JANE CALVERT

THE IDEA OF ‘BASIC RESEARCH’ IN LANGUAGE AND

PRACTICE

ABSTRACT. Today, there is increasing concern about the health of ‘basic

research’, yet considerable disagreement about its definition. This paper examines
the way in which the term is used in everyday practice. Drawing upon interviews
with British and American scientists and policy-makers, we identify six different
definitions currently in use. Given the utility and flexibility of the concept, it is
useful to ask what function it serves, and whether we should develop new
terminology.

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘basic research’ is well established in the literature of sci-

ence policy. The language that it assumes has developed in a spe-
cific historical context. However, there is little systematic analysis
of its definition; or of the ways in which the term is today used in
everyday practice. To identify different definitions, we conducted
forty-nine interviews with British and American scientists who do
‘basic research’, and with British and American policy-makers who
use the expression in their daily work. This paper aims to unpack
the complexity of the idea and its different usages, and to consider
its larger importance to the study of science in society.
Historically, the value of pursuing natural knowledge ‘for its
own sake’ owes much to the legacy of ancient Greece,1 and to the
privileging of the search for ‘fundamental’ knowledge of nature
during and since the Renaissance. It was not, however, until the
twentieth century that the concept of ‘basic research’ became
firmly established in modern institutional arrangements and
ideological commitments.2 During the Second World War, Allied

1
Frits H. Brookman, The Making of a Science Policy: A Historical Study of the
Institutional and Conceptual Background to Dutch Science Policy in a West-European
Perspective (Amsterdam: Academische Pers BV, 1979).
2
Donald E. Stokes, Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological
Innovation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997).

Minerva 42: 251–268, 2004.

2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
252 jane calvert

support of what was called ‘basic research’ proved to be a step-

ping stone to victory.3 After the war, the practices of fundamen-
tal, largely university-based research were crystallized in the
rhetoric of science as the highest expression of the Western scien-
tific world view, involving the autonomous pursuit of knowledge,
free from government or private interference, its value system clo-
sely identified with the values of Western democracy.4 This was
the vision translated into policy by, among others, Vannevar
Bush, who led wartime research at the NDRC and the OSRD,
and who helped draft the blueprint of what was to become the
US National Science Foundation (NSF).5 By stressing the benefits
of basic research, Bush helped legitimate what has since become
known as the ‘linear model’, by which basic research is under-
stood to feed technological innovation.6 Thanks to the linear
model, research could be linked to the promise of application.
From the 1950s, basic research was therefore singled out as a key
area for public investment throughout the industrialized world.7
Its support was justified as a ‘public good’, advancing public
interests that would never be adequately served by private enter-
prise acting alone.8
During the 1960s, there were several attempts among the indus-
trialized countries to standardize the measurement of national and

3
Aant Elzinga and Andrew Jamison, ‘Changing Policy Agendas’, in Sheila
Jasanoff, Gerald E Markle, James Petersen, and Trevor Pinch (eds.), Handbook of
Science and Technology Studies (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995).
4
David A. Hollinger, ‘Science as a Weapon in Kulturhamfen in the United States
during and after World War II’, Isis, 86 (3), (1965), 440–454; see also, John R. Baker,
The Freedom of Science: An Original Anthology (New York: Arno Press, 1975).
5
Vannevar Bush, Science – The Endless Frontier. A Report to the President on a
Program for Postwar Scientific Research (Washington, DC: National Science
Foundation, 1945, reprinted 1960).
6
David Hart has demonstrated that the conventional wisdom, by which a
consensus grew around Bush’s ideas, is a simplification of history, since there were
several influential actors involved in science policy during the 1940s. See David
M. Hart, Forged Consensus: Science, Technology and Economic Policy in the United
States, 1921–1953 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
7
National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators, 1998 (Arlington:
National Science Foundation, 1998).
8
Richard Nelson, ‘The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research’, Journal of
Political Economy, 67 (3), (1959), 297–306; see also Kenneth Arrow, ‘Economic
Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention’, The Rate and Direction of
Inventive Activity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 609–626.
 basic research in language and practice 253

