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

720 Eric Trist
internal social science staff (as well as external advisers); and ensure that its
administrators, especially those at top level, are given special training to enable
them to appreciate the contribution of the social sciences. It also advocates
considerable strengthening of the top science policy-making bodies around the
President. A specially important line of recommendation is that the National
Science Foundation ‘should give increased emphasis to institutional and depart-
mental grants and to support of centres organized to develop cumulative know-
ledge’. NSF has, in fact, already begun to do this, reflecting a general change in
us science policy. We may note that the study prepared by NSF for UNESCO~I
states:
The Federal support flowing to institutions of higher education has been principally
centered upon the support of scientific research and education activities. Until the
early 1960s, the principal support was for specific research and development projects or
facilities. However, from 1963 to 1966 a shift became evident, with increased emphasis
towards institutional scientific education rather than specific R & D activities. For
example, while direct federal obligations for academic R & D purposes grew in total,
their proportionate relationship to the total of Federal support for academic science
(research and science education) was 58 % in 1963 but only 42 % in 1966. The current
estimates of Federal agencies indicate a continuation of this trend.
The study also notes a Presidential directive of 1965 that ‘agencies take the
overall development of institutions of scientific excellence throughout the coun-
try into account in their decisions for supporting academic science or research’.
51. The most recent committeeis the Survey Committee on the Behavioral
and Social Sciences (BASS). This is jointly sponsored by the National Research
Council and the Social Science Research Council acting through the Committee
on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences.23 Since
1962, the Committee on Science and Public Policy (COSPUP) has commissioned
reports on the sciences and technologies to enable the President’s Council of
Scientific Advisers to give him clear and informed advice on priorities in re-
search. That on Behavioral and Social Sciences is the most recent. It is a
massive undertaking planned to last two and a half years and be completed
during 1969. Earnest Hilgard of Stanford University is Chairman of the Central
Planning Committee. Henry Riecken of the Social Science Research Council is
Co-chairman on full-time assignment.z8 The following statement was issued :
The Committee on Science and Public Policy has urged a survey of the behavioral and
social sciences. A similar recommendation was made by Donald Hornig, Science
Advisor to the President, on the occasion of the dedication of the new building of the
American Psychological Association in Washington. The present proposal arises not
only in direct response to these invitations and the interest in Congress, but also in
response to a need expressed by the behavioral and social scientists themselves for a
survey of their fields. It is appropriate that a serious and considered response be made
by the community of social and behavioral scientists to these evidences of interest and
to the various hopes and expectations contained in them. Such self-evaluation would
have a number of important outcomes:
a. It would provide an inventory of gaps and strengths in these fields as the basis
for an informed and effective national policy for strengthening and developing the
behavioral and social sciences. Priorities could be suggested not only for general
research needs but in support of certain special requirements, such as: data banks,
special field installations, computational equipment, central or national laboratory