Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation Donald E. Stokes
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Eschewing Vannevar Bush's model of separation between 'pure, untainted' research and that influenced by considerations of use, see Donald Stokes' excellent book "Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press; 1997. But, for reference, we note that in the terminology of Pasteur's Quadrant,11 we do “use-inspired basic” and “pure applied” (CS) research. Which is a good thing because new (or better) technology enables new scientific questions to be asked. "New knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research" conducted in universities and research labs, which is then applied to develop new products by the private sector and new and improved weapons by the defense . Louis Pasteur and modern science. Bush, Science: The Endless Frontier (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1945), 1–11 (accessed 28 May 2009); discussed in D. Quadrant?Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Pasteur's quadrant: Basic science and technological innovation. Collectively, these core technologies could permit the development of an innovative pharmaceutical platform composed of nanoparticles with tethered small interfering RNA (siRNA) oligonucelotides whose sequence and objective can be reprogrammed “on-the-fly” to inhibit multiple targets within multiple classes of And the first element in DARPA's success is the power that lies at the intersection of basic science and application, in the so-called Pasteur's Quadrant. Unless on subscribes to some species of idealism or essentialism, strictly speaking the term basic or fundamental research has no meaning outside its use as a statistical household word: in other words it is historically and socially contingent . One way of making this distinction is in the terms introduced in the infrequently read but oft cited 1997 book by Stokes, called Pasteur's Quadrant – Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Stokes DE: Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation. An alternative model in which science and practice develop seamlessly is represented in the remarkable career of Louis Pasteur. The quadrant of this typology that is concerned with fundamental understanding AND considerations of use is termed Pasteur's quadrant, or alternately “use-inspired basic research.” I reproduced a diagram from the book that illustrates the typology: Use-inspired basic research can advance both fundamental knowledge as well as technology. Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation book download Download Pasteur's Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.