international research activity. In response to this, the phrase ‘basic

research’ became a statistical category.9 Given impetus by the NSF,
the OECD helped define the practice of science by a series of cate-
gories, set out in the so-called ‘Frascati Manual’, published in
1963.10 Drawing boundaries around an activity that could be called
‘basic research’ became an important task for the emerging field of
science policy. Once there was something to measure, classification
became internationally important, trends could be identified, and
comparisons drawn.
Following a period of increased funding during the 1950s and
1960s, many industrial countries reduced the rate of growth in gov-
ernment spending on science during the late 1960s and 1970s.11 In
1969, the NSF’s budget was cut by nearly twenty per cent.12 More-
over, the 1970s saw the emergence of influential market-oriented
approaches to research, epitomized in the UK by the ‘customer-
contractor’ principle.13 With the 1980s, and the end of the Cold
War, support for basic research became incorporated into free-mar-
ket strategies for technological innovation and economic competi-
tiveness.
The changes that began in the 1980s are continuing today. We
now find a situation where ‘basic research has become intimately
intertwined with the production of goods and technological develop-
ment of relevance for all realms of society’.14 This emphasis upon
relevance some say is having a detrimental effect on basic research.15

9
Benoit Godin, ‘Measuring Science: Is there ‘‘Basic Research’’ Without Statis-
tics?’, Project on the History and Sociology of S &T Indicators, Paper No. 3
(Montreal: Observatoire des Sciences et des Technologies INRS/CIRST, 2000).
10
OECD, ‘The Measurement of Scientific and Technical Activities: Proposed
Standard Practice for Surveys of R&D’ (Paris: OECD, 1963). Here, the term
‘fundamental research’ was used. See Benoit Godin, ‘The Numbers Makers: Fifty
Years of Science and Technology Official Statistics’, Minerva, 40 (4), (2002), 375–395.
11
See Aant Elzinga, ‘Research, Bureaucracy and the Drift of Epistemic Criteria’,
in Bjorn Wittrock and Aant Elzinga (eds.), The University Research System: The
Public Policies of the Home of Scientists (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell
International, 1985), 192.
12
National Science Foundation, Annual Report 1985 (Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office, 1985).
13
Lord Rothschild, A Framework for Government Research and Development [Cm
4814] (London: HMSO, 1971).
14
Aant Elzinga, ‘The Science-Society Contract in Historical Transformation’,
Social Science Information, 36 (3), (1997), 420.
15
See John Ziman, Real Science: What it Is and What it Means (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000).
254 jane calvert

Harvey Brooks, for example, has spoken of ‘the declining prestige of

the kind of curiosity-driven, freewheeling research that was emphas-
ised in the Bush report as a basis for a thriving economy and a
healthy and peaceful society’. The issue is now, ‘science policy for
what?’, rather than ‘science policy for science’s sake’.16
For many years, advocates of science ‘for its own sake’ – such
as Keith Pavitt – have argued that basic research provides impor-
tant shared benefits, including research training and background
knowledge.17 Although these benefits are valued, today’s funding
environment prefers to focus upon accountability, relevance, and
measurable outcomes. There have been calls for a re-negotiation of
the post-war ‘social contract’ between science and society, and a
movement away from the assumption that autonomous science
eventually produces public benefits.18 It is no longer sufficient for
scientists to say they are engaged in autonomous truth-seeking;
instead, they are expected to interact with the wider communities
that support them.19

WHAT IS MEANT BY ‘BASIC RESEARCH’?

At first glance, ‘basic research’ appears a contested concept. Many

phrases can be substituted, which may or may not mean the same
thing. For example, what is the relationship between ‘pure science’,
‘fundamental research’, ‘curiosity-driven research’, and ‘blue skies
research’?
To clarify the use of the term in practice, we conducted forty-
nine semi-structured interviews between March 1999 and March

16
John de la Mothe and Paul Dufour, ‘Is Science Policy in the Doldrums?’,
Nature, 374 (16 March 1995), 209.
17
Keith Pavitt, ‘Backing Basics: Basic Research Should Not Just Depend on
What Industry Needs Now’, New Economy, 2 (1995), 71–74.
18
Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman,
Peter Scott, and Martin Trow, The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics
of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage Publications,
1994); Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons, Re-thinking Science:
Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2001).
19
Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons, ‘Introduction: ‘‘Mode 2’’
Revisited: The New Production of Knowledge’ Minerva, 41 (3), (2003), 179–194.
 basic research in language and practice 255

