BRITAIN-TUC Meet at Blackpool

now taking a sharp twist towards drawing on university research and development. The Reagan Administration has proposed the two-stage programme of phasing out the National Science Foundation (NSF) programme that centred on so-called value-free science and engineering education and introducing Pentagon funding of technical research. Traditionally, the NSF had funded pure research, a step Reagan- nominated science advisor George Key- worth II says is no solution, "The solution to scientific excellence and pre-eminence", he explains, "is not simply blind money", adding the NSF was ineffective in both improvements to scientific education and other programmes. Rather, the emphasis under Reagan's proposal is to provide increased benefits to the university system from the Federal Department of Defence, which would boost its research grants from $455 million to $645 million (some 41.6 per cent) between fiscal 1980 and fiscal 1982. Overall, these funds would become the principal share in the increase of 12.5 per cent in Federal research-and-deve- lopment money under the Administration's budget