《化学工程与工艺专业英语》课文翻译(7)

Research and development, or R&D as it is commonly referred to, is an activity which is carried out by all sectors of manufacturing industry but its extent varies considerably, as we will see shortly. Let us first understand, or at least get a feel for, what the terms mean. Although the distinction between research and development is not always clear-cut, and there is often considerable overlap, we will attempt to separate them. In simple terms research can be thought of as the activity which produces new ideas and knowledge whereas development is putting those ideas into practice as new process and products. To illustrate this with an example, predicting the structure of a new molecule which would have a specific biological activity and synthesizing it could be seen as research whereas testing it and developing it to the point where it could be marketed as a new drug could be described as the development part.

研究和开发，或通常所称R&D是制造业各个部门都要进行的一项活动。我们马上可以看到，它的内容变化很大。我们首先了解或先感觉一下这个词的含义。尽管研究和开发的定义总是分得不很清楚，而且有许多重叠的部分，我们还是要试着把它们区分开来。简单说来，研究是产生新思想和新知识的活动，而开发则是把这些思想贯彻到实践中得到新工艺和新产品的行为。可以用一个例子来描述这一点，预测一个有特殊生物活性的分子结构并合成它可以看成是研究而测试它并把它发展到可以作为一种新药推向市场这一阶段则看作开发部分。

1. Fundamental Research and Applied Research

In industry the primary reason for carting out R&D is economic and is to strengthen and improve the company‘s position and profitability. The purpose of R&D is to generate and provide information and knowledge to reduce uncertainty, solve problems and to provide better data on which management can base decisions. Specific projects cover a wide range of activities and time scales, from a few months to 20 years.

1．基础研究和应用研究

在工业上进行研究和开发最主要的原因是经济利益方面，是为了加强公司的地位，提高公司的利润。R&D的目的是做出并提供信息和知识以减低不确定性，解决问题，以及向管理层提供更好的数据以便他们能据此做出决定。特别的项目涵盖很大的活动范围和时间范围，从几个月到20年。

We can pick out a number of areas of R&D activity in the following paragraphs but if we were to start with those which were to spring to the mind of the academic, rather than the industrial, chemist then these would be basic, fundamental (background) or exploratory research and the synthesis of new compounds. This is also labeled ―blue skies‖ research.

我们可以在后面的段落里举出大量的R&D活动。但是如果我们举出的点子来源于研究院而不是工业化学家的头脑，这就是基础