Los estudios internacionales en América Latina: realizaciones y desafíos

Arnold Toynhee I THF. STtIlW UF C()NTEM"()R~RY HISTORY, FOlINDlN(; 01' TI1" !'IRST... great private foundations for the íntellectual study and research which by this time had grown up in the United Stiües; for instanee: the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and other lesser bodies of the same kind. We weren't afraid of accepting their financial aid and they offered it generously. We accepted unhesitatingly because they were not governments. They were prívate bodies like ourselves, they did not have any policy which they might be tempted to force on us, the Institute of International Affairs. The great American research foundations exist in order to pursue a disinterested and objective scientifie study and to help other bodies to pursue it. So we have been willing, very willing, to take money from foreign private institutions, but not to take money from our own government. 1 mentíon tbis financial poliey because it may be different fram your own poliey in Chile. Possibly you may be more afraid of foreign money and less afraid of your own government's money, 1 don't know, but anyway this was our poliey in Britain and in the United Stateso In Britaín we have tried to find a compromise between the proeeeds of public money by prívate institutions and the índependence of these institutions we have established, what we call semi public institutionso Instances of this are for ínstance, the British Broadcasting Corporatíon, and the University GrantsCommissiono Let me dwell on tbis a little bit because the financing of a research institute is a very practical part of its life; if you can not get finance you cannot do anytbing at ano The principie here is that the government appoints a body of distinguished and independent minded people to govem the British Broadcasting Corpora– tion or tú administer the University Grants Commissiono It pays them public revenues but it leaves them entirely free and independent to use these public revenues as it thinks fit. 1 think 1 am right in saying that the way in which the University Grants Commission's money is expended by the Commission has never been debated in parliament. Parliament has purposely refrained fram interfering in the expenditure of tbis moneyo So we try to get the benefit of having public money -and the public purse in Britain today is the only bíg purse- at the same time to retain the independence of the institutions' receiving the moneyo We try to put a kind of insulator between the government and parliament on one side, and the univerísties or the British Broadcasting Corporation, on the other. So far 1 think the sistem has worked well thanks to the wisdom of parliament and of the government in holding back from trying to use its grants of money as a means of influencing the policies of the universities or of the British Broadcasting Corporation. But of course today the overwhelmingly greater part of the revenues of the universities of Britain come fram the government through the University Grants Committee and we cannot be sure that if there was somehead on collision between the universities and the government, the situation, such as 25