ABSTRACT
The issue of infrastructure has been missing in discussions of the subject of practice. Some practitioners encourage institutions such as steering committees to evolve as and when it seems appropriate in the course of the work. Institutional "learning" depends on whether it is possible for individual learning to pass from one person to another. Some developments are less of measurable institutional change and more of conceptual growth. Recognizing practice as an intellectually respectable discipline would go a long way towards solving this perennial problem. One of the weakest aspects of practice appears to be the tendency to achieve some of the necessary elements of institutionalization but not others. For client systems, strategic questions arise about whether to engage with social science sporadically, as and when a need is felt, or systematically, and what parts of the social science spectrum to engage with. Client organizations need to recognize the demands this makes on the social scientists' resources.
