The American Scene; #650

Good morning. This is Donald Smithburg for the Illinois Institute of Technology on the American Scene. This is the first of a four -part series on science capabilities and opportunities in the Midwest. There's been considerable discussion recently concerning the movement of scientists engaged primarily in basic and some applied research to the West Coast. The mayor has set up a commission to discuss the matter and it's a great deal of concern. One of the most interesting things I suppose about scientific development in recent years is I believe it was Dr. Oppenheimer that pointed out that of all the scientists that ever lived, 90 percent of them are living today. This means a tremendous emphasis on education, very complex and long education, a great deal of emphasis on research in all fields. In particular, I think the research in electronics has perhaps been most spectacular. I think this program is of

good interest today because on October 8th tomorrow, the National Electronics Conference meets at McCormick Place and there will be a lot of scientific discussion in the community. Those of you who are interested might follow that either by going there or in the newspapers. To discuss the general problem of research and development in this area, I have as my guest Dr. Marvin Krasno, who is Director of Research and Development for the Hella Crafters Company and Mr. Donald Trouch, who is a research analyst for the Army Research Foundation of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Good morning, gentlemen. Maybe we better start by seeing if we can't put some flesh on the bare bones of this thing that those of us in the field usually call R &D. What is the research and development, Dr. Krasno, how would you define it and what is the problem there? Basically, research and development consists of three areas. One, the basic

research, which is involved basically with the investigation of knowledge, advancing for various usage. The second area would be considered applied research, where you take this knowledge and adapt it to an end product or some useful means in our economy. The third step in this cycle would be the engineering development, where you package the unit for various applications. Now, I've heard it said and maybe Mr. Trouch, you could verify this. I've heard it said that in the development of certainly of atomic energy, we in America, because we had concentrated so much of our attention on applied research, we're pretty heavily dependent for borrowing basic research from European sources and European scholars. I believe most of the people who did the basic research, such as Fermi and Einstein and at least Meitner and others,

were Europeans. What is that situation still true today, would you say? Either one of you. No, I don't believe that's true. I realized Fermi and Einstein came from Europe, of course, but I think at that point in time in the development of the country, the United States of America had not as yet solidified its research and development activities as we know them today. We didn't have the kind of an educational system we now have, and as a result, we have to borrow on foreign scientists, so to speak, in order to quote, get us into the field, unquote. I now think, however, with the emphasis research and development has received during and since World War II, and with the development of the educational systems in the countries we know them today, that we, in fact, lead research and development in the world. And that would be true in basic research as well as in applied research. Yes, particularly in the Midwest area. We have some of the

finest universities in our Midwest area doing basic research. That you speak as a spokesman for industry, or maybe you don't want to be labeled as a spokesman for industry, but working for industry. Is there a rather clear cut demarcation today between basic research being pursued in the whole divide in the universities, so to speak, and the more mundane applied research in industry, or is that a fiction? You must have a close cooperation between basic research and applied research. Today, on the West Coast and on the New England, this is being accomplished. The basic research, the people involved in this are working closely with those in applied research, and we are not unfortunately accomplishing this in the Midwest, that closely is on with the universities. However, we have wonderful institutions, non -profit institutions

in the Midwest, such as armor institute, who are trying to perform this activity of bridging the gap of applied research with basic research. Before we went on the air, Mr. Truck, Dr. Cresnan, now we're talking about the possibility of using night schools in particular for refresher courses, and that sort of thing for people actively engaged in industry. It seems to me that this is one way in which liaison can be worked out. We've got such a set up at IIT, of course. Yes, I obviously concur with your statement, and this is highly desirable. From an industry standpoint, at least in the Chicago area, I think this is being accomplished. Many of the firms with which we work, or who are our clients, support their personnel, their engineering, research, and development personnel, and with respect to helicopters, those as well. Yes. Their education

