propose to discuss not the methods of, but the need for research, and the main stages at which the application of research is most required. I take it as axiomatic that planning, even more in the social than in the economic field, is here to stay. This has one oblrious implication relevant