0.3 Knowledge for governance: social science perspectives on science  (Page 8/10)

On the basis of these and other findings, the report made several recommendations, including:

• That steps be taken to improve the methods of recruiting research workers for governmental service and to provide more effective in-service training for Civil Service employees of the Government.
• That research agencies of the Government be authorized and encouraged to enter into contracts for the prosecution of research projects with the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, the Social Science Research Council, the American Council on Education, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other recognized research agencies.
• That research agencies of the Government extend the practice of encouraging decentralized research in institutions not directly related to the Government and by individuals not in its employ.
• That the interrelations of governmental research agencies be furthered by the organization of central councils along the lines followed by the existing national councils of research specialists. These interagency councils would serve to systemize the efforts which are now made by various interbureau committees to coordinate the research activities within the Government.

Knowledge for governance

The three-volume Research: A National Resource made a strong case for a national policy linking scientific knowledge to the problems of governance. It argued that research should be regarded as a national resource at least on a par with physical resources. It recognized that the U.S. government's natural sciences and social sciences bureaus existed in the context of a national research system that depended on the federal system, and that the federal system in turn depended on a vigorous external system. This amounted to an argument that the United States needed a comprehensive policy for linking science with the nation's social and economic objectives—what Harvey Brooks would later call science-for-policy. The report went on to recommend several steps to achieve that end, including expansion and modification of the federal contracting system to facilitate the support of university research in areas of clear national benefit.

Academic social scientists who joined the Roosevelt administration saw no conflict between academic research and government service. They believed that academic social science depended upon its relationship with government to prosper, and that government depended upon insights from the social sciences to function effectively.

The 1937 report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management marked the apex of the influence of social science in the New Deal. Roosevelt established the committee with the aim of making “a careful study of the organization of the Executive branch of Government . . . with the primary purpose of considering the problem of administrative management.” Barry D. Karl, Executive Reorganization and Reform in the New Deal: the Genesis of Administrative Management, 1900-1939 , op. cit ., 209. The ostensible reason for the study was to bring greater organizational coherence to the host of specialized agencies that proliferated during the first years of the New Deal. A second reason was Roosevelt's desire for an administrative structure “to give the President authority to carry out his responsibilities under the Constitution,” or, in effect, to provide him with the tools to get his arms around his government.