in schools like IIT or in Northwestern, one of the University of Chicago. We definitely encourage this. In fact, tying down a few moments ago, we have this last June, three of our people received advanced degrees, one a PhD and the other a master's degree in the others. I'd just like to add, I think this is becoming today an absolute necessity, and we'll even become in the future an absolute necessity, where professional people in the sciences or engineering continue their education throughout their professional life with universities, private research organizations, or industrial firms. That's an interesting point. I was reading a book the other day that had to do with medicine and the advances that are going on in medicine, and they pointed out that a physician, five years out of medical school, is out of date, the matters are going so fast. Maybe what we need

is for research and development people, at least some kind of sabbaticals or a system of that kind, or will the, in a large metropolitan area like Chicago, of course, there's the possibility of a continuous liaison with the universities, but if you're located way to hell and gone, Houston, Texas, for example, where I think they put the space laboratories were reasons that are not scientific. Where do you get the interaction, or as the airplane helped to solve that problem, because people can go back and forth so fast? In terms of medicine, medical research and medical profession, I believe today, a Chicago is considered one of the outstanding medical centers of the world. We have some of our leading universities are very active in the medical profession, both from the academic standpoint and performing research, and with its close association with the medical hospitals. We have also the work

that's going on in terms of electronics in medicine. I noticed recently that Northwestern University received a large grant from the National Institute of Health in the subject of electro -medicine. I think this is very encouraging, and this will bridge the gap with the medical field and the scientists a little bit more strongly in the future. We're working on such a program, too. It's called Biomedical Engineering. I haven't figured out yet what it is. It's a very combination of biology and medicine and engineering techniques and equipment. That brings another question. Of course, research and development, I suppose, depends to a good extent also on the interaction of people working in a variety of fields. I believe you said your degree is in chemistry at your working on electronics. Yes, I received my doctorate degree in physical chemistry with a large number of courses in physics and engineering. Today, the activity,

you cannot bridge the gap. There is no demarcation between the various sciences and engineering. You must work together in this complex nature of the products that are involved and the research that's going on. I'd like to come in on that, too. We were the solution to a problem called for the knowledge built into a solid state physicist, as well as an electronic instrumentation man, as well as a stress analyst in the mechanical engineering areas. It was impossible to really solve the problem unless the knowledge of all three of these people were brought to play. I think this is just one example of the complexity of research and development programs that we in industry are getting into. Here's what I find and I speak from the standpoint of the social sciences, of course, that the language of the various specialties are getting

so completely well specialized, they're getting so completely new that it becomes, even in the social sciences, a difficult job of translation from them. That's right. Between a man trained in one field and a man trained in an allied field, when we get over to talk to physical scientists, we get into an even more difficult problem. Well, you've got a background in both to social and physical science. That's correct. So you've probably run into this. Can we solve this problem by committee work? I'm a man who hates to go to committee meetings. Somebody defined it. I think that committees are very important. I think that various types of people, such as the mayor's committee on the economic and cultural development of Chicago, which has incidentally a subcommittee on research and development, is very important in stimulating this liaison

and closeness of the universities and industry. I further think that the governor's committee on employment, which also has a subcommittee on research and development, is trying to perform the same thing and are working very closely with the mayor. This is further emphasized by the activities of the Department of Defense, which has been very active in trying to understand the relationships of its prime contracts with the research and development as to the geographic area of our country. I agree. I think that's very true. One of the approach that industry has been using lately in solving specific research and development problems, and I'm going to use the word team approach, which I think is somewhat analogous to the committees you're referring to. But I think the days of the scientists being shut away

in a corner room and the 10th floor in an old factory building are going forever. I think the kinds of research and development problems that are now occurring need a team or a committee approach where you bring, and again, the solution of a particular problem. Of course, there's somebody in an old dodge in our field that somebody defined a committee or a camel as a horse put together by a committee. The tendency I'm afraid in committees is to avoid the hard problems and to seek common ground, and the result is that you may not get a problem solving tool. I suppose there are committees and committees. That is a committee of scientists that's not involved in prestigious the question of who gets power. Well, it works better than some other. Of course, just commenting on that and looking into the very practical level, and I'm sure you run into this at helicopters. Many times in industry or at our research foundation or any other

