Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

CHAPTER XI
The organization and financing of
research
ERIC TRIST
Part one: Nature and scope of the inquiry
I. SOCIAL RESEARCH AS A POLICY CONCERN
The emergence of a new field of inquiry
I. Interest in science policy and in the organization and financing of research as
an area meriting systematic study is, in the case of the social sciences, of very
recent origin. It is a phenomenon of the sixties, just as interest in systematic
study in this area, as regards the natural sciences, emerged as a phenomenon of
the fifties - when it became recognized that ‘big science’, in physics especially,
had come to stay, bringing in its wake new problems of ‘scientific choice’ and
resource allocation.
2. In asking for questions of science policy, organization and financial
support to be included in its study of the Main Trends of Research in the Social
and Human Sciences, UNESCO was under no illusions that the result at the
present time could be other than fragmentary and tentative. The difficulties
likely to be encountered had come to light in the OECD report to the Second
Ministerial Meeting of Ministers of Science, 1966, The Social Sciences and the
Policies of Governments.168 This concluded that ‘at the moment very little of the
type of statistical material needed to back up (such a study) exists; not only are
internationally comparable statistics non-existent, but few Member countries
have made any serious attempts to compile reliable data at national level’.
3. The most detailed survey then available at the national level was the Report
of the Committee on Social Studies made to the British Government in 1965
under the Chairmanship of Lord Heyworth.55 This was based on oral and
written evidence given by a large number of organizations and individuals
representing both the practitioners and users of the social sciences; on special
seminars and discussions conducted with critically relevant interest groups
(academic and non-academic) ; on whatever statistics could be obtained from
all sources; and on the answers to a comprehensive questionnaire. In spite of