Abstract
Most countries have national laboratories, whether state run and financed or in the academic or industrial sectors. What have these national laboratories been able to contribute to national life? Certainly they have given much more than their nominal missions would suggest, not least through the skills of staff and former staff who provide the impetus for the technology based firms which so often surround large laboratories. Are notional laboratories (networks) a genuine alternative to national laboratories, as fashion would have it, or are the two complementary? Analysing the future of national laboratories forces discussion of some of the central problems in the organisation of science and engineering.
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