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

The organization and financing of research 767
under way, with foreign university institutions and research bodies to combine
the knowledge and technique of other countries with personal acquaintance
with Latin American conditions. Mention may be made of the institutional
relations maintained by North American universities with the Fundaci6n La
Salle and other Venezuelan bodies, or the work of the French institution,
Economie et Humanisme, with the assistance of Venezuelan personnel. The
Management Sciences Center of the University of Pennsylvania has set up
interchangeable adjunct professorships with the National University of Mexico.
It was suggested that wider currency might advantageously be given to the idea
at present being considered by the Centro Latinoamericano de Venezuela
(CLAVE) of organizing, with the cooperation of the University of California in
Los Angeles and the Instituto Caribe de Antropologia y Sociologia in Venezue-
la, summer courses on Latin American social problems and on research method-
ology. These courses, which serve as specialist training for researchers, differ
from the ordinary type. Instructors go to where the students are. As these
courses take place when the instructors have no classroom commitments, more
students can be handled and the cost is appreciably lower.
IO. Few Latin American social scientists are research-minded in the empirical
sense. They are ‘professors’. In the prevailing pattern research is too closely
tied to university teaching of a didactic kind. The concept of the social research
worker has not taken root. His status remains that of a poor relation. He is
without a recognized career. Though this results in part from the absence of
equipment and funds it also expresses a deeper cultural attitude which has
inhibited the testing of hypotheses by empirical means.
11. The universities require to come to terms with the possible sources of
support in their societies. To do so they must undertake applied research.
This will free them from being simply passive critics of the existing social order and
enable them to become contributors to the efforts being made by government bodies
and private enterprises to facilitate change and establish the conditions for social and
economic development. This would at one and the same time enrich research and social
action.
This is underscored in the Venezuelan report: IOo
Basic research is obviously essential for the increase of human knowledge and as the
starting point for all applied research. However, as the problems grow more acute, it
becomes increasingly necessary to arrive at practical solutions and hence to direct the
research effort towards securing those solutions. This does not always mean that we
must persist in recourse to applied research as the only kind of research. Basic research
needs to be made ‘operational’, i.e. to be pursued in the context of the requirements of
a particular problem. The most important thing, in fact, is not to abandon basic
research in favour of applied research - a course which, as was mentioned to begin
with, would be neither rational not desirable-but, firstly, to develop new methodologies
which will allow of more time-efficient research, both basic and applied, and secondly,
to pursue both types in the context of an operational object.
Another report”’ emphasizes the need to develop motivations for undertaking
research careers :
As a general rule, the developing countries have potential ‘researcher’ resources which
are being inadequately exploited. It is felt that the provision of motivations for research