ABSTRACT
Research and development expenditure is concentrated, then, in a few industries. The relative importance of each research intensive industry varies from country to country. This is partly due to the differing incidence of government finance, especially in the case of the aircraft industry. Presumably because of the pattern of government support, the distribution of research and development expenditures in the USA. Expenditure on basic research is also useful for tackling problems encountered in a firm's applied research. Basic research, then, serves these two important functions, even where the firm is not aiming directly at making significant advances in scientific knowledge. Finally, from a scientific point of view, an industrial research laboratory may not be the best place to undertake a programme of basic research. The chapter describes that the atmosphere in industrial laboratories, their organization and administration, may be antipathetic to some creative minds.
