Goal-oriented science

摘要

Lewis Branscomb's "A Focused Approach to Society's Grand Challenges" (Issues, Summer 2009) offers a good measure of astute analysis and worldliness to research and innovation policymaking in the Obama administration. Yet there is an irony underlying the "Jefferson-ian science" approach that, if not dealt with head-on, may derail even the most intelligent and wise of prescriptions.rnIn my reading of the ongoing attempts to re-label (rather than actually reorient) publicly sponsored knowledge and innovation activities, Jeffersonian science has much in common with Donald Stokes' earlier "Pasteur's Quadrant," as well as with the older, more prosaic, and more institutionally grounded "mission-oriented basic research."