Research relations between colleges and industry

The engineering colleges of the U. S. A. are expending about one million dollars per year for research of direct value to industry. The organized research departments or engineering experiment stations of many state supported engineering colleges are cooperating with industry in a variety of projects. In several institutions the amounts appropriated by the cooperating agencies are large, but the total funds expended for engineering research in colleges is less than one-thirtieth of the amount spent by these institutions for undergraduate instruction. While the results of cooperative research are directly of value to industry, the by-product of such research relations is a supply of scientifically trained research engineers. Industry has a clear cut obligation to support engineering research at colleges in order to improve the quality of the college training, to advance basic knowledge in engineering and to increase the supply of trained personnel.