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

742 Erie Trist
46. In examining what has happened so far we shall begin with the Federal
Republic of Germany as a country where formal government action has been
small.39 Nevertheless, an extensive infrastructure has come into existence. There
is, for example, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research
Association) which gives grants either to institutes or to individuals. It is a pri-
vate association supported by the Federal Government, Lander Governments
and private donations. Its members include representatives of the various
institutions of higher education, the academies of science and scientific associa-
tions. It works in conjunction with private foundations such as the Stiftung
Volkswagenverk and the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung which dispose of large funds.
It has a master programme. This defines ‘important programme areas’ which
influence the directions in which research is undertaken.
47. Important also are the ‘working groups’ of research institutes. Both the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Forschungsinsti-
tute(Working Group of GermanEconomic Research Institutes) and the Arbeits-
gemeinschaft sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute (Working Group of Social
Science Institutes) co-ordinate the research of their many constituent bodies.
The Forschungsgesellschaft fur Agrarpolitik und Agrarsoziologie (Research
Society for Agrarian Policy and Rural Sociology), run by a council of fifty
members including representatives of various ministerial departments, has
secured the participation of thirteen specialized institutes, The aims of the
Working Group of German Economic Research Institutes are defined by its
constitution as follows:
a. members to keep one another informed of their current activities and un-
published results;
b. to help one another through the exchange of information and the provision
of material;
c. research projects to be co-ordinated insofar as they impinge on one another
or appear to call for mutual supplementation;
d. certain subjects or projects to be discussed and possibly pursued jointly or
according to a division of tasks;
e. members to advice jointly upon, or undertake, work arising out of given
economic problems or tasks which the Federal Government or other official
bodies are called upon to undertake.
48. A Wissenschaftsrat (Science Council)s3 was set up by theFederal Government
in I957
to develop a comprehensive plan for the promotion of science; to bring into harmony
the plans of the States and Federal Government; to recommend emphases and priori-
ties ; to make recommendations regarding the allocation of resources made available
from the budgets of the Federal Government and States.
The Council has also made recommendations about the pattern of new univer-
sities.54 It has expressed concern about isolation and particularism.
There should, therefore, be founded a number of over-arching institutes to promote
joint work which will sustain the coherence of larger groups of disciplines now endanger-
ed by specialisation, and which will even expand beyond the boundaries of particular
faculties. Such broad, central institutes might bring together the methods and results of