organization performing research and development work, you're normally limited by the time and budget available and solving a particular problem. So it becomes a matter of expediency, more or less, to arrive at a solution at eight point in time. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but this sometimes gets around the committee putting the camel together to try to make a horse. I don't think that the committees will answer our problems, but I certainly think that they're in necessity. I believe they are, of course. I'd like to change the subject if I may, because the type of program we've got here, but probably most of the P .O .D. listeners who've been reading the newspapers have been aware that there's been considerable concern, which you raised earlier, Dr. Krasnoy, that while we've got ample facilities in terms of companies, in terms of universities, there still is a complaint that we are training the P .H .D.'s, and we're losing them to the coast.

That is to the complexes on the west coast, around Los Angeles, and Stanford, and around New England, in the Cambridge Boston area. Is there anything that's being done about it or anything that can be done? Well, I think these committees, both by the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois, plus the activities by the Department of Defense, are helping the situation resolve the problem and are making various changes to enhance our R &D capability research and development. I think some of our companies, such as Hal Crafters, is very active in engaging in this closeness with universities, which is a necessity in transcribing this knowledge to industry for various usage through the applied research aspect. To what extent are these research and development projects assigned

for political reasons and to what extent are they assigned because of the capabilities of personnel? Maybe that's an unfair question, and I have to be answering to the political scientists, but have you noticed that any kind of a tendency to tip these contracts in the direction of areas because of political reasons? Oh, I'm not sure that this is true. The west coast has tremendous capabilities and has created these positions, both by company sponsored research and development, and these have been enhanced by government contracting. The Midwest, on the other hand, which has excellent basic research with its universities and excellent facilities for producing various electronic products, has not carry on the function of applied research as much as it should have been. And I think this is the basic problem here, to getting back the industry,

working with your universities and your nonprofit organizations. Is this primarily because we were originally in the Midwest, and particularly in the Chicago area, primarily in heavy industry, and the emphasis is now in light industry? Partially, I think this is true. The 40s, where the basic research was done say in radar, we converted this to our television industry, which built our electronics industry in the Midwest. Doing this activity, we've neglected the R &D aspect of making new products for tomorrow. I'd like to go back to your original statement, Dan, and take notable exception that we are losing if you look at the complete picture of people to either the east coast or the west coast. And I say with notable exception because the obvious exceptions to my statements are the electronics industry and the instrument industry. The Midwest, and

I'm defining the Midwest as the five state area surrounding Chicago, supports in round numbers roughly one quarter of manufacturing activities in the United States. And in round numbers again, about 30 percent of all research and development activities in the United States are located in this five state Midwest area. Now this certainly doesn't paint a black and black picture, I think you'll agree. But on the other hand, if we do look at the so -called glamour industries of the country today, and I'll point electronics again, then we are losing people to the different coasts, the east coast and the west coast. And we know this in our day -to -day context with industrial firms where while one of the major electronic companies in the Chicago area recently decided not to move its laboratory, its electronics laboratory, from the west coast into Chicago because of unavailability of qualified personnel in the Chicago area. I don't think that this is completely true, Don.

The Midwest universities, if you rate the number of PhDs in engineering graduating from our midway, throughout the country, that out of the top 10 four of our Midwestern universities are graduating more PhDs than other universities in the country. And we do have this manpower. The question I think is the number of positions that are available for these people in the Chicago area. They are migrating to where the positions are and these today are on the west coast and in the New England area. I didn't mean to be negative, Marv, because I think in all fairness, through the Midwest, there are a number of different industry groupings in the Midwest whose rate of growth in research and development expenditures have far outstripped, at least from studies we've performed, have far outstripped over the last

five years, surprisingly enough, the rate of growth of electronics research and development expenditures. Now, I've got to make an exception to this by saying that this is primarily for industrial sponsored research and development and that for government sponsored research and development. Up until a year ago, the government to my knowledge had not really described where they were spending their research and development money by geographical areas. It seems to me that we've got another problem here and I speak in my capacity as a teacher and that is I believe that the no total number of PhDs turned out in this country is about 10 ,000 per year. We do find a problem we are engaged in education that an increasing number of the PhDs are recruited from the campuses to industry because there's such a large differential in terms of economic reward. If you in turn do transfer these skills away from education, you don't have the people that skilled

