THE MELLON INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
Eight years ago Robert Kennedy Duncan, then of the University of Kansas, proposed, and later carried into effect, a plan for industrial fellowships in chemistry which embodies a new method of education and research. According to this plan, an industrial firm established temporary research fellowships at a university, and the students appointed to them by the university carry on work, which may be of value to the firm, under the auspices of the professors. Patents or improvements which result belong to the firm, but the scientific work may later be published for the benefit of science, and the students may have some share in profits that result and an opportunity of regular employment by the company. This plan was continued by Dr. Duncan at the University of Pittsburgh, and resulted in the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research recently dedicated. Dr. Duncan died while the building was in course of construction, but had the satisfaction of seeing this method of cooperation between the university and research, on the one side, and industrial establishments and practical utility, on the other, placed on a permanent basis. It has been extended beyond the institution and the science for which it was inaugurated. Thus there is just announced an extensive plan inaugurating business fellowships at New York University with the cooperation of a number of leading commercial houses.
