Abstract
(SECTION FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH) IN the issue of NATURE of April 8, 1939, p. 575, there was an account of the establishment by the Royal Society and the Ministry of Labour jointly of the Central Register of Specialists (Section for Scientific Research), with the main aim of providing a list of scientific workers whose professional services might be useful in time of war. It will be remembered that each scientific worker was asked to fill in a card giving an account of his qualifications and some details of his career. From the point of view of the Royal Society the register also had a secondary purpose, for, if there were not to be a war, then it was felt that this was a good opportunity to obtain a census of the scientific knowledge of the country which would be of general value. With the outbreak of war the main purpose of the register was called into play, even before its compilation was complete, and it will be of interest to give a short account of some of its consequent workings. This article only deals with the register of men of science, and does not touch on the similar work of the Ministry of Labour in other branches of learning or technology. In the spring of 1939, cards were sent out to men and women whose names had been furnished by certain learned societies. Up to the end of July a little short of eight thousand had been sent out and some five thousand replies received. Since July, several hundred more have been sent out to people who had been missed in the earlier lists, and the total number of cards returned is now more than six thousand. This list is largely composed of names from universities, from industries and from the research associations. Men already in the Government service have also been permitted to send in their cards, so that they are included in the census; though of course their services are already at the disposal of the Government, so that for them the more immediate function of the register does not arise. The committee of men of science which is helping to work the register is subdivided into panels composed of experts in each subject, and during the summer the panels met to sort out and classify their cards. There are, of course, great differences in the characters of the various subjects, and there was great uncertainty in the natures of the expected demands, and so no uniformity was attempted in the practice of the different panels. For example, the engineers and physicists subdivided their list into quite small groups, whereas in mathematics it was inappropriate to do this because, apart from the leading experts in each branch whose names would be well known, general mathematical skill is easily transferable from one subject to another.
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Central Register of Specialists. Nature 145, 176–178 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145176a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145176a0