C.J. van Nieuwenburg over organisatie van wetenschappelijk Technisch werk. Stemmen uit de industrie over toegepast natuurwetenschappelijk onderzoek 1900-1919

Abstract

C.J. van Nieuwenburg on the organization of scientific-technical work. Voices from the industry on applied scientific research 1900-1919 In December 1919, the chemical engineer C.J. van Nieuwenburg held a lecture on 'the organization of scientific-technical work'. At that time, the process of establishing a national organization for applied scientific research had come to a standstill. A former, war-based, organization had resigned, and there were no successors. Van Nieuwenburg pleaded for the establishment of two organizations: a privately funded equivalent of the Pittsburgh Mellon Institute, and a state funded laboratory for applied, but not directly applicable research. In historiography, the lecture has commonly been recognized as having given new impetus to the process of the establishment of the Central Organization for Applied Scientific Research TNO. The Minister of Science, seeming to have noticed Van Nieuwenburg's ideas, installed a committee, which made recommendations that ultimately led to the establishment of TNO in 1932. However, Van Nieuwenburg was just a young chemical engineer working at a small glass company. His audience was probably merely a group of people with a common interest in science. So neither the status of the speaker nor that of his audience seems to justif)' the impact the lecture had. No satisfactory explanation has been given for this paradox in historiography. This article tries to explain the influence of the lecture by focusing on the background of Van Nieuwenburg's ideas. It is shown that among Dutch industrial leaders and industrial researchers the call for a state funded laboratory had been frequently heard from 1900 onward. Furthermore, in the most prestigious organization of industrial employers, the Maatschappij van Nijverheid (Society of Industry), the ideas of Robert Duncan, founding father of the Mellon Institute had been very influential in the second decade of this century. At the time of Van Nieuwenburg's lecture, but independently, several engineers in various organizations pleaded for the establishment of state funded laboratories. Most of them were young chemical engineers, but some of the organizations were very prestigious, like the above mentioned Maatschappij van Nijverheid, the semi-official representation of employers in the government. All these pleas together, and especially the pleas in the Maatschappij van Nijverheid, were impossible to ignore for the iMinister of Science. He then acted by installing the above-mentioned committee.