If institutionalised research is to be productive, a fairly wide margin for the autonomy of its practitioners has to be built into the institutions. One of the central problems for scientific establishments financed and controlled by extraneous agencies thus becomes that of the balance between dependence and independence.

From science, all statesmen and politicians want are instrumentalities, powers but not power: weapons, techniques, information, communications, and so on. As for scientists, what have they wanted of government? They expressly have not wished to be politicised. They have wanted support in the obvious form of funds, but also in the shape of institutionalisation and in the provision of authority for the legitimation of their community in its existence and in the activities, or in other words for its professional status.