Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
The public institutions that support scientific research repeatedly face dilemmas of choice. Limited budgets require a high degree of selectivity in choosing which activities are to be supported. The criteria for selection involve a great variety of factors. Yet the justification for the support of any scientific research is most commonly expressed in such terms as ‘scientific promise’ or ‘relevance’ to some social or economic objective. Such justifications have a great deal of credibility, yet it is too frequently assumed that they correspond to the criteria actually employed in the selective support of specific science activities.
1 Brooks, Harvey, The Government of Science (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1968), pp. 76–7.Google Scholar
2 At the time of this writing, the SRC was considering an upward revision of these levels of authority.
3 Stated in a public lecture given by Professor Sir Brian Flowers at Nottingham University on 6 March 1970.
4 Science Research Council, Selectivity and Concentration in Support of Research (SRC Pamphlets, 1970), p. 9.
5 ‘High Temperature Boost’, Nature, 19 March 1971, p. 141.