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indeterminate amount of this money was spent prior to fiscal year 1963, and a further portion will be spent after fiscal year 1963. On the other hand, costs were not or could not be reported for certain projects or activities. A portion of this indeterminate amount no doubt could be allocated to urban research costs in fiscal year 1963, but some undoubtedly would not.

The table, then, to recapitulate, shows for each agency the number of urban research projects commenced, in process, or completed in fiscal year 1963 by category and agency. It shows the costs for those projects where costs were reported and the number of projects for which no costs were reported.

Seventy-three of the 400 or about 18 percent of all projects or activities reported did not bear a cost figure. There is no way to effectively assign a cost to these activities, but for the 327 projects and activities for which costs were reported the unweighted average was approximately $120,000. Applying this average to projects with unreported costs would raise the total costs reported to approximately $48 million. Let us assume that it is probable that the total cost would at least equal $45 million.

In allocating reported costs among types of projects and agencies, the large amount reported for type E scientific research on air pollution again should be noted. The Public Health Service reported $8,620,000 for 82 projects of this type (costs for 12 were not reported). This amount represents 86.6 percent of all costs reported for type E scientific urban research activities and nearly 22 percent of all costs for all projects and activities reported by all agencies. This partial figure is exceeded only by the totals reported for type C technological and type B economic urban research activities.

Costs reported for the social and economic types of urban research amounted to over one-third of the total. Technological research accounted for over 25 percent of reported costs, but planning studies amounted to only slightly more than 4 percent of all reported costs. Research in urban governmental and administrative problem areas came to 5.5 percent.

Agency cost reporting showed that the Housing and Home Finance Agency (generally recognized as the Federal Government's urban agency) was second in reported urban research costs with $12,136,600 reported. It was led by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare with over $15 million, and followed by the Department of Commerce with over $9 million. Of course, virtually all Housing and Home Finance Agency research expenditures can be classified as urban research whereas only a portion of the total research activities of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare can be so categorized. Among the three agencies, however, over 90 percent of all reported urban research costs are accounted for.

5. Coordination of research.-With respect to the coordination of federally sponsored research, few formal coordinative mechanisms were noted. Agencies seem more likely to maintain informal liaison with other agencies appearing to have similar problems; and participation on interagency committees not set up specifically for research nevertheless frequently provides intercommunication of research information as a by-product. Likewise, informal contact is maintained with people in the non-Federal research world.

Various of the larger multi-functional agencies have set up some more formal mechanisms for internal research coordination. The Housing and Home Finance Agency, for instance, has set up a "Coordinating Board for Research, Studies, and Demonstrations" which reviews the research activity of each of the constituent agencies. Several agencies, such as the Housing and Home Finance Agency and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, maintain panels of outside experts to review research proposal and findings. These people are usually conversant with specific bodies of research both in and out of Government and can make referrals to corollary activities which might enhance a given project or prevent duplication. Insofar as research related to the biological and physical sciences is concerned a number of the agencies register their own projects with the Science Information Exchange and utilize the information provided by that organization in evaluating research proposals (see below). Some agencies, such as the Departments of Health, Education, and Welfare and Agriculture, publish annual summaries of research being undertaken under their auspices. A very few of the respondents publish listings or abstracts of research and publications. related to programs for which they are responsible. The Housing and Home Finance Agency publishes Housing and Planning References periodically and the Highway Research Board of the National Academy of Science puts out Highway Research News which regularly includes a section, "Urban Transportation Research Digest."

The Bureau of the Budget provides certain coordinative services, primarily in the field of Federal statistics. Proposed statistical surveys are cleared through the Office of Statistical Standards of the Bureau in order to eliminate duplication, assure the quality of the survey, and reduce costs where possible. The Budget review process itself serves as a coordinative device, disclosing relationships between proposed research programs and projects among the agencies.

Actually, the survey revealed relatively little in the way of research overlap, inasmuch as most of the research is program-oriented, as indicated above. There can be noted, however, a converging of interest at some points of highway research, mass transportation research, and city and regional planning research, so that there will be a growing need for research coordination between the Housing and Home Finance Agency and certain elements of the Departments of Commerce and Health, Education, and Welfare. In essence, however, the greatest problem may be one of gaps and deficiencies rather than duplication and overlap in Federal urban research.

Duplication and overlap, here and in other research fields, is most troublesome, not so much in terms of project purpose or end-product, but in the gathering of the information and data that go into studies in the same area of interest. This is true even when we consider that, depending on the interest and objectives of the particular researcher, the same basic data may be couched in different terms or the same information may be evoked by different questions. One of the basic problems of establishing data banks is to collect and store information in such a form that it can be utilized for the widest possible range of purposes. This calls for the development of standard units and standard definitions. Such standardization is lacking for many aspects of urban research and analysis and of necessity must precede any truly effective elimination of the duplication and overlap that exists in any research field.

6. Improvement of coordination.-Recommendations for improving coordination largely centered about establishing a clearinghouse for urban research. There appeared substantial agreement that some reference point was necessary to discover what had been done, what was going on, whether certain data had been developed, etc., in relationship to any given urban research project contemplated. Here again it is clear that such an information facility can best serve not so much to assure that particular projects are not duplicatory, but to assure that, in similar or related projects, the same data and information inputs are not gathered afresh for each project. Also, it is very important to know what complementary, supplementary, or contradictory evidence exists that may facilitate the progress of a particular project.

