Annual Report of the National Research Council

The National Research Council has completed another year of activity, the eighth of its existence, with a definite record of work accomplished and new work put under way. This work has been carried out along the lines and by the methods which have gradually come through experience to be recognized as probably the most advantageous ones which the council can adopt. These lines of work and methods involve and maintain a wide contact on the part of the council with the scientific organizations and men of this country and of various foreign countries, these organizations and men representing both fundamental science and its applications. The actual membership of the council, appointed by the president of the National Academy of Sciences, is chiefly composed of accredited representatives of more than 70 national scientific and technical societies, nominated directly by these societies. Constant and stimulating contact with the colleges and universities of the country is maintained, as also with the Government's various scientific bureaus. Relations with foreign scientific workers and organizations are closely maintained through the International Research Council and its affiliated international unions representing different special fields of science. The council is the official representative in this country of the International Research Council.

The council has been intrusted during the year with the responsibility of expending considerable sums of money appropriated by various foundations, industrial concerns, and individuals for the support of various special undertakings in the way of promotion, organization, and carrying out of scientific work and research. The total budget for the year has been something more than half a million dollars. Later in this report there is presented a statement in summary form of the actual amounts and sources of income received during the year, and in the attached treasurer's report a detailed account of assets, income, and disbursements.

ORGANIZATION AND METHODS OF THE COUNCIL

For the benefit of those who may see for the first time in this annual report any statement concerning the organization and activities of the National Research Council, I reproduce here, with

few changes, certain paragraphs first printed in the annual report of the National Research Council for the year 1920. These paragraphs relate to the general organization and methods of the research council.

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. Its members are appointed by the president of the National Academy of Sciences. The research council enjoys the formal recognition and active cooperation of most of the major scientific and technical societies of the country, being composed in large part of 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 research 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; anthropology and psychology; geology and geography; biology and agriculture; the medical sciences; and engineering and industrial research; and another group of four divisions of general relations, representing foreign relations, Federal relations, States relations, and educational relations. There is also a special research information service. 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, four 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 with the approval of the executive board.

The research 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 realm of a single science or representing different realms in which various parts of a single problem may lie.

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