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A government scientist is a
scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...
employed Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any oth ...
by a country's
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
, either in a research-driven job (for example J. Robert Oppenheimer on the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
), or for another role that requires scientific training and methods. In some countries other terms, such as Technical officers, is also used for scientists.


Australia

In Australia, most government scientists are employed by the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...
. A Chief Scientist is appointed to advise the government through the Office of the Chief Scientist.


Singapore

In
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, government scientists are classified according to the Departmental Titles (Alteration) (Amendment) Act 1996, which amended the Departmental Titles (Alteration) Ordinance of 1950.


United Kingdom

In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, government scientists are part of the Scientific Civil Service. However, that was not always the case. Before the Second World War, government scientists were recruited and employed by the Civil Service on an ad hoc basis, with grades, job titles, and organizations that varied between departments. In 1930, the Carpenter Committee was appointed to investigate the organization of civil service scientific and technical staff, and its report proposed a reorganization that covered the entire Service. This report was endorsed by the Tomlin Commission, however it was impossible to reach agreement with the relevant staff associations, who wanted other professional groups within the civil service to be similarly reorganized, and nothing ended up happening. World War Two changed this by causing a far greater number of scientific and technical staff to be employed by the government. The Barlow Committee on Scientific Staff in Government Departments reviewed the positions of government scientists during wartime, issuing a report on 1943-04-23. This report spurred the creation of a government
white paper A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper ...
, entitled ''The Scientific Civil Service'', which resulted in a reorganization of government scientists across the entire Service. This reorganization classified government scientists across the entire Service into three major classes similar to those civil servants for the Treasury had already been classified in: ;Scientific Officer class:Grades of scientific officer began with Scientific Officer, and progressed through Senior, Principal, Senior Principal, Deputy Chief, and Chief Scientific Officers. ;Experimental Officer class:Grades of experimental officer began with Assistant Experimental Officer, and progressed through Experimental Officer to Senior and then Chief Experimental Officers. Experimental officers were either university graduates or people who had qualifications such as the
Higher National Certificate A Higher National Certificate (HNC), part of the Higher Nationals suite of qualifications, is a higher education/further education qualification in the United Kingdom. Overview In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the HNC is a BTEC qualificatio ...
, and were support staff for Scientific Officers. ;Scientific Assistant class:This class of civil servant undertook the routine work, and was largely equivalent to the Treasury's Clerical Class.


United States

In the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the employment of scientists by state and federal governments was, like in the U.K., affected by the Second World War. President Roosevelt first created the
National Defense Research Committee The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the Un ...
under
Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime ...
. This was then expanded to the
Office of Scientific Research and Development The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May 1 ...
, also led by Bush. The OSRD employed scientists on a contract basis, with the OSRD as client and individual scientists as contractors. Scientists were contracted to research (through study and experiment) a specified subject, without constraints as to method, and to issue reports to the OSRD. After the war, scientific research was continued by agencies such as the
Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...
established in 1947, which again employed scientists as contractors. Scientific research was published in the normal way. The Atomic Energy Commission, established in 1946, and the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
, established in 1930, also paid scientists for scientific research, and were major sources of government research funding. The
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
was eventually established in 1950. Defence research was explicitly excluded from its charter, even though Dr Bush had originally envisioned the NSF as including that as well. The armed forces established their own research departments, such as the
Office of Ordnance Research An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific duti ...
for the
Department of the Army The United States Department of the Army (DA) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the U.S. The Department of the Army is the federal government agency within which the United States Army (U.S.) is org ...
, established on the campus of
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
in June 1951. U.S. local, state, and federal governments also employ scientists directly. The federal government employs them in departments such as the Department of Agriculture,
Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
, and the
Public Health Service In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
. States and cities employ scientists in similar roles, including at fish and game commissions, parks,
aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...
s,
arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...
s, and
museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
s; and at agencies such as environmental inspection agencies, crime laboratories, and public health monitoring agencies.


References

{{Reflist Science occupations Government officials