Abstract
THE second report on "University Developments" issued by the Association of University Teachers, adopted by the Council of the Association last December, and which appeared in the Universities Review of May, has now been issued as a separate document. The report covers as wide a field as the first report, and deals with some questions which have been only briefly discussed in other reports on the expansion of the universities. Three broad subjects are covered:the place of research in the life of a university; the relations of academic and industrial science; and the university as a regional focus. The former includes a section on research in the faculty of arts; but this would appear to be a fragment only of the document quoted and discussed so wisely by Bruce Truscot in "Redbrick and these Vital Days". The section on research in the faculty of science is even briefer, and beyond stressing the need for attention to such points as the improvement of the position of laboratory assistants, as well as in their number, and the place of group- or team-work in research at the universities, contributes little that is new. Criticism of research in the social studies is more searching and constructive; and in urging that more and more adequate research in the social sciences is of the utmost importance because the progress of man in securing control over his material surroundings has not so far been accompanied by corresponding progress in controlling social and political organization and relationships, and in adapting human beings to their changing circumstances, the report suggests that much research on contemporary social conditions would be done better if initiated and directed by university departments. One reason for this is that it is difficult for an isolated group of persons to obtain access to, or command over, all the distinct disciplines and techniques required in the investigation, analysis and interpretation of complicated and many-sided social phenomena.
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University Developments. Nature 156, 311–314 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156311a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156311a0