Organized Research Units—Their Role in the Development of University Research

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War it became apparent that the center of gravity of the international scientific community had shifted to the United States-a momentous change fully symbolized by the harnessing of atomic energy. In the ensuing years it became increasingly evident that the preeminence of American science had not been produced adventitiously by the destruction wrought upon Continental seats of learning, by the emigration to the United States of some of Europe's leading scientists, or simply by the crash efforts of intensive scientific research induced by the war itself. Rather, there seemed to be fundamental features of the American university system that had nurtured a powerful and enduring scientific enterprise. Before long, the new stature of American science was reflected in credit for major scientific advances Nobel Prizes and contributions to social science [3, 9]. On measures of scientific output, such as contributions to core scholarly journals, the productivity and the dominance of American science was evident as well [3, 25]. Students from throughout the world soon began making increasingly obligatory pilgrimages to American universities for advanced training, just as Americans had gone to German universities before the First World War. Conditions at American universities were sufficiently congenial that many foreigners opted to remain there, creating a long-standing concern about a brain-drain to the United States. Once the hegemony of American