Abstract
THE "National Research Council Review, 1948" (N.R.C. No. 111. Pp. 216. Ottawa : King's Printer, 1948. 75 center) describes the work of the Council during the year ended December 31, 1947, and gives more detailed information regarding the work of the laboratories than is contained in the annual report, the last ty-first) of which covered the year ended March 31, 1948 (see Nature, November 6, p. 748). Besides the more specific accounts of work in progress, the Review includes a full list of scientific staff, arranged by Divisions, now totalling 2,682 persons, with details of the representation of the National Research Council on outside committees. In addition to statistics of scholarships and fellowships awarded in 1947-48 and their distribution, there is an analysis of those awarded during 1917-48. Reports from the various Associate Committees list the members of those Committees, while the value of the reports from the Divisions of Atomic Energy Research, Applied Biology, Chemistry, Applied Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, and Radio and Electrical Engineering is enhanced by the inclusion of lists of publications of the Divisions during the year. The Review is thus a most useful annual reference work on the work of the Council. Reference has already been made (loc. cit.) to features of the work of the Council during the year. It can only be added here that besides giving a clear picture of the organisation and activities of the Atomic Energy Research Division, the Review refers to a development unnoticed in the annual report—the establishment of a new company, Canadian Patents and Developments, Ltd., with a board of directors of representatives from industry, the universities and the National Research Council. The primary purpose of this Company is to make available to industry through licensing arrangements the inventions, new processes and improvements in processes, developed by the scientific workers of the Council. It is anticipated that the Company will eventually have charge of all Government-owned patents which can be made available to industry, including some 1,300 enemy patents now held by the Custodian of Enemy Property. The Company is also intended to provide a channel for the flow to industry of new developments by scientific workers in the universities.
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National Research Council (Canada) : Review of 1948. Nature 163, 476 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163476b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163476b0