4126 CORRESPONDENCE

academic type of research more and more towards project-oriented research.

But there are also voices to be heard asserting that, in a country which has not enough resources for the fullest development of both the university and the nat ional laboratory sectors, the universities, apar t f rom the pursuit of fundamental knowledge, should also t a k e a hand in industrial research and consultation. I f these ideas develop, the universities and national laboratories

will stiU be fellow-travellers on a large stretch of the road.

India House,

London.

Yours faithfulIy,

A. J. K I D W A I

13 February, 1966.

Sir , - -Phi l ip Ritterbush puts British universities in his debt, if they would

but realise it. Fo r his article 1 draws attention ,to the fact that even in such an

affluent country as the United States the universities need to call upon the

resources of government laboratories ,to help in the training of scientists and

technologists and he describes several ways in which cooperation between

academics and scientific civil servants can be secured. If this sort of cooperation is desirable in the United States, it is even more

desirable in Britain, for we have less money to spend on science and technology and we train a smaller proport ion of our populat ion to become scientists or

technologists. We assert that we would train more if we had the facilities.

Science professors complain to the University Grants Commi,ttee with eloquence often amounting to vehemence that laboratories are squalid, .equipment is

obsolescent, technical help is inadequate; in short, that the state is not provid-

ing the financial tools to enable them to maintain Britain's scientific prestige.

Arts professors complain with no less eloquence that the humanities are being starved because universities have to spend so much of their resources on

science and technology. Often the complaints are justified, though the remedies

proposed to meet them are (apart f rom the simple remedy of unlimited

money) confusing. One don cries, " H a n d s off the universities ", though it is not clear whose hands are on them, except the hands of other dons; another don suggests that the way to preserve a proper balance of studies in univer- sities is for the Universities Grants Committee to take over from the universities the invidious job of cutting the financial cake, by making earmarked grants to each university for medicine, modem languages, education

and so on. Rit terbush shows how a partnership with government laboratories over the

training of graduate students can allow universities to deploy their resources mare effectively. Such a partnership in Britain might be even more beneficial,

Ritterbush, Philip C., "Research Training in Governmental Laboratories in the United States ", Minerva, IV, 2 (Winter, 1966), pp. 186-201.

UNIVERSITIES AND GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES 407

particularly if it were accompanied by a partnership between universities to

pool their resources in some fields of study, as 11 mid-west America,n univer-

sities are doing through the Committee on Institutional Cooperat ion (C.I.C.), for there is arising among our universities a good deal of duplication of resources. To quote an example already made public: there are, to put it bluntly, too many faculties of agriculture among British universities. More-

over there are many government-financed agricultural research laboratories

with first-class equipment where first-class research is going on. Already there

is some cooperation between universities and these government departments

but the limited amount of money available for higher education in Britain

could be more effectively used if there could be more cooperation than there is

at present between government laboratories and universities in the training of

students, and between universities themselves. Could students migrate, for

example, from one university to another or to a research establishment for

part of their education ?

I t would be repugnant to our tradition for such rationalisation as this to be

imposed from outside the universities. The initiative should come from within

the universities. I t might become more common, for instance, for students to

work for Ph.D.s in government establishments and for scientific civil servants

to be given honorary academic appoinLtments. Fo r obvious reasons there has

been opposition from universities to this sort of cooperation. Professors under-

standably like to have their research students in their own laboratories, and

universities (though less understandably) like to preserve a monopoly of degree-

giving. Ritterbush describes a similar reluotance on the part of American

universities but he describes how it is being overcome. He makes the dry

comment that in England, "government research centres are almost completely

isolated f rom higher educat ion ' .2 His proposals for closer cooperation between

universities and government laboratories would not, of course, solve our

British problems of how to finance higher education adequately. But he offers recipes which would at any rate alleviate the problems. And even that, during

the lean years ahead, would be a relief. A small start has already been made.

Ritterbush's article demonstrates how much more could be done.

Clare College,

Cambridge.

Yours faithfully,

ERIC ASHBY

2 Ib id . , p. 197.