A research program (

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

: research programme) is a professional network of scientists conducting

basic research Basic research, also called pure research or fundamental research, is a type of scientific research with the aim of improving scientific theory, theories for better understanding and prediction of natural or other phenomena. In contrast, applied ...

. The term was used by

philosopher of science A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek t ...

Imre Lakatos Imre Lakatos (, ; hu, Lakatos Imre ; 9 November 1922 – 2 February 1974) was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its "methodology of proofs and refutations" in its p ...

to blend and revise the

normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...

model of science offered by Karl Popper's ''

The Logic of Scientific Discovery ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' is a 1959 book about the philosophy of science by the philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rewrote his book in English from the 1934 (imprint '1935') German original, titled ''Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnisth ...

'' (with its idea of

falsifiability Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the Philosophy of science, philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as t ...

) and the descriptive model of science offered by

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term '' paradig ...

's ''

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962; second edition 1970; third edition 1996; fourth edition 2012) is a book about the history of science by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the History of science, ...

'' (with its ideas of

normal science Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Norma ...

and

paradigm shift A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted ...

s).Imre Lakatos, auth, John Worrall & Gregory Currie, eds
''The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers''
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980) Lakatos found falsificationism impractical and often not practiced, and found normal science—where a paradigm of science, mimicking an exemplar, extinguishes differing perspectives—more

monopolistic A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

than actual. Lakatos found that many research programs coexisted. Each had a ''hard core'' of theories immune to revision, surrounded by a ''protective belt'' of malleable theories., ch 4 "Post-positivist philosophy of science", subch "Lakatosian research programmes", pp 60-63 A research programme vies against others to be most ''progressive''. Extending the research program's theories into new domains is ''theoretical progress'', and experimentally corroborating such is ''empirical progress'', always refusing falsification of the research program's hard core. A research program might ''degenerate''—lose progressiveness—but later return to progressiveness.

References

Examples

Russian Research Programme

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (202 ...

, UK
United States Global Change Research Program

World Climate Research Programme
program {{Science-philo-stub