2000 – twenty-four with biologists and physicists and twenty-five

with policy-makers working in the US and UK.20 We decided to
study two different countries and more than one scientific discipline
to see if generalizations can be made about a concept that is con-
sidered universal. We focused on scientists in universities because
that is where most government-funded basic research in the US
and the UK is carried out. We concluded that it was not essential
to cover a broad range of institutions because most of the scientists
we interviewed had worked at several institutions, and because
many also had experience of applied and industrially-relevant
research. Although we cannot say that our sample is representative
of American and British scientists in general, we have no reason to
think the scientists we chose are atypical.21 Furthermore, our objec-
tive was to gather a range of views, rather than to acquire an
exhaustive list of scientists holding any particular view.
A semi-structured interview approach was preferred to a quanti-
tative survey because our aim was to investigate subtleties that a
survey could easily miss. In all cases, we asked how interviewees
defined ‘basic research’ (if they used the term), and whether they
had seen recent changes in attitude towards basic research. The
quotations that follow are drawn from these interviews, and our
discussion of ‘scientists’ and ‘policy-makers’ refers to our sample.
During our study, six definitional criteria emerged from the inter-
view process. These are not criteria that were imposed ex cathedra.
The six criteria, and the number of interviewees who used each, are
given in Table I, which also shows a breakdown of responses by
scientists and policy-makers.22
In our study, only seven interviewees used a single criterion to
define ‘basic research’, which suggests that most scientists and
administrators do not have one all-encompassing idea of ‘basic
research’, but rather draw upon many different attributes when
defining the term. Definitions vary as widely among policy-makers
as among scientists. The criteria most commonly used to distin-
guish ‘basic’ from other types of research are epistemological and

20
All interviews were transcribed. To remain faithful to the transcribed data,
quotations have not been modified to correct grammatical errors. Interview
quotations have been used anonymously to preserve confidentiality.
21
See Michael Mulkay and Nigel Gilbert, ‘Putting Philosophy to Work’, in
Michael Mulkay (ed.), Sociology of Science: A Sociological Pilgrimage (Milton
Keynes: Open University Press, 1991), 109–130.
22
These figures are intended to give a general idea of the popularity of different
definitions, and have no statistical significance.
256 jane calvert

TABLE I
Definitions of ‘Basic Research’

Criteria No. of interviewees Policy-makers Scientists

1. Epistemological 32 12 20
(Nature of knowledge produced)
2. Intentional 33 16 17
(Aims of the research)
3. Distance from application 15 7 8
4. Institutional 8 7 1
(Where carried out)
5. Disclosure norms 7 5 2
(How disseminated)
6. Scientific field 3 2 1

intentional. Twenty-seven interviewees (sixteen scientists and eleven

policy-makers) defined ‘basic research’ in both these ways.

Epistemological definitions
Basic research is often said to produce a certain type of knowledge.
So, a distinction is labelled epistemological when it refers to the
properties and/or nature of the knowledge that basic research is
said to produce. Four epistemological sub-categories emerged from
the interviews, defining ‘basic research’ in terms of its unpredictabil-
ity and generality, and in terms of its theory-driven and reductionist
features.
Scientists and policy-makers routinely distinguish ‘basic research’
in the language of unpredictability or novelty. According to a
British physicist, in basic research ‘what you’re trying to do is [to]
find a new concept or push the boundaries of existing knowledge’.
Unpredictability of this kind can lead to novel outcomes. A British
policy-maker observed that ‘the word processor didn’t come about
through research on a quill pen’. Some interviewees, however, dis-
agreed with this definition, and spoke of epistemological distinc-
tions, according to which research is deemed to be ‘basic’ if it is
‘general’ rather than ‘specific’. ‘General’ research refers to research
at such a ‘level’ that it applies to a wide range of instances or phe-
nomena, whereas ‘applied’ research will help solve only a particular
problem. As with unpredictability, there were critics of generality as
the defining characteristic. An American molecular biologist said
that basic research was actually ‘specific’ research because her field
 basic research in language and practice 257

involved working out how a specific gene functioned, and it was

difficult to generalize to the level of the organism.
Theory is closely related to generality, since theories involve
statements of general principles. As one American policy-maker put
it, ‘the more basic the research, the more it’s driven by the internal
theoretical dynamics of the field’. However, the words ‘theory’ and
‘theoretical’ drew a contrasting response from physicists; a British
physicist argued that ‘theory and experiment’s nothing to do with
basic and applied’. Generality seems closely related to reductionism,
insofar as reductionists claim that basic research requires the gener-
alized understanding of phenomena in terms of their most basic
entities. A British biologist believed that basic research implied the
act of ‘looking at things at a molecular level’. This view was shared
by other biologists.

