Historians tell us that the term "fundamental research" entered the discourse of science in the interwar period as a synonym for "pure science" and that both terms referred to work concerned with the search for knowledge, without thought of application. The aim of this paper is to show that when the expression "fundamental research" was used in Britain during and after World War I, it had a particular status that was not equivalent to pure science. In the annual reports of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) "fundamental research" was endowed with multiple meanings, including work that was orientated towards some practical goal. The fluidity of the meaning of "fundamental research" in the reports of the DSIR can be understood as a strategy; "fundamental research" was a rhetorical term that served to persuade more than one audience of the legitimacy of the DSIR and its policies.
Historical accounts of colonial science and medicine have failed to engage with the Colonial Office's shift in focus towards the support of research after 1940. A large new fund was created in 1940 to expand activities in the colonies described as fundamental research. With this new funding came a qualitative shift in the type of personnel and activity sought for colonial development and, as a result, a diverse group of medical and technical officers existed in Britain's colonies by the 1950s. The fact that such variety existed amongst British officers in terms of their qualifications, institutional locations and also their relationships with colonial and metropolitan governments makes the use of the term 'expert' in much existing historical scholarship on scientific and medical aspects of empire problematic. This article will consider how the Colonial Office achieved this expansion of research activities and personnel after 1940. Specifically, it will focus on the reasons officials sought to engage individuals drawn from the British research councils to administer this work and the consequences of their involvement for the new apparatus established for colonial research after 1940. An understanding of the implications of the application of the research council system to the Colonial Empire requires engagement with the ideology promoted by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) which placed emphasis on the distinct and higher status of fundamental research and which privileged freedom for researchers.
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