Clearinghouse proposals suggested ranged from a reporting function Isimilar to the Statistical Reporter published by the Bureau of the Budget to a more systematic arrangement, such as the Science Information Exchange of the Smithsonian Institution. This service is supported by various of the Federal agencies having extensive research activities. It provides an automated documentation service, storing and receiving information on current research activities of the Federal Government and other public and private organizations and institutions.

The Science Information Exchange was established in 1948, primarily to serve as a clearinghouse for research in the biological and medical sciences. After 15 years it has secured major coverage of current research in those fields. In 1961 it expanded its services into the physical sciences, but while a start has been made, the greater part of research in this field is still not listed. Agreements must be developed between the Science Information Exchange and the various Federal agencies, foundations, universities, and other organizations sponsoring the type of research for which coverage is sought in order to establish definitive areas of coverage.

Reports to the Science Information Exchange are standardized covering; (1) the name of the agency sponsoring the project; (2) principal investigators; (3) location of the work; (4) title of project; (5) a 200-word summary; and (6) cost and duration of the project. The reports are indexed, coded, and stored (on tape) in such a way that any information item or combination of such items can be quickly retrieved. Thus, Federal agencies can use information on these records to evaluate proposals and the research community generally can find out who is doing what with respect to any contemplated project. The Science Information Exchange reports do not cover results of research, but it can put researchers in touch with those who have results or are undertaking related research. In this manner, the Science Information Exchange services can help to eliminate duplication of effort, prevent research up blind alleys, and in general secure greater cooperation and coordination of research.

Several of the respondent agencies recommended wider utilization of the Science Information Exchange services or setting up a similar service for urban research. There is, of course, a serious question, as has been indicated, whether "urban research" is a truly meaningful heading under which to gather information or with respect to more extensive use of the Science Information Exchange-whether it is entirely feasible. In this connection, it is worth quoting from a

paper delivered before the American Chemical Society by Dr. Monroe Freeman, Director of the Science Information Exchange:

In this discussion, attention has been focused on only one phase of the total problem of scientific and technical information and its communication. It remains to place this function in its proper perspective, especially in regard to the vast government complex of information services. As indicated above, this approach (SIE) complements the traditional library and other documentation services. It bears directly on the problem of timely information for management purposes at all levels from the individual investigator to the director of major programs. This management aspect of scientific and technical information is becoming the center of increasing interest and some controversy. Multimillion dollar research programs that encompass thousands of diversified projects and tasks need some information service for management and control, and such information systems are being developed by many agencies. At first glance, it might seem that herein lies duplication of effort since they apparently collect, manipulate and organize quite comparable basic information. And it might follow that a single giant monolithic system, collecting all scientific and technical information and serving all purposes might answer this communication problem. However, a working familiarity with the detailed operational problems renders this view unattractive and impractical within the present state of the art, which seems to consist of as much speculation and theory as practical experience.

However, there is one aspect of the many information systems which does not seem to have had the attention it deserves. It seems quite evident that each agency has, perchance and perforce, developed characteristic and often unique management practices and procedures. These are dictated to a large extent by the nature of its research work and its own objectives. It should then follow that each agency may have quite different requirements for different kinds of information, and for effective use, the information must be organized and tailored accordingly. S.I.E. has been working with many different agencies, government and non-government, and has found that these needs do differ widely from one agency to another. From this viewpoint of practical experience, it can be argued that most agencies may very well need their own internal information service to deal with the information generated in their own programs, organized and designed specifically for their own internal management and internal control. This limited objective, limited in terms of its use and purpose, can probably be served most efficiently and effectively by the agency itself because each agency knows its internal management and control problems better than anyone else. Industry offers many examples of efficient information systems designed to meet limited objectives. In these cases, the limitations are usually in terms of technical fields rather than management criteria, but perhaps the analogy is not too finely drawn.

This means that while the Science Information Exchange can serve as a coordinative device of considerable utility, it by no means alleviates the need for the various agencies to develop their own clearinghouse and information retrieval systems under broad functional headings. For instance, the Science Information Exchange cannot perform all of these services for the Housing and Home Finance Agency which might well develop its own system for gathering and correlating research on "housing" and/or "community development.' Other agencies responsible for broad program areas might do the same. Instruments such as the Science Information Exchange can serve to highlight areas of tangency and overlap of interest between agencies and programs.

In summary, then, it would appear-at least for certain broad areas of research dealing with urban problems-that it is first necessary for agencies to develop coordination of research within more limited and well defined program or problem areas while supporting the development and improvement of devices for pulling together information across program lines.

Summaries of Agency Responses

Following are summaries of the responses of agencies to the request for information regarding their urban research activities. Summaries are included not only for those agencies which reported specific projects and activities within the purview of the survey, but those agencies which either were major users of urban research or undertook less generalizable types of research excluded from the definition.

For each agency, statutory authorities for its research activities are cited or quoted, the general scope and purpose at which its research is aimed is given, and the procedures employed to coordinate its research activities internally or with others are indicated. Where suggestions are made for improving coordination, these are noted.

A listing of specific urban research projects and activities reported is given in appendix C.

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