Establishment endowed for doing research
A
research institute
,
research centre
,
research center
or
research organization
is an establishment founded for doing
research
. Research institutes may specialize in
basic research
or may be oriented to
applied research
. Although the term often implies
natural science
research, there are also many research institutes in the
social science
as well, especially for
sociological
and
historical
research purposes.
Famous research institutes
[
edit
]
In the early medieval period, several astronomical observatories were built in the Islamic world. The first of these was the 9th-century
Baghdad
observatory built during the time of the
Abbasid
caliph
al-Ma'mun
, though the most famous were the 13th-century
Maragheh observatory
, and the 15th-century
Ulugh Beg Observatory
.
[1]
The
Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics
was a school of mathematics and astronomy founded by
Madhava of Sangamagrama
in
Kerala
,
India
. The school flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries and the original discoveries of the school seems to have ended with
Narayana Bhattathiri
(1559?1632). In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently discovered a number of important mathematical concepts.
The earliest research institute in Europe was
Tycho Brahe
's
Uraniborg
complex on the island of
Hven
, a 16th-century
astronomical
laboratory set up to make highly accurate measurements of the stars. In the
United States
there are numerous notable research institutes including
Bell Labs
,
Xerox Parc
,
The Scripps Research Institute
,
[2]
Beckman Institute
,
RTI International
, and
SRI International
.
Hughes Aircraft
used a research institute structure for its organizational model.
[3]
Thomas Edison
, dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park",
[4]
was one of the first
inventors
to apply the principles of
mass production
and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention in the late 1800s, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.
[5]
Research institutes in Europe
[
edit
]
From the throes of the
Scientific Revolution
came the 17th century scientific academy. In London, the
Royal Society
was founded in 1660, and in France
Louis XIV
founded the
Academie royale des sciences
in 1666 which came after private academic assemblies had been created earlier in the seventeenth century to foster research.
In the early 18th century,
Peter the Great
established an educational-research institute to be built in his newly created imperial capital,
St Petersburg
. His plan combined provisions for linguistic, philosophical and scientific instruction with a separate academy in which graduates could pursue further scientific research. It was the first institution of its kind in Europe to conduct scientific research within the structure of a university. The St Petersburg Academy was established by decree on 28 January 1724.
[6]
At the European level, there are now several government-funded institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the nuclear research centre CERN, the European Southern Observatory ESO (Grenoble), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) (Grenoble), the EUMETSAT facility, the Italian -European Sistema Trieste with, among others, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and the research complex Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, the biology project EMBL, and the fusion projects ITER and Wendelstein 7-X, which in addition to technical developments have a strong research focus.
Scientific research in 20th century USA
[
edit
]
Research institutes came to emerge at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900, at least in Europe and the United States, the scientific profession had only evolved so far as to include the theoretical implications of science and not its application. Research scientists had yet to establish a leadership in expertise. Outside scientific circles it was generally assumed that a person in an occupation related to the sciences carried out work which was necessarily "scientific" and that the skill of the scientist did not hold any more merit than the skill of a labourer. A philosophical position on science was not thought by all researchers to be intellectually superior to applied methods. However any research on scientific application was limited by comparison. A loose definition attributed all naturally occurring phenomena to "science". The growth of scientific study stimulated a desire to reinvigorate the scientific discipline by robust research in order to extract
"pure" science
from such broad categorisation.
[7]
1900?1939
[
edit
]
This began with research conducted autonomously away from public utility and governmental supervision. Enclaves for industrial investigations became established. These included the
Rockefeller Institute
,
Carnegie Institution of Washington
and the
Institute for Advanced Study
. Research was advanced in both theory and application. This was aided by substantial private donation.
[7]
1940 onward
[
edit
]
As of 2006, there were over 14,000 research centres in the United States.
[8]
The expansion of universities into the faculty of research fed into these developments as mass education produced mass
scientific communities
. A growing public consciousness of scientific research brought public perception to the fore in driving specific research developments. After the
Second World War
and the
atom bomb
specific research threads were followed:
environmental pollution
and
national defence
.
[7]
Notable research centres
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
- ^
E. S. Kennedy (1962),
Reviewed Work:
The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory
by
Aydin Sayili
",
Isis
53
(2): 237?239.
doi
:
10.1086/349558
- ^
The Scripps Research Institute
Archived
2002-09-14 at the
Library of Congress
Web Archives
- ^
Hughes After Howard, Kenneth Richardson, 2011, pg88,
ISBN
978-0-9708050-8-9
- ^
"The Wizard of Menlo Park"
.
The Franklin Institute
. Archived from
the original
on 5 March 2013
. Retrieved
24 February
2013
.
- ^
Walsh, Bryan (15 July 2009).
"The Electrifying Edison"
. Time.com. Archived from
the original
on July 18, 2009
. Retrieved
31 December
2013
.
- ^
History of Universities: 1994, Volume 13, Peter Denley, Oxford University Press.1995, p142
ISBN
978-0-19-820531-9
- ^
a
b
c
Reingold, Ida H. (1981).
Science in America, a documentary history, 1900?1939
. The Chicago History of Science and Medicine. University of Chicago Press. p.
221
.
ISBN
978-0-226-70946-8
.
- ^
Evaluating Research Centers and Institutes for Success: A Manual and Guide with Case Studies William R. Tash WT & Associates, 2006. 229 pages