The Academic Research Enterprise within the Industrialized Nations Comparative Perspectives (1990) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
United States
United States
Pages 15-38
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 15... ...
The United States lacked places of higher learning that deserved to be called universities-institutions where teaching would reach the existing limits of knowledge, where future scholars could be formed, and where contributions to the advancement of knowledge would be encouraged. For the last century of this span, at least a few Americans were conscious of this lack.
|
From page 16... ...
The faculties of Harvard College and the Lawrence Scientific School were combined, and this new entity, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, became responsible for the reorganized Graduate School (1890~. A set of courses "primarily for graduates" was now offered.
|
From page 17... ...
Previously, American universities had relied upon gifts and endowments to support their purely scientific work in separate observatories and museums, but philanthropy could not be relied upon to support the ongoing investigations within university departments. The American university prior to World War One lacked external backers for its considerable research ambitions.8 THE INTERWAR YEARS: EMERGENCE OF A RESEARCH ECONOMY The most momentous change of the interwar years was the emergence of regular, recurrent sources of funding explicitly for research-a university research economy.
|
From page 18... ...
Beardsley Ruml, new director of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, undertook to build knowledge of society by promoting social science research and graduate training. From 1924 to 1928 he committed $20 million to these efforts, most of which went directly or indirectly to the research universities.
|
From page 19... ...
Academic science was largely directed by a tacit oligarchy of eminent scientists who shared a number of ideological convictions: university research should be supported by society because of the unforeseen benefits that basic scientific discoveries would bring; funding should be directed to the best scientists, who would produce the most fruitful results; only scientists of established reputation could determine who the best scientists might be; and, private support was preferable to that from government in order to preclude the taint of politics in these delicate decisions. During the Ruml-Rose era, it suited the purposes of the foundations to operate in a manner consistent with these values.
|
From page 20... ...
THE POSTWAR ERA: FEDERAL SUPPORT AND PROGRAMMATIC RESEARCH Academic science demonstrated its usefulness to the country during World War Two, and it was continued usefulness that was demanded from universities by the federal government in the years following the war. Prior to 1940, the only significant amounts of federal support for university research were directed to the agricultural extension stations.
|
From page 21... ...
205.5 141.7 101.2 19.2 16.6 1.4 3.4 17.5 22.7 18.6 5.0 74.2 13.5 60.7 130.0 SOURCE: National Science Foundation, Scienapc Research and Development in Colleges and Universiizes: Expenditures and Manpower, 1954. In the immediate postwar era the universities were tossed by some confusing cross-currents.
|
From page 22... ...
(See Table 2. ~ In 1952, ten universities received 43.4 percent of federal research TABLE 2 CONCENTRATION OF FUNDING Federal R&D Obligations to Top Ten Research Universities as a Percent of Total Federal Obligations for University R&D 1952 1958 1968 1975 1987 43.4% 37.0% 27.7% 25.8% 21.9% NOTE: Top-ten universities defined as the ten universities with largest expenditures for separately-budgeted R&D derived from federal government sources.
|
From page 23... ...
There was a fair degree of pluralism in the postwar research economy if one took into account the several federal patrons; however, the funding possibilities for individual fields were often quite circumscribed. The postwar statesmen of science Bush, Conant, and Karl Compton, among others had been concerned to preserve the pluralism of American university research by maintaining viable private alternatives to federal funding.
|
From page 24... ...
These years also witnessed a dramatic improvement in university research capacity, particularly at the major private institutions. In general, public research universities made greater improvements in per-student expenditures before 1955 (partly because of enrollment growth thereafter)
|
From page 25... ...
Whereas universities expended 32 percent of the funds for basic research in 1958, they spent 57 percent of the total in 1968. This was a golden age for academic science.
|
From page 26... ...
This meant aggressively recruiting productive scholars and scientists, and devoting their own discretionary funds to building research capacity. This was the rational course.
|
From page 27... ...
The proportions of academic science obligations awarded by NIH and NSF remained about the same, although both agencies altered their policies by devoting significantly more of their funds to actual research. This behavior maintained the pool of project funds, but had an additional, adverse impact on universities.
|
From page 28... ...
lbo prlvste unlvcrsltlcs, ln ~cnerat had teDded to overcommlt themselves durlog thc lstc 1 960s, sud ss s result concentrstcd on putdDg tholr budgets bsck ln10 the black durlDg 1he early 1970s. Stste research unlvcrsltles came uDder lDcrcsslag pressure durlog the esrly 1970s to justify thclr high costs to egalltsclan-mlnded leglslator~ From sbout 1968 lt ~ss vlrtuslly tskon for grsutcd ths1 s major new federal progrsm would have to bc lnl11ated ln order to rectlEy thc flnancla1 condldons prcvalUng 1n blghcr cducstlon.
|
From page 29... ...
Most importantly, the research capacity continues to depend in large measure on the vigor of individual universities, while the amount of research performed depends upon funding from the extramural research economy. Secondly, these external funds represent a shifting balance between support for disinterested basic research in the academic disciplines and programmatic research in keeping with the interests of funders.
|
From page 30... ...
Roger L Geiger TABLE 5 RELATIVE SHIFT IN R&D EXPENDITURE SHARE: 1974-76 TO 1984~6 Slightly Increased Slightly Decreased Decreased Research Share Research Share Research Share Cornell MIT Michigan Stanford Yale UC Berkeley Texas Illinois Princeton Caltech UCLA Wisconsin Minnesota Harvard Penn Columbia Chicago SOURCE: National Science Foundation TABLE 6 CHANGE IN R&D SHARE OF LARGE RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES 1974-76 TO 1984 86 Positive Change >20% 10 to 20% 0 to 10% Universities Performing ~ 2.0% in 1974-1976 Universities Performing 1.0-2.0% in 1974-1976 0 2 1 SOURCE: National Science Foundation Negative Change 0 to -10% -10 to -20% <-20% 2 8 5 o 2 4 30
|
From page 31... ...
Research has increased as a university priority since the stagnant years of the 1970s. The result, despite relatively little assistance from the federal government, has been to augment the research capacity of American universities.
|
From page 32... ...
Bulmer, "Philanthropy and Social Science in the 1920s: Beardsley Ruml and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, 1922-1929," Minerva, Vol.
|
From page 33... ...
New York: Lee Ford Foundation, 1978.; American Society for Engineering Education, Size Qualify of Engineering Education Washington, D.C., 1986; D Fuqua, American Science and Science Policy Issues: Chairman's Report to the Committee on Science and Technology, Washington, D.C., 1986; B
|
From page 34... ...
"Philanthropy and Social Science in the 1920s: Beardsley Ruml and the Aura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, 1922-1929." Minerva.
|
From page 35... ...
E "Science and Philanthropy: Wickliffe Rose and the International Education Board." Minerals Vol.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.