The Maintenance of Scientific Research¹

Abstract

BROADLY taken, the apparatus of prosecution of research in this country is made up as follows: (1) Scientific and professional societies and some institutions entirely privately supported; (2) universities and colleges, with their scientific departments; (3) institutions, using that term in the widest sense, directly subventioned by the State, such for instance as the Medical Research Council, the Development Commission, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Of these three categories, the first named, the scientific societies group, works without financial aid from the State, apart from the small though extremely useful two Government grants distributed, mainly to individual workers, through the Royal Society. At the present time many of the societies sorely need financial help to carry on their labours, and some are absolutely at a loss to know how to publish the scientific results that are brought to them. The second category, the universities and colleges, depends in part upon Government aid. In the aggregate of twenty-one institutions of university rank, following Vice-Chancellor Adami's figures, students' fees and endowment provide about 63.5 per cent. of the total income; for the rest they are dependent on Government grant. The third category, as said, draws State-support direct.