---
title: "History of science policy"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_policy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:40:11.934210+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Patronage ===
Most of the important astronomers and natural philosophers (as well as artists) in the 16th and 17th centuries depended on the patronage of powerful religious or political figures to fund their work.  Patronage networks extended all the way from Emperors and Popes to regional nobles to artisans to peasants; even university positions were based to some extent on patronage.  Scholarly careers in this period were driven by patronage, often starting in undistinguished universities or local schools or courts, and traveling closer or farther from centers of power as their fortunes rose and fell.
Patronage, and the desire for more, also shaped the work and publications of scientists.  Effusive dedications to current or potential patrons can be found in almost every scholarly publication, while the interests of a patron in a specific topic was a strong incentive to pursue said topic—or reframe one's work in terms of it.  Galileo, for example, first presented the telescope as a naval instrument to military- and commerce-focused Republic of Venice; when he sought the more prestigious patronage of the Medici court in Florence, he instead promoted the astronomical potential of the device (by naming the moons of Jupiter after the Medicis).
A scholar's patron not only supported his research financially, but also provided credibility by associating results with the authority of the patron.  This function of patronage was gradually subsumed by scientific societies, which also initially drew upon their royal charters for authority but eventually came to be sources of credibility on their own.

=== Self-funded science ===
Self-funding and independent wealth were also crucial funding sources for scientists, from the Renaissance at least until the late 19th century.  Many scientists derived income from tangential but related activities: Galileo sold instruments; Kepler published horoscopes; Robert Hooke designed buildings and built watches; and most anatomists and natural historians practiced or taught medicine. Those with independent means were sometimes known as gentlemen scientists.

=== Exploration and commerce ===
Military and commercial voyages, though not intended for scientific purposes, were especially important for the dramatic growth of natural historical knowledge during the "Age of Exploration."  Scholars and nobles in seafaring nations, first Spain and Portugal followed Italy, France and England, amassed unprecedented collections of biological specimens in cabinets of curiosities, which galvanized interest in diversity and taxonomy.

== 18th and 19th centuries ==
Gradually, a science policy arose that ideas be as free as the air (air being a free good, not just a public good). Steven Johnson, in The invention of air (a 2008 book on Enlightenment Europe and America, especially on Joseph Priestley) quotes Thomas Jefferson: "That ideas should spread freely from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, ... like the air ... incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as the pace of technological progress increased before and during the Industrial Revolution, most scientific and technological research was carried out by individual inventors using their own funds. For example, Joseph Priestley was a clergyman and educator, who spoke freely with others, especially those in his scientific community, including Benjamin Franklin, a self-made man who retired from the printing business.

=== Scientific societies ===
The professionalization of science, begun in the nineteenth century, was further enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences in 1863, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1911, and state funding of universities of their respective nations.

=== Professionalization ===

=== Industry ===
A system of patents was developed to allow inventors a period of time (often twenty years) to commercialise their inventions and recoup a profit, although in practice many found this difficult. The talents of an inventor are not those of a businessman, and there are many examples of inventors (e.g. Charles Goodyear) making rather little money from their work whilst others were able to market it.

=== Research universities ===
The concept of the research university first arose in early 19th-century Prussia in Germany, where Wilhelm von Humboldt championed his vision of Einheit von Lehre und Forschung (the unity of teaching and research), as a means of producing an education that focused on the main areas of knowledge (the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) rather than on the previous goals of the university education, which was to develop an understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness.
Roger L. Geiger, "the leading historian of the American research university,"[14] has argued that "the model for the American research university was established by five of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution (Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Columbia); five state universities (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and California); and five private institutions conceived from their inception as research universities (MIT, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Chicago)."[15][16] The American research university first emerged in the late 19th century, when these fifteen institutions began to graft graduate programs derived from the German model onto undergraduate programs derived from the British model.[15]