The Support of University Research by the Science Research Council

The public institutions that support scientific research repeatedly face dilemmas of choice. Limited budgets require a high degree of selectivity in choosing which activities are to be supported. The criteria for selection involve a great variety of factors. Yet the justification for the support of any scientific research is most commonly expressed in such terms as ‘scientific promise’ or ‘relevance’ to some social or economic objective. Such justifications have a great deal of credibility, yet it is too frequently assumed that they correspond to the criteria actually employed in the selective support of specific science activities.