Aims and intentions

The second most common way of defining ‘basic research’ concerns
aim and intention. Thus, it is said that a basic researcher is ‘someone
who is just following their curiosity’ (American policy-maker). If the
same research were done with different intentions, it should therefore
be classified differently. For example, one could in principle map the
stars for navigational reasons, or to learn about the solar system. The
research category could be defined differently in each case.
Intentional and epistemological definitions are not necessarily
compatible. If the intention is to produce something that will result
in an application, no matter how ‘fundamental’ the research may
be (i.e., unpredictable or general), some interviewees believed that it
should not be classified as ‘basic’. With definitions based on inten-
tion, we have the problem of determining whose aims are involved.
A researcher’s goals may differ from those of her sponsor’s; and
one researcher may differ from another. As one American policy-
maker pointed out, ‘something could be basic to the person who’s
doing it, and could be applied to the sponsor. So partly it’s a mat-
ter of perspective’. Nonetheless, despite these problems, definition
by ‘intention’ is still widely used.

Distance from Application

It may seem logical to classify types of research activity in relation
to their outputs. Accordingly, we may have a definition in terms of
258 jane calvert

distance from application. Distance is different from intent because

results can be distant from application without there being any
intention that they be so. Thus, as a British physicist observed, ‘The
certain work I do has no applied use, so therefore it is basic
research’. The same physicist then went on to justify public support
of his work in terms of its potential application. His inconsistency
shows how the heterogeneous properties of ‘basic research’ can be
drawn upon to make it seem simultaneously ‘practically useful but
useless’.23
Another limitation of this definition was pointed out by a second
British physicist, who noted that it was possible to do research that
had no immediately obvious application (such as ‘bouncing neu-
trons off coke bottles’), but this would not necessarily qualify the
research as ‘basic’. In any case, there are many instances of basic
discoveries having unforeseen applications. (e. g., lasers leading to
CD players), while applied research may fail to meet expected
outcomes.

The institutional distinction

A research activity can also be defined in terms of where the
research is undertaken. An American policy-maker put the matter
thus:
If you walk into a laboratory, how do you know whether they are doing basic or
applied research? And I would say that the first clue is probably the name on the
building. But if you don’t know what building you’re in, it gets a lot harder to
distinguish it from the mechanical activities that go on.

Another policy-maker drew an analogy with the recent history of

private commercial initiatives to sequence the human genome. If
the research was done in a university, it would be basic research;
but since it was done by a private company, it was not. Clearly,
complications can arise. How would this interviewee categorize
research that is done for companies, on contract, by university
researchers? A simple answer would prove difficult.

23
Tom F. Gieryn, Cultural Boundaries of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1999), 19.
 basic research in language and practice 259

Disclosure norms
Basic research is normally published in the open literature. Open
publication is often predicated upon institutional arrangements.
Therefore, location and disclosure are often related. Thus, an
American policy-maker defined ‘basic research’ as ‘research by sci-
entists that is directed at an audience of other scientists, meaning
that it is intending to be published ’. Partha Dasgupta and Paul
David have distinguished between different categories of research in
terms of the norms of disclosure.24 However, this carries the impli-
cit assumption – roundly criticized by Diana Hicks – that commer-
cial firms do not publish in the open literature.25

Scientific field
Three of our interviewees chose to define ‘basic research’ by scien-
tific discipline. The problem here, is that usage varies among indi-
viduals, and is subject to hierarchies among disciplines. One British
policy-maker maintained that ‘basic research’ consists only of
‘astronomy and particle physics and nuclear physics’. Clearly,
others would disagree.

