Universities & Scientific Institutions
We all make use of different types of institutions. Banks provide us credit to make the process of buying
and selling things easier. Telephone companies provide us with access to vast wireless and wired
networks that allow us to speak with friends by simply dialing their telephone number. And colleges and
universities allow us to learn from experienced teachers and mentors that we might not otherwise meet in
the course of our lives. You may not have thought of it this way before, but as part of an academic
institution, you not only have access to the resources of that institution – professors, buildings, classes –
but you are part of a community of people with shared interests and goals.
Scientists also have institutions that support them, and they work within a community of individuals with
whom they share ideas. For example, academic institutions support research by scientists and other
scholars as part of their broader educational missions, federal agencies and private foundations often
provide funding to support researchers, and scientific societies support and promote communication and
collaboration between scientists.
The role of the research institution
We now consider it normal that many scientists are professors at universities, teaching classes while
conducting research and advising students, but this has not always been the case. When Cambridge
University was established in England in the 1200’s, there were no professors; the men who taught
courses of study (and they were, indeed, all men) had completed the same course of study themselves
and were considered Masters. These men did not conduct any sort of research, and teaching was a
matter of handing down the same information that they themselves had been taught.
During the 1500’s and 1600’s, the make-up of universities began to change when members of the English
royalty endowed several professorships at Cambridge and Oxford, providing stipends for the recipients.
Attaining one of these coveted positions meant going beyond the given course of study and conducting
original research; as a result, the university became a place where new knowledge was generated. One
of the most famous of the endowed professorships, the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, was established
in 1663 at Cambridge University by Henry Lucas, a Member of Parliament (Bruen, 1995). The fame of
this position derives from its second holder: Sir Isaac Newton. Newton was appointed Lucasian Chair in
1669 and held the position until 1702, during which time he produced his most important works like the
Principia. The support offered through the position at Cambridge gave Newton the freedom to pursue
research that was of interest to him, without which we may not have seen Newton’s Laws of Motion when
we did. The Lucasian Chair still exists today, and the current holder of the position is another very well-
known scientist: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
The establishment of funds to support individual scientists within the university was a critical step in
creating the scientific research institution, but universities are not the only place where scientific research
occurs. Many major research institutions are part of the government: in the United States, for example,
government-run research institutions include the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), and NASA. The establishment of these research institutions was often in response to
a broad initiative within the government, such as the exploration of the western territories in the 1860’s
that led to the consolidation of several different groups of surveyors into the USGS. Similarly, World War
II strongly influenced the development of scientific institutions. In response to a series of letters in 1939
and 1940 from Albert Einstein (see Fig. 1) warning of the possibility of the development of nuclear
weapons by Germany, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the War Department to begin work on an
atomic bomb. His order led to the establishment of a number of national laboratories in 1943, including
LANL in New Mexico and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Scientists hired to work at these
new national labs were not completely free to focus on the research that interested them (like Newton at
Cambridge); instead they were asked by the government to focus on specific problems that fostered the
development of nuclear weapons. The focus of research at LANL remained the development and testing
of weapons until 1992, when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed by President George H.W. Bush.
Since then, LANL’s mission has changed to focus on the science behind national security, which includes
everything from securing nuclear weapons stockpiles to studying the possible effects of global warming.
Additionally, scientific research takes place at commercial corporations, where it is often described as
“research and development,” or R&D. In 1970, for example, the Xerox Corporation established its Palo
Alto Research Center, known as Xerox PARC, to bring together researchers in information science,
physical science, and engineering to create the “architecture of information” (see Research links). In this
venue, fundamental scientific research was supported to the extent that it could contribute to the
development of new technologies or products that could contribute to the overall theme of the architecture
of information. The effort led to the development of photocopiers, initially, but the research branch of
Xerox is perhaps most famous for its development of the mouse, first used with the personal computer by
Apple in the early 1980’s.
The influence of scientific institutions
Together, these scientific institutions – research institutions, professional societies, and funding
institutions – form a large part of the community of science. Through them, scientists interact with one
another, share ideas, conduct peer reviews, secure funding for research, and obtain access to space and
facilities – all of which facilitate the research process and lead to scientific progress.
Each of these institutions also is capable of influencing the direction of scientific progress in its own way.
Governments are strongly influenced by political and social motivating factors: clearly, the United States’
participation in World War II led to focused scientific research into harnessing nuclear energy to make
weapons. Without the motivating factor of a world war, this research may never have been deemed
critical by the government, and the scientific research may never have been pursued. Federal funding
agencies continue to set research priorities and solicit grant applications from scientists that address
these priorities. Similarly, universities can influence the direction that scientific research takes in their
institutions. The institution’s administration or faculty choose the research areas in which they hire new
faculty – these decisions may come at the behest of a donor or they may reflect a desire to maintain
existing strengths or develop new ones.
Professional societies generally have less influence over the direction that research takes, though they
are often responsible for promoting particular research areas through publications. In addition, they may
release position statements to the government and the public concerning their conclusions regarding how
the scientific research their members have conducted affects the general public. For example, the
American Geophysical Union’s position statement on global climate change begins, “Human activities are
increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present
over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid
increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century” (AGU,
2003). Such position statements are meant to emphasize the importance of scientific knowledge to policy
decisions, and to be considered legitimate they must fall within the realm of research facilitated by the
professional society and be approved by a majority of its members. The development of such statements
by institutions within the community of science should emphasize to the general public that issues such
as climate change are strongly supported by multiple lines of evidence.
Unfortunately, the influence that institutions have on the process of science is not always positive. Recent
stories in the media have loudly decried the possible bias that pharmaceutical companies exert on
research at medical institutions; and the tobacco industry’s negative impacts on research regarding the
health impacts of cigarette smoke is now widely accepted. Space exploration is another controversial
area of scientific research. President George W. Bush’s announcement in 2005 of his initiative to send
humans to Mars and return to the Moon met with criticism from institutions like the American Institute for
Physics, whose members note that funding the Space Exploration Initiative has diverted funds from other
programs, like maintenance and replacement of satellites that collect data on weather and climate – data
that helps communities prepare for severe weather events like hurricanes. While we would like to imagine
that scientists are driven purely by their curiosity and interest in research questions, the reality is that the
availability of funding can often be one of the driving forces behind research, and these funding priorities
change over time.
The biggest influence that all scientific institutions have, however, is on scientific progress. Consider
again being a student – while it’s not impossible to learn on your own, outside of the academic institution,
it would be more difficult to find knowledgeable people to help you when you needed it, to determine
which books and resources are useful, and to work with a group of peers. The same is true for science.
While a lot of scientific thinking can go on anywhere, our scientific institutions provide an important
mechanism for supporting and communicating that work in order to build our scientific knowledge over
time.