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Behavioral and Social Science: 50 Years of Discovery
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The pioneer spirit is still vigorous within this nation. Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools. . . . [Vannevar Bush, Science, The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President, July 1945] The words of Vannevar Bush have not lost currency in the intervening four decades. But his 1945 report testifies to a further proposition: behind most scientific explorations stand committees on research, responsible for seeing that the tools of science are kept current, in adequate supply, and available to those who can use them most productively. These responsibilities call not only for short-term decisionmaking on a monthly or other periodic basis, but also for occasional sweeps of the horizon, to absorb the lessons of the past and plan thoughtfully for the future. The Committee on Basic Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences was established in early 1980 at the request of the National Science Foundation and operates under the auspices of the National Research Council's Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. The committee's first task— to assess the value, significance, and social utility of basic research in the behavioral and social sciences—was designed to respond to questions posed to the foundation, principally by its congressional overseers, on a fairly short-order basis. These inquiries required a systematic look at the nature and methods of research in these fields and specification of the criteria by which a national interest in support of basic research could be established. This first phase of committee work resulted in the publication of Behavioral and Social Science Research: A National Resource (National Academy Press, 1982).
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS - Organizational Body
0-309-54241-3
NONE
Management
English
1986
1-311
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