Aresearch institute,research centre, orresearch organization is an establishment founded for doingresearch. Research institutes may specialize inbasic research or may be oriented toapplied research. Although the term often impliesnatural science research, there are also many research institutes in thesocial science as well, especially forsociological andhistorical research purposes.
In the early medieval period, several astronomical observatories were built in the Islamic world. The first of these was the 9th-centuryBaghdad observatory built during the time of theAbbasid caliphal-Ma'mun, though the most famous were the 13th-centuryMaragheh observatory, and the 15th-centuryUlugh Beg Observatory.[1]
TheKerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was a school of mathematics and astronomy founded byMadhava of Sangamagrama inKerala,India. The school flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries and the original discoveries of the school seems to have ended withNarayana Bhattathiri (1559–1632). In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently discovered a number of important mathematical concepts.
The earliest research institute in Europe wasTycho Brahe'sUraniborg complex on the island ofHven, a 16th-centuryastronomical laboratory set up to make highly accurate measurements of the stars. In theUnited States there are numerous notable research institutes includingBell Labs,Xerox Parc,The Scripps Research Institute,[2]Beckman Institute,RTI International, andSRI International.Hughes Aircraft used a research institute structure for its organizational model.[3]
Thomas Edison, dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park",[4] was one of the firstinventors to apply the principles ofmass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention in the late 1800s, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.[5]
From the throes of theScientific Revolution came the 17th century scientific academy. In London, theRoyal Society was founded in 1660, and in FranceLouis XIV founded theAcadémie royale des sciences in 1666 which came after private academic assemblies had been created earlier in the seventeenth century to foster research.
In the early 18th century,Peter the Great established an educational-research institute to be built in his newly created imperial capital,St Petersburg. His plan combined provisions for linguistic, philosophical and scientific instruction with a separate academy in which graduates could pursue further scientific research. It was the first institution of its kind in Europe to conduct scientific research within the structure of a university. The St Petersburg Academy was established by decree on 28 January 1724.[6]
At the European level, there are now several government-funded institutions such as theEuropean Space Agency (ESA), the nuclear research centreCERN, theEuropean Southern Observatory (ESO) (Grenoble), theEuropean Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) (Grenoble),EUMETSAT, the Italian-European Sistema Trieste with, among others, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and the research complex Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, the biology project EMBL, and the fusion projectITER which in addition to technical developments has a strong research focus.
Research institutes came to emerge at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900, at least in Europe and the United States, the scientific profession had only evolved so far as to include the theoretical implications of science and not its application. Research scientists had yet to establish a leadership in expertise. Outside scientific circles it was generally assumed that a person in an occupation related to the sciences carried out work which was necessarily "scientific" and that the skill of the scientist did not hold any more merit than the skill of a labourer. A philosophical position on science was not thought by all researchers to be intellectually superior to applied methods. However any research on scientific application was limited by comparison. A loose definition attributed all naturally occurring phenomena to "science". The growth of scientific study stimulated a desire to reinvigorate the scientific discipline by robust research in order to extract"pure" science from such broad categorisation.[7]
This began with research conducted autonomously away from public utility and governmental supervision. Enclaves for industrial investigations became established. These included theRockefeller Institute,Carnegie Institution of Washington and theInstitute for Advanced Study. Research was advanced in both theory and application. This was aided by substantial private donation.[7]
As of 2006, there were over 14,000 research centres in the United States.[8]
The expansion of universities into the faculty of research fed into these developments as mass education produced massscientific communities. A growing public consciousness of scientific research brought public perception to the fore in driving specific research developments. After theSecond World War and theatom bomb specific research threads were followed:environmental pollution andnational defence.[7]
