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

The organization andfinancing of research 715
36. On the educational side of HEW, a network of 23 educational laboratories
and development centres has recently been set up to carry on basic research in
close contact with state and local school systerns.3’ These educational laboratories
are an analogue of agricultural experimental stations. On the welfare side,
programme evaluation has come to the fore as an area requiring systematic
research. The expansion of statistical series has made available nation-wide
data for new types of ecological and demographic inquiry.I
37. Among the six agencies which distributed $10-100 million in 1967 the
newcomer is the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), one of the principal
administrative organs of the ‘Poverty Program’. Its move up to second place is
an indication of the incipient engagement of American social science with the
internal crisis of the society. OEO has already established an Institute for Poverty
Research at the University of Wisconsin. Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), which appears in the group of agencies contributing less than $I million
in 1967, is already moving up to a much higher position, being estimated
to fund projects totalling close on $11 million in 1968.’ The establishment of
‘urban laboratories’ in major cities is being considered. The old stager in this
group of agencies is the Department of Agriculture whose use over several
decades of economics and sociology has stimulated developments in many
countries.
38. A domain requiring special comment is ‘foreign area research’. A few
years ago ‘Project Camelot’ created a scandal over the use by the Army of
social research for what was construed as political purposes in Chile. Since then
CIA involvement as a funding source in various projects has been made public.
The ensuing debate has led to positive changes. In 1964 the State Department
set up a Foreign Area Coordination Research Group (FAR). By 1966 there were
22 participating agencies spending $36,000,000 a year. A conference was arranged
by the Behavioral Sciences Division of the National Academy of Sciences/
National Research Council which issued a report in January 1967.~4 This
conference established a mechanism through which an open dialogue could
take place between agency officials, social scientists and foundation executives
to establish principles which would unambiguously distinguish the proper and
improper use of social research in relation to foreign policy. The learning process
set under way may in time lead to the possibility of carrying out responsible
social research in controversial areas. Such endeavours are beginning to be
made under international auspices such as those carried out by the UNESCOsponsored
European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in
Social Sciences at Vienna.*
* Mention may be made in this context of the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict at
University College, London, which contributed analyses to a seminar of diplomats
from both sides which played a part, however small, in the de-escalation of the
Indonesian-Malaysian confrontation and also led to some new concepts for social
science.