Bringing research ‘down from the skies’

Abstract

During the 1940s the scientists engaged by the Colonial Office were generally able to undertake projects of fundamental research in the chemistry of tropical products along lines of their own choosing. The notion that scientific researchers required the freedom to select their own research problems was a principle upheld by the CPRC and also officials at the Colonial Office concerned with the operation of the CDW Acts. By the early 1950s, however, officials at the Colonial Office were concerned that the work overseen by the CPRC was not making a tangible contribution to the economic development of the colonies. Officials complained that very few of the products developed through research were in commercial production. Colonial product research undertaken in Britain was subsequently reformulated with a focus on the analysis and assessment of tropical commodities in response to queries by business or governments. Most of the programmes of work previously done in university departments across Britain were terminated and investigation was instead concentrated under one roof in a new Colonial Products Laboratory. This marked the end of a period in which the emphasis had been on fundamental research in an academic setting and a return to the commercial intelligence work that had been traditionally undertaken by the Imperial Institute. The work prosecuted in the two laboratories that had been created in Trinidad was not initially included in the reform of product research. By 1955, however, the programme of research at the STL was also being reexamined and there were concerns over the future of the CMRI. The CMRI and the STL had previously been promoted as institutions at the cutting edge of international scientific research whilst at the same time performing an important service in stimulating industry across the British Caribbean and wider Colonial Empire. The potential