CONTENTS. Fifth annual report of the National Research Council__ General policies and organization Relations to the National Academy of Sciences_. Page FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL. [Prepared by VERNON KELLOGG, permanent secretary, and the chairmen of divisions.] INTRODUCTION. As explained in the fourth annual report of the council (for 1919), the reorganization of the council converting it from a war-time organization (with an admirable record of useful achievement) to a peacetime organization, was accomplished during the end of 1918 and beginning of 1919. In this period a skeleton of organization was clothed with the flesh of a living, active personnel, and a definite program of undertaking was laid out. This program has been looked on as a flexible and adaptable one, capable of expansion or reduction or other modification even to the extent, if it seemed desirable, of complete making over. As a matter of fact this program has so far been followed along its essential original lines, the principal changes made in it being ones of extension. The history of the National Research Council during 1920 is that of an organization controlled by its own membership and supported by other than Government aid. However, as indicated in the fourth annual report, it is the policy and hope of the council to maintain close contact with Government departments and organizations interested in specific scientific work and in the general promotion of science in the United States. To this end the council maintains a special division of Federal relations (formerly called the Government division) which includes in its membership representatives, appointed by the President of the United States, of various Government scientific departments, bureaus, and organizations. This division, therefore, formally and actually provides definite contacts between the council and the Government. GENERAL POLICIES AND ORGANIZATION. There has been no essential change in the general policies or organization of the council. As it exists to-day, therefore, the National Research Council is a cooperative organization of the scientific men of America, including also a representation of men of affairs and business men interested in industry and engineering and in the fundamental or "pure" science on which the "applied" science used in these activities depends. The council enjoys the formal recognition and active cooperation of most of the major scientific and technical societies of the country, its membership being composed in large part of appointed representatives of these societies. Its essential purpose is the promotion of research in the physical and biological sciences and the encouragement of the application and dissemination of scientific knowledge for the benefit of the Nation. The council is composed of a series of major divisions, one group of seven divisions of science and technology representing, respectively, physics, mathematics and astronomy; chemistry and chemical technology; psychology and anthropology; geology and geography; biology and agriculture; the medical sciences; and engineering; and another group of six divisions of general relations, representing foreign relations, Federal relations, States relations, educational relations, research extension, and research information. As subordinate or affiliated lesser groups, each of these divisions comprises a larger or smaller series of committees, each with its special problem or subject of attention. There are certain other committees, administrative and technical, which affiliate directly with the executive board of the council. Its general administrative officers are a chairman, three vice chairmen, permanent secretary, treasurer, and a chairman of each of the various divisions. All of these, except the permanent secretary and treasurer, are elected annually by the executive board or by the members of the divisions. The council is neither a large operating scientific laboratory nor a repository of large funds to be given away to scattered scientific workers or institutions. It is rather an organization which while clearly recognizing the unique value of individual work, hopes especially to help bring together scattered work and workers and to assist in coordinating in some measure scientific attack in America on large problems in any and all lines of scientific activity, especially, perhaps, on those problems which depend for successful solution on the cooperation of several or many workers and laboratories, either within the realms of a single science or representing different realms in which various parts of a single problem may lie. It particularly intends not to duplicate or in the slightest degree to interfere with work already under way; to such work it only hopes to offer encouragement and support where needed and possible to be given. It hopes to help maintain the morale of devoted isolated investigators and to stimulate renewed effort among groups willing but halted by obstacles. It will try to encourage the interest of universities and colleges in research work and the training of research workers, so that the inspiration and fitting of American youth for scientific work may never fall so low as to threaten to interrupt the constantly needed output of well-trained and devoted scientific talent in the land. With any serious interruption in the output of American science and scientific workers, the strength of the Nation will be immediately threatened. The industries are to-day seriously draining the universities and the technical bureaus of the Government in their eager RELATIONS TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. י7 search for scientific men. This may mean an immediate advantage to the industries, but it means also an immediate menace to the indispensable scientific work of the Government and universities. It is the obtaining of a supply of scientific men to satisfy the needs of the industries at the present at the expense of the provision of scientific men for the future. For it is upon the presence in the universities of a large body of devoted and inspiring scientific workers and teachers that the training and inspiration of new workers depends. The methods of contributing practical assistance to American science in harmony with the general point of view and policy outlined above which the council has so far adopted are various. One is the establishment of special committees of carefully chosen experts for specific scientific subjects or problems urgently needing consideration, which plan modes of attack and undertake to find men and means (with the assistance of the general administrative offices of the council) for carrying out the plan. About 80 such committees are now in existence. Another is the bringing together of industrial concerns interested in the development of the scientific basis of their processes and inducing them to support the establishment of special laboratories or institutions devoted to this development under the advice of experts representing the council. Another is the stimulation of larger industrial organizations, which may be in the situation to maintain their own independent laboratories, to see the advantage of contributing to the support of pure science in the universities and research institutes for the sake of increasing scientific knowledge and scientific personnel on which future progress in applied science absolutely depends. Other methods are the direct maintenance of university research fellowships; the publication of valuable scientific papers for which there is at present no other suitable prompt means of issuance; the preparation of bibliographies and abstracts of current scientific literature; the setting up of well-considered mechanisms for the collection and distribution of information on current research, university and industrial research laboratories and facilities, research personnel, etc.; and the dissemination through the press and magazines of popular but authentic scientific news and information for the sake of increasing the public interest in and support of productive scientific work. Still other forms of activities might be listed, but those given adequately illustrate the council's methods. RELATIONS TO THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. The National Research Council was established in 1916 at the request of the President of the United States under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences. The existence of the counci and its work was specially recognized by the President by an Executive order dated May 11, 1918, in which its institution by the Academy |