PhDs to do the teaching which will provide a future supply. Aren't we running into a problem here? One, a total of PhDs and two the teaching problem. Yes, we need more PhDs. However, I would say approximately half of the PhDs in engineering that have graduated over the last six years have remained associated with the universities and nonprofit organizations associated with them. The concern I think is with the number of PhDs are going into industry. Here we need a larger number and also to retain those at least that are being graduated from our schools in this area. I was wondering if there's any possibility of working out cooperative arrangements between industry and the universities so that the universities can utilize at least in a part -time basis the talents of some of the industry people or is there is there any

feasible way to do that? Well, I think we're doing that to a certain extent and down the Illinois Institute of Technology and Army Research Foundation. I know I've taught at Illinois Institute of Technology in the economics area. I know some of our physicists certainly teach over at IIT and I also know that we utilize some of the IIT professors as consultants to work going on at Army Research Foundation. Well, of course, we're in a rather unique organization from that extent. I think we're in a unique situation. Well, we are also the Hal Crafters Company is very active in this closeness with universities. We have six consultants on a weekly basis from our leading universities in this area including IIT and we also have four programs other than the consulting arrangements going on with the universities in this area. I think that they're that this growing closeness and interaction between the universities and the business

community probably benefits both at least it would seem to me to benefit industry from the standpoint of keeping them constantly informed as to what kind of long range projects are going on. More basic research and it would benefit certainly our students in being acquainted with the ongoing process of transferring this knowledge into some kind of engineering possibilities. There was another question which I'd like to ask about and that is it relates to the commercial adaptability of research and development work. We might call it the spin off or the byproduct or I'm not sure what term we could use for it but out of all this work which is being done for the government for space for example to what extent are they're offsetting commercial applications for that coming out of that. Well, I believe the National Aeronautical Agency looked into this a few months ago and they were rather disappointed of commercial byproducts from

government -sponsored work in the space and electronics area and the other hand I think that traditionally the offspin of any basic kind of research work has taken a certain time period before that offspin has been commercialized. The transistor might be a good example of it where the basic work in the transistor was done in the early 30s and it was 20 or so years later before the transistor became a mass market kind of an application and I don't know, Marv, I would suspect that this time period is sort of closing in as we put more and more people working in research and development. There is a time lag between research and development that's carried on and the usefulness say in commercial products which will increase our gross national product. I know of several examples that our company for instance that this has been done, our research and

development that has been used in military applications have found a way into commercial uses and we are now after several years trying to develop them for commercial products. Would you say that the intense activity into military and space programs which are our governmentally sponsored detract from the amount of research that's done into products which will help the ordinary citizen like you and me, longer -wearing tires or something? No, I think that research and development which is applicable to military and civilian agencies such as NASA is very important and much of this will be used and adapted for commercialization. I remember some of the work that's going on in the micro -miniturization field. I've seen a complete radio on a very, on the size of a needle head, things of this sort which are the products of

tomorrow and are being actively pursued by the research and development activity for the Midwest, for the government activity. Then you would say that the government in fact subsidizing research and commercial enterprises businesses is not necessarily there's not necessarily a conflict between government -sponsored research and the general welfare so to speak. It creates the positions you have the personnel who are doing this research and development for the military and much of this, after all everyone's living in has their own immediate surroundings and many of the ideas will come and are coming from this activity for commercialization. I'd like to ask you one more question and directed to both of you. Do you anticipate that the amount of human energy or the percentage of our men power involved in research and development will continue to increase or heavily reached an optimum? Well my comment would be I think we've the rate of growth we've seen over the past 10 years will probably not be

duplicated in the future but I do see by looking at the background an increasingly good rate of growth. Would you agree with that, Marvin? Yes. I think if I could use a few figures here. I don't think it can we are running out of time. I'm afraid. We've talked this morning about research and development next time we're going to go in and talk about social science research. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.