A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural science research, there are also many research institutes in the social science as well, especially for sociological and historical research purposes.
In the early medieval period, several astronomical observatories were built in the Islamic world. The first of these was the 9th-century Baghdad observatory built during the time of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun, though the most famous were the 13th-century Maragheh observatory, and the 15th-century Ulugh Beg Observatory. [1]
The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was a school of mathematics and astronomy founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama in Kerala, India. The school flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries and the original discoveries of the school seems to have ended with Narayana Bhattathiri (1559–1632). In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently discovered a number of important mathematical concepts.
The earliest research institute in Europe was Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg complex on the island of Hven, a 16th-century astronomical laboratory set up to make highly accurate measurements of the stars. In the United States there are numerous notable research institutes including Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, The Scripps Research Institute, [2] Beckman Institute, RTI International, and SRI International. Hughes Aircraft used a research institute structure for its organizational model. [3]
Thomas Edison, dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park", [4] was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention in the late 1800s, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. [5]
From the throes of the Scientific Revolution came the 17th century scientific academy. In London, the Royal Society was founded in 1660, and in France Louis XIV founded the Académie royale des sciences in 1666 which came after private academic assemblies had been created earlier in the seventeenth century to foster research.
In the early 18th century, Peter the Great established an educational-research institute to be built in his newly created imperial capital, St Petersburg. His plan combined provisions for linguistic, philosophical and scientific instruction with a separate academy in which graduates could pursue further scientific research. It was the first institution of its kind in Europe to conduct scientific research within the structure of a university. The St Petersburg Academy was established by decree on 28 January 1724. [6]
At the European level, there are now several government-funded institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA), the nuclear research centre CERN, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Grenoble), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) (Grenoble), EUMETSAT, the Italian-European Sistema Trieste with, among others, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and the research complex Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, the biology project EMBL, and the fusion project ITER which in addition to technical developments has a strong research focus.
Research institutes came to emerge at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900, at least in Europe and the United States, the scientific profession had only evolved so far as to include the theoretical implications of science and not its application. Research scientists had yet to establish a leadership in expertise. Outside scientific circles it was generally assumed that a person in an occupation related to the sciences carried out work which was necessarily "scientific" and that the skill of the scientist did not hold any more merit than the skill of a labourer. A philosophical position on science was not thought by all researchers to be intellectually superior to applied methods. However any research on scientific application was limited by comparison. A loose definition attributed all naturally occurring phenomena to "science". The growth of scientific study stimulated a desire to reinvigorate the scientific discipline by robust research in order to extract "pure" science from such broad categorisation. [7]
This began with research conducted autonomously away from public utility and governmental supervision. Enclaves for industrial investigations became established. These included the Rockefeller Institute, Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Institute for Advanced Study. Research was advanced in both theory and application. This was aided by substantial private donation. [7]
As of 2006, there were over 14,000 research centres in the United States. [8]
The expansion of universities into the faculty of research fed into these developments as mass education produced mass scientific communities. A growing public consciousness of scientific research brought public perception to the fore in driving specific research developments. After the Second World War and the atom bomb specific research threads were followed: environmental pollution and national defence. [7]
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The Chinese Academy of Sciences is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 100 research institutes, 2 universities, 69,000 full-time employees, and 79 thousand graduate students.
The University of Trieste is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 departments, has a wide and almost complete range of university courses and has about 15,000 students and 1,000 professors. It was founded in 1924.
Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) is an international research institute and Europe's leading center for radio astronomy at millimeter wavelengths. Its mission is to explore the universe, study its origins and its evolution with two of the most advanced radio facilities in the world:
The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is a self-governing state-funded organization in Ukraine that is the main center of development of science and technology by coordinating a system of research institutes in the country. It is the main research oriented organization along with the five other academies in Ukraine specialized in various scientific disciplines. NAS Ukraine consists of numerous departments, sections, research institutes, scientific centers and various other supporting scientific organizations.
The International School for Advanced Studies is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy.
Astronomical Observatory of Trieste is an astronomical center of studies located in the city of Trieste in northern Italy.
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is a research center for physical and mathematical sciences, located in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
The Université Grenoble Alpes is a public research university and a grand établissement in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 researchers.
The National Institute for Astrophysics is an Italian research institute in astronomy and astrophysics, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates twenty separate research facilities, which in turn employ scientists, engineers and technical staff. The research they perform covers most areas of astronomy, ranging from planetary science to cosmology.
Katepalli Raju Sreenivasan is an aerospace scientist, fluid dynamicist, and applied physicist whose research includes physics and applied mathematics. He studies turbulence, nonlinear and statistical physics, astrophysical fluid mechanics, and cryogenic helium. He was the dean of engineering and executive vice provost for science and technology of New York University. Sreenivasan is also the Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering at New York University Tandon School of Engineering and a professor of physics and mathematics professor at the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
The Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences is the highest scientific organization of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Academy of Sciences was founded on 1 June 1946 on the basis of the Kazakh branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The central office is located in Almaty. It is a state institution that joins active members (academicians), corresponding members, and leading scientists of Kazakhstan.
The institute of physics is a part of the Faculty of natural sciences of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in Slovakia. Its director is currently Michal Jaščur. Primary activities of the institute are:
The Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics, also known as by its abbreviation ISPA, is a premier and national research institute of the University of Karachi, engaging the theoretical and applied studies and research into topics pertaining to Astronomy, Astrophysics, Satellite Communication, Space Flight Dynamics, Atmospheric Science, Climatology, GIS & Remote Sensing and other related subjects. The institute has network of various mathematics and physics laboratories located in various universities of Pakistan, while it operates a single Karachi University Astrophysics Observatory.
Luciano Fonda was an Italian theoretical physicist, author of a hundred scientific publications, including a book on quantum symmetries. His research activity covered several areas, from nuclear and subnuclear physics to condensed-state physics.
The L. N. Gumilev Eurasian National University (ENU), is a Kazakh national research university, and the largest higher education institution in Astana.
ICRA, the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics is an international research institute for relativistic astrophysics and related areas. Its members are seven Universities and four organizations. The center is located in Rome, Italy.
The University of Niš Faculty of Science and Mathematics, also known as the Niš Faculty of Science and Mathematics, is one of the educational institutions of the University of Niš, Serbia.
The Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics is a research and teaching institute dedicated to astronomy, astrophysics and solar physics located at Blindern in Oslo, Norway. It is a department of The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Oslo. It was founded in its current form by Svein Rosseland with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1934, and was the first of its kind in the world when it opened. Prior to that, it existed as the University Observatory which was created in 1833. It thus is one of the university's oldest institutions. As of 2019, it houses research groups in cosmology, extragalactic astronomy, and The Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, a Norwegian Centre of Excellence.
Maria Teresa Vaz Torrão Lago is a Portuguese astronomer who founded the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto and created the first astronomy degree program in Portugal. Lago is currently the General Secretary of the International Astronomical Union. Her research focuses on the evolution of young stars and she is active in the promotion of astronomy and scientific culture to the public.
