FEDERAL COUNCIL FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 Price $2.00 As a Nation, we, in the United States, have invented a uniquely successful system of support of graduate education and support of the universities. As a result of these achievements our system has become a model to the entire world--not just in respect to the magnitude of what we do, but in the vitality and success of the enterprise. One of the things that is noted everywhere in Europe, for example, is the relatively free movement of people between Government laboratories, Government posts, industry and universities. This is a pattern which is really unique and a source of considerable strength. In respect to funding, the Federal Government spends about one and one-half billion dollars in support of the conduct of research in universities. On top of this, it spends about three and one-half billion dollars in Federal laboratories. In the past several decades the support of research and development in this country has grown at a dizzy pace, and a generation grew up thinking that that was the normal way of life. This period of what I call heady growth has resulted in enormous advances in medical research, in maintaining a strong military posture in the face of a wildly changing situation, in ensuring the most productive agriculture in the world, and in the great adventure in space, which is still continuing. I stress all of the foregoing and the tremendous amount achieved because in some ways I think that this exuberant period is over, due in part to the enormous pressure on the Federal budget, but also in part to additional considerations. In view of the foregoing, how we utilize the universities and the Government laboratories for their mutual benefit, and what the patterns might be which would strengthen the qualitative performance of our whole scientific system, are important issues. We know that from the standpoint of the laboratories there is an importance to the freshness that comes when either people come into the laboratories with new points of view and different experiences or when their own people go out and join temporarily or for a while other organizations. We know that any good laboratory has or should have a constant preoccupation with the problem of retraining and strengthening its personnel through a variety of kinds of educational programs, which may or may not involve the universities. We know that from the standpoint of the universities, facilities available in the Federal laboratories may be very important to faculty members and students. We know that universities have a laboratory where things aren't highly problem oriented, and going to a laboratory where things are done from a different point of view has something intellectually to contribute to university people. In short there are different kinds of problems which can and should be mutually strengthening and stimulating. The purpose of these Proceedings is to explore and alleviate the problems and to point out and encourage even greater development of the many opportunities inherent in Federal laboratory-university relationships. DONALD F. HORNIG |