OECD DEFINITIONS

It is useful to hold these practical responses, by practitioners,

against the widely accepted international definitions used by the
OECD. These definitions, set out in the ‘Frascati Manual’, are
outlined in Box 1, and were familiar to some interviewees.26

24
Partha Dasgupta and Paul A. David, ‘Toward a New Economics of Science’,
Research Policy, 23 (5), (1994), 487–521.
25
Diana Hicks, ‘Published Papers, Tacit Competencies and Corporate Manage-
ment of the Public/Private Character of Knowledge’, Industrial and Corporate
Change, 4 (2), (1995), 401–423.
26
OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technical Activities: Proposed
Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Experimental Development (Paris:
OECD, 1994). Inserted comments in italics and square brackets indicate the type of
definition being used.
260 jane calvert

Box 1: ‘Frascati’ Definitions

Basic research ‘is experimental or theoretical work undertaken

primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations
of phenomena and observable facts [epistemological–general/reduc-
tionist,] without any particular application or use in view [inten-
tional]’.27
It ‘analyses properties, structures, and relationships with a view
to formulating and testing hypotheses, theories or laws [epistemo-
logical–general/theoretical]. The results of basic research are not
generally sold but are usually published in scientific journals or
circulated to interested colleagues [disclosure norms]’.28
It ‘is usually undertaken by scientists who may set their own
goals and to a large extent organize their own work [inten-
tional]’.29
Pure basic research ‘is carried out for the advancement of
knowledge without working for long-term economic or social ben-
efits and with no positive efforts being made to apply the results
to practical problems or to transfer the results to sectors responsi-
ble for its application [intentional]’.30
Oriented-basic research ‘is carried out with the expectation that
it will produce a broad base of knowledge [epistemological–gen-
eral] likely to form the background to the solution of recognized
or expected current or future problems or possibilities [inten-
tional]’.31

For some interviewees the ‘pure basic’ category presented special

difficulties. A British policy-maker, responsible for collecting data
on research, said she could not classify any of her funding agency’s
work as ‘pure basic’ because her agency was ‘mission-driven’.
Because definition by ‘intention’ is written into the ‘pure-basic’ cate-
gory, it becomes problematic to justify funding in cases where
researchers make ‘no positive efforts’ to make their research applied.
‘Oriented-basic’ research is also problematic, in that it is difficult to
establish unambiguously whether there is a reasonable ‘expectation’
that a piece of research will be ‘useful’ or not. It may be for such

27
Ibid., 68.
28
Ibid., 68.
29
Ibid., 69.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
 basic research in language and practice 261

reasons that these two categories are not widely used; indeed,
among the OECD countries, only the UK and Australia do so.32
The OECD is aware that that its definitions are not perfect, and
admit that ‘They seem to imply a sequence and a separation that
rarely exist in reality’.33 But what is especially interesting about the
‘Frascati definitions’ is that they involve several different criteria
simultaneously. It is revealing that the final report of the second
Frascati Conference, held in 1968, includes the following caveat:
‘Besides defining the categories in terms of the goals of the per-
forming organizations [intentional], other criteria which may be
helpful for the classification of specific projects are the degree of
generality of the results [epistemological–general], the use of the
results [distance from application], the work organisation [disclosure
norms], [and] the institutional location [institutional]’.34
This sentence was removed from later versions of the manual,
but it confirms that we are looking at a flexible concept that inevi-
tably incorporates a diversity of features.

ALTERNATIVE CATEGORIZATIONS

The respondents to our study did not produce a simple definition

of ‘basic research’. However, they revealed some of the many defi-
nitions in circulation. The fact that the OECD divides ‘basic
research’ into ‘pure-basic’ and ‘oriented-basic’ suggests that, for at
least some governments, it is desirable to have some sort of inter-
mediate category between ‘basic’ and ‘applied’.
Several scholars have attempted to overcome these definitional
ambiguities, by proposing alternative terms. Donald Stokes, for
example, has adopted an ‘intentional’ definition, and questions
the value of drawing a distinction between research pursued for
a specific goal, and research pursued to deepen understanding.35
Stokes gives many examples of research that has been driven
simultaneously by considerations of use and understanding. He

