CALL FOR MORE FOR RESEARCH

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31098, 29 June 1966, Page 20

CALL FOR MORE FOR RESEARCH

The National Research Advisory Council has recommended in its annual report to the Government that an extra £160,000 be spent on scientific research in seven fields this year.

It says that existing building research units should get ’ an additional £26,000 for the i year, and £20,000 a year for ! the next three years. 1 An extra £25,000 should be spent this year to start expanding the advisory and liaison services of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research for the manufacturing and engineering industries at the rate of 10 per cent a year, says the, report. The council urges a very high priority for research into problems of the transport industry. It says £lO,OOO should be spent to set up a transport research unit within ; the Transport Department this year and that expenditure in that field should rise to £50.000 a year in five years. In the atmospheric sciences, the council says additional staff should be recruited to fill all existing vacancies in the New Zealand Meteorological Service, that the scale of meteorological research be doubled in the next five years, and that the D.S.I.R. immediately increase its annual expenditure on atmos-

pheric research, rising to £20,000 in 1970-71. The council wants the D.S.I.R. to spend an extra £13.000 in the 1966-67 year, and more in the next five years, to strengthen the work of the Oceanographic Institute and the associated work of the geophysics, chemistry I and botany divisions. It says that the D.S.I.R. .should be granted an extra i £16.000 this year to intensify [present studies in the solid [earth sciences. Discussing scientific services for Government departments and agencies, the council recommends that most of I the testing work now being j done by the D.S I.R. for the i Health Department should be undertaken by the Health [ Department itself as soon as practicable. [ It . says the chemistry division of the D.S.I.R. should employ an extra eight persons to test drugs for the Health Department, and that the D.S.I.R. should employ another eight persons solely on testing work so that existing equipment may be more extensively used for work required by Government agencies.