Abstract
THE London, Midland and Scottish Railway has announced an important scheme whereby it will send members of its research staff for varying periods to carry out fundamental research in their particular fields in university laboratories; and, in exchange, the universities will be invited to send members of their staffs to spend a period in the company's research laboratory at Derby, working on applied problems in which they are interested from the fundamental side. The benefits should be felt by both parties to this arrangement. On one hand, it is hoped that the company's staff visiting the universities will be invited to assist in teaching, so bringing the practical atmosphere to the university lecture-room; on the other hand, university research men will be brought more closely into contact with the problems of industry. The L.M.S. Research Laboratory has a staff of seventy research workers, and has sections dealing with engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, paint and textiles; hence it can provide a very varied experience for university research workers able to take advantage of the scheme. The company is to be congratulated on its foresight in promoting this exchange of research workers; it should prove an important step in promoting that two-way flow of research personnel between industry and the university, the need for which has been emphasized repeatedly in recent months. The example might well be followed in other industries.
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Industry and the University: Exchange of Research Personnel. Nature 155, 721 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155721d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155721d0