---
title: "Science policy"
chunk: 1/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:30:20.702150+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Science policy is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Topics include the funding of science, the careers of scientists, and the translation of scientific discoveries into technological innovation to promote commercial product development, competitiveness, economic growth and economic development. Science policy focuses on knowledge production and role of knowledge networks, collaborations, and the complex distributions of expertise, equipment, and know-how. Understanding the processes and organizational context of generating novel and innovative science and engineering ideas is a core concern of science policy. Science policy topics include weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring.
Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve science. A large and complex web of factors influences the development of science and engineering that includes government science policymakers, private firms (including both national and multi-national firms), social movements, media, non-governmental organizations, universities, and other research institutions. In addition, science policy is increasingly international as defined by the global operations of firms and research institutions as well as by the collaborative networks of non-governmental organizations and of the nature of scientific inquiry itself.

== History ==

State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the Warring States period in China. General levies of labor and grain were collected to fund great public works in China, including the accumulation of grain for distribution in times of famine, for the building of levees to control flooding by the great rivers of China, for the building of canals and locks to connect rivers of China, some of which flowed in opposite directions to each other, and for the building of bridges across these rivers. These projects required a civil service, the scholars, some of whom demonstrated great mastery of hydraulics.
In Italy, Galileo noted that individual taxation of minute amounts could fund large sums to the State, which could then fund his research on the trajectory of cannonballs, noting that "each individual soldier was being paid from coin collected by a general tax of pennies and farthings, while even a million of gold would not suffice to pay the entire army."
In Great Britain, Lord Chancellor Sir Francis Bacon had a formative effect on science policy with his identification of "experiments of ... light, more penetrating into nature [than what others know]", which today we call the crucial experiment. Governmental approval of the Royal Society recognized a scientific community which exists to this day. British prizes for research spurred the development of an accurate, portable chronometer, which directly enabled reliable navigation and sailing on the high seas, and also funded Babbage's computer.
The professionalization of science, begun in the nineteenth century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and State funding of universities of their respective nations. In the United States, a member of the National Academy of Sciences can sponsor a Direct Submission for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. PNAS serves as a channel to recognize research of importance to at least one member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives to those organizations who fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the U.S. government in July 1945, wrote "Science is a proper concern of government" Vannevar Bush directed the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, and his writings directly inspired researchers to invent the hyperlink and the computer mouse. The DARPA initiative to support computing was the impetus for the Internet Protocol stack. In the same way that scientific consortiums like CERN for high-energy physics have a commitment to public knowledge, access to this public knowledge in physics led directly to CERN's sponsorship of development of the World Wide Web and standard Internet access for all.

== Philosophies ==