The Functionalist Account of Basic-Applied Distinction of Research and its Implications for Research Policy

This article aims at suggesting a new account of the distinction between basic and applied research which I call the functionalist account. In nearly all science and technology policy documents, the distinction is drawn in terms of the linear model of innovation which is not historically adequate. Upon the two conceptions of science representation and design plan, this new account discards the priority of basic over applied research which the linear model is based on. Instead, the functionalist account focuses on the social aspects and the context of use in which the final and intermediate outcomes of research are understood. To support this new account, I will next briefly review the development of transistor at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, some research and education policy suggestions of this account will be considered.