เอกสารการประชุมวิชาการและเสนอผลงานวิจัย มหาวิทยาลัยทักษิณ ครั้งที่ 19 2552 - page 11

การประชุมวิ ชาการและเสนอผลงานวิจัย มหาวิ ทยาลัยทักษิ ณ ครั้งที่ 19 ประจำป 2552
Meanwhile, the industrial research that had spawned the R&D model was being
questioned. Novick8 suggested that development be seen as a ‘separate and distinct activity’.
Economists Kuznets9 and Schmookler10 had each earlier identified that ‘development is a job
of adjustment … not original invention’, without a ‘creative faculty’. Nevertheless, the term
‘R&D’ remained. The distinctions here are important, as they indicate that what may be a
conceptual separation between research management and research monitoring is embedded in
the research model being perpetuated in some newly industrialized countries, such as Thailand.
So the ‘D’ in R&D means different things to different people. For some it means
‘determination of the best techniques for applying a new device or process to the production
of goods or services’. This sounds like ‘applied research’, and indeed we may be clearer by
referring to ‘applied research’ rather than ‘R&D’. To be even clearer, we should recall that the
etymology of ‘development’describes of a process of unrolling or unfolding, such as events,
without any connotation of human control. The etymology of the common Thai equivalent
การพัฒนา (karn phatana) offers further insight, as is described later.
The Thailand Research Fund (TRF) considers R&D to be research where results
will be used directly, ranging from ‘scientific or technological research to develop products
or processes, humanities research to be used for institutional adjustment, or national policy
research’.11 Once again, we may be clearer by referring to this as ‘applied research’.
8Novick, D. (1965) The ABC of R&D. Challenge, June 13, 1965.
9Kuznets, S. (1962) Inventive Activity: Problems of Definition and Measurement. In ‘the Rate and Direction
of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors. NBER, Princeton University Press.
10Schmookler, J (1962) comment on Kuznets, S. (1962) Inventive Activity: Problems of Definition and Measurement.
In ‘the Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors. NBER, Princeton University Press.
11<http://www.trf.or.th/en/types.asp>
Food for Thought:
Applied research may be a better model than R&D for university-based research
in the service of southern Thai communities.
Research for southern Thailand is far from the military industrial research for which
the term R&D was conceived. Here we are concerned with people and nature, with small-
holders and a different definition of ‘industry’ in which routine GDP definitions of economic
development are again only partial. The ‘D’ of ‘R&D’ is therefore problematic in research;
it is also problematic in the wider field of ‘social and economic development’ itself – because
it is often further confused in the term ‘community development’.