32
See OECD, ‘Issues paper: Workshop on Basic Research: Policy Relevant
Definitions and Measurement’, Oslo, 29–30 October 2001 (Paris: OECD, 2001).
33
OECD op. cit. note 26, 70.
34
OECD, The Measurement of Scientific and Technical Activities: Proposed
Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Development, Proceedings of the
Second Frascati Conference on OECD International Standards for the Measurement
of R&D, 2–6 December 1968 (Paris: OECD, 1968), 23.
35
Stokes op. cit. note 2, 74.
262 jane calvert

terms this category, ‘use-inspired basic research’.36 However, his

model can be criticized for focusing exclusively upon intention.
He does not ask whether intention may not be the most impor-
tant definition. His argument is that a statement about the epis-
temological status of a piece of research ‘is only a statement
about an empirical correlate of the goal patterns envisaged by
the Frascati definitions’37 – an argument that overlooks the
importance of epistemological definitions of ‘basic research’
among scientists and policy makers.
Some years ago, Harvey Brooks drew a distinction between
‘opportunity-oriented’ and ‘need-oriented’ research.38 ‘Opportunity-
oriented’ research, he said, is curiosity-driven – following an aware-
ness of opportunities – while ‘need-oriented’ research is driven by
social needs. We can see that, like Stokes, Brooks based his termi-
nology on intention, and did not give due weight to other consider-
ations. In effect, it would appear that both Stokes and Brooks have
written from ‘on high’, without paying close attention to the ways
in which the term ‘basic research’ is actually used in practice.
Their efforts to find alternative language have had several counter-
parts. In the 1980s and 1990s, it became fashionable to use the phrase
‘strategic research’ as an intermediate concept, to describe long-term
research that is more ‘directed’ than ‘basic’.39 The impetus for this
came from applied scientists who wanted a category to describe back-
ground research, and from academic scientists, who knew that any
discovery may have applications.40 This category, however, was not
taken up by governments, nor was it included in the ‘Frascati Man-
ual’, apparently because of a desire on the part of OECD to preserve
the existing statistical series. In Stokes’ view, this suggests that ‘the
conceptual issue of strategic research has been taken hostage by prob-
lems of measurement and has remained unsolved’.41 Meanwhile,
other terms – such as ‘translational research’, and ‘basic technology’

36
Ibid., 73.
37
Ibid., 82.
38
Harvey Brooks, ‘Understanding the Bush Report’, Conference Proceedings,
‘Science - The Endless Frontier, 1945–1995: Learning from the Past, Designing for
the Future’, Columbia University, New York, 9 December 1994 http://
www.cspo.org/products/conferences/bush/Brooks.pdf
39
John Irvine and Ben R Martin, Foresight in Science: Picking the Winners
(London: Frances Pinter, 1984).
40
Jacqueline Senker, ‘Evaluating the Funding of Strategic Science – Some
Lessons from the British Experience’, Research Policy, 20 (1), (1991), 29–43.
41
Stokes, op. cit. note 2, 67.
 basic research in language and practice 263

– attempt to ‘bridge the gap’ between basic and applied research.

Their use implies a general dissatisfaction with the language by which
the research landscape is currently described.

CHANGES IN THE FUNDING ENVIRONMENT FOR BASIC RESEARCH

While the work of Stokes and others has not resolved the problem
of definition, it has shown how resilient and necessary the term must
be. In practice, ‘basic research’ is an intrinsically ambiguous cate-
gory, with different features highlighted by different people at differ-
ent times. In recent years, alternative classifications have emerged
largely in response to a funding situation in which the old terminol-
ogy, for one reason or another, no longer seems appropriate.
Our interviewees discussed the role of basic research in this new
environment. Most noted the growing stress on utility, complained
about these trends, and expressed concern about delayed and sup-
pressed publication, and fears that free inquiry may be jeopardized.
One American biologist prophesized that today’s short-term per-
spective ‘will in the long run be detrimental to science’. A British
physicist feared that ‘because of the pressures from the government
to highlight relevance of the work to industry and to the end users, I
think there has been a general under-funding of what I term truly
basic research’. Increased pressures for commercial applicability fil-
ter through to the ways in which the interviewees describe their
work. Research grant applications can be so pitched, as to appear
either basic or applied, depending on the circumstances. As an
American physicist said, ‘for me it’s very beautiful fundamental
physics, but it’s so close to a lot of industrial processes that it’s very
easy to write a grant that looks strictly applied’. However, other sci-
entists maintained that the changes were merely cosmetic. In this
way, perhaps, the ideal of ‘knowledge for its own sake’ could be
retained in the face of pressures for relevance. The survival of this
ideal was important to many of those whom we interviewed.

HOW USEFUL IS THE TERM?

Our discussions revealed a wide range of views about the relative

importance of the term. Several policy-makers thought the term un-
problematic. For them, ‘basic research’ was simply what a particu-
lar agency funds, or as what is described by the ‘Frascati Manual’.
264 jane calvert

An American policy-maker hopefully concluded that ‘most people

sort of agree what basic research is’. These particular policy-makers
had no interest in resolving ambiguities.
By contrast, some of our scientists said that they were obliged to
use the term when they would rather not do so. They thought that
forcing research into boxes marked ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ could be
unhelpful. An American biologist, for example, worried that when
the term entered the funding arena, ‘it can really lead to misuse’.
For example, he observed, the World Health Organization had a
remit to support applied research, but would not fund research if it
were defined as ‘basic’.
Others believed the use of the term was fundamentally unhelpful.
A British policy-maker stressed that the whole activity of trying to
classify research types was pointless (‘on a bad day it’s counting
angels on the head of a pin’). He asked, rhetorically, ‘when you’re
sitting in a library reading an article, are you doing basic research
or applied research or what the hell?’ and concluded that ‘the ques-
tion is irrelevant’ for most practising scientists. An American pol-
icy-maker agreed, saying, ‘It’s just a flashback to an earlier way of
thinking – it doesn’t mean much’.
When contrasting these views, the question arises, who owns the
term? Our policy-makers used the terms ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ so
that they could better communicate with scientists. Our scientists,
however, said that the basic/applied terminology is used only when
they have to present themselves for assessment, or when they are
seeking funds.
These comments suggest that the term may, in fact, be used
most widely when the worlds of science and policy interact. This
view was supported by an American biologist, who said that the
term could be significant to him if there were an expectation that
his work might produce economic outcomes:
If I’m talking to someone who’s from a commercial concern, I will very quickly in
the conversation use the term ‘basic’. Just because I just want to make it clear to
them that I don’t foresee that I’m going to have something patentable or anything
else during some reasonable time span of my grant.

It seems that the question of definition thus becomes important

when there are specific pressures to describe research in a certain
way. Our scientists were obliged to categorize their research as
‘basic’ only in situations such as these; and rather than sticking to
a precise definition, they described their research in different ways,
depending on the requirements of the case.
 basic research in language and practice 265

CATEGORIES AND CHANGE

Given these complications, should we attempt to develop a new

language to describe research activities? When we put this question
to our policy-makers, many said that they would be unhappy to
change existing categories because the current vocabulary is so well
established. One of the American policy-makers said that, even if
current terminology was ‘rough around the edges’, it allowed trends
to be analysed and international comparisons to be made. Indeed,
the NSF uses the longevity of the basic/applied scheme to justify its
continued use, on the grounds that terms ‘have been in place for
several decades and are also generally consistent with international
definitions’.42
Many of our American policy-makers were familiar with the
work of Stokes, but thought it impossible to operationalize his
scheme. Despite a certain level of dissatisfaction with the basic/
applied distinction, most of the policy-makers we interviewed
wanted to retain the current categories. It would seem that these
categories persist, despite their shortcomings, at least in part
because of their statistical momentum.43 ‘Basic research’ has been
recognized by the ‘Frascati Manual’ since 1963.44 It has been used
as an accounting category for the NSF since the Foundation began.
Benoit Godin argues that because the category is measurable, it
became stabilized, and because it is stabilized, there is tremendous
inertia against change.45 This suggests that there will be pressures
to retain a category whose boundaries are blurred, simply because
it can be used, however imperfectly. This point is well taken by
Theodore Porter, who holds that statistics regulate economic and
social life, rather than just describe it.46 It is clear that, in this case,
‘the collection and publication of statistics tends to … crystallize
what it sets out to describe’.47

42
National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators – 1998 (Arlington:
National Science Foundation, 1998).
43
Godin, op. cit. note 9, 21.
44
OECD, op. cit. note 10.
45
Godin, op. cit. note 9.
46
Theodore M. Porter, ‘The Management of Society by Numbers’, in John Krige
and Dominique Pestre (eds.), Science in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam:
Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), 97–110.
47
Ibid.,101.
266 jane calvert

SCIENTISTS AND POLICY-MAKERS

The discussion of terminology revealed some interesting differences

between our scientists and policy-makers. The policy-makers were
more likely to accept current definitions, and in many cases had
thought less about them. Policy-makers would point to statistics to
answer questions, and were happy to use ‘basic research’ as a
category for funding decisions. Their acceptance of the ‘given-ness’
of the concept helps explain why any new language is likely to meet
resistance. Scientists are more aware of ambiguities, and gave many
examples of how their work could be described as either ‘basic’ or
‘applied’. They did not find the term particularly helpful, except
when they wished to raise a barrier between themselves and some
external group. It could be that, by sticking to the old (vague and
ambiguous) terminology, policy-makers can effectively conceal
change (and perhaps even conceal movements towards ‘Mode 2’
type policies).48 Classifying money as spent on ‘basic’ research may
cover attempts to pacify a scientific community clamouring for
funds and autonomy.

CONCLUSION

This paper has suggested that ‘basic research’ is a protean concept,

and has illustrated the problematic dimensions of the term. It may
be helpful to think of the concept not in terms of one definition, but
as having flexible boundaries and multiple definitions.49 It is this
degree of constructive ambiguity that makes it useful – but also polit-
ical. The term is therefore more than just a label. It performs social
functions – such as protecting autonomy and defining self-image.
If the term ‘basic research’ persists, what of the research it
describes? In focusing on definitions, this paper has left unexamined
the changing content of basic research, or arguments for its gover-
nance. However, recognizing the existence of commonly conflated
ways of distinguishing ‘basic research’ reveal the complexity of
practitioners’ reactions in situations where science and values mix.
Once we understand the different reasons for defining ‘basic
research’ in different ways, we can have a more enlightened discus-
sion of its future. Not all scientists resile from the idea that basic

48
Gibbons et al. op. cit. note 18.
49
Gieryn, op. cit. note 23.
 basic research in language and practice 267

research must be justified in terms of social benefits. There are also

pressures for the greater democratization of science.50 Through
democratization and commercialization, society has assumed a
greater role in the scientific process, and the autonomy of the scien-
tist will inevitably be brought into question. Some interpret this as
a challenge to basic research, but closer examination reveals that it
is actually a challenge to the custom of defining ‘basic research’ in
terms of intention. Some may worry that if research is not ‘inten-
tionally basic’ (i.e., driven by the curiosity of the researcher), the
fact will have negative consequences for its epistemic content.
Once we separate ways of defining ‘basic research’, however, we
see that this conclusion does not necessarily follow. Helga Nowotny
et al. argue that research that is socially embedded can be just as
rigorous as research driven by the interests of the researcher
because ‘its validity is no longer determined solely, or predomi-
nantly, by narrowly circumscribed scientific communities, but by
much wider communities of engagement’.51 Arie Rip, among oth-
ers, sees the interpenetration of science and society as necessary for
the vitality of both, and argues that ‘the re-assertion of purity of
science is more dangerous than its possible exploitation and frag-
mentation’.52 Whatever the truth of these arguments, once we
understand that ‘basic research’ is an ambiguous term that is used
for given purposes, and to further given interests, we see that ques-
tions about definition are, in fact, reflections of larger political and
ethical questions about the organisation and direction of science.
All this is not to overlook the resilience of the concept itself. We
must develop a way to retain the aspects of what we call ‘basic
research’ that we consider valuable, while recognizing that the
research it comes to describe may change in tomorrow’s environ-
ment. In this way, we will better understand the challenges that
face basic research in the future, both in language and in practice.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank Brian Balmer, Ben Martin, and
Roy MacLeod for their valuable assistance with this paper.

50
Nowotny, et al. op. cit. note 18.
51
Nowotny et al. op. cit. note 19, 191–2.
52
Arie Rip, ‘A Cognitive Approach to Relevance of Science’, Social Science
Information, 36 (4), (1997), 634.
268 jane calvert

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Calvert is a Research Fellow at the ESRC Centre for Genomics in

Society (Egenis), University of Exeter. Previously she was a Research
Fellow at SPRU, University of Sussex, where she carried out her doctoral
research on the concept of ‘basic research’. She is interested in the interac-
tion between science and technology studies and science policy, and is
currently researching intellectual property rights in genomics.

ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis)

Amory Building
University of Exeter
EX4 4RJ, UK
E-mail: J.Calvert@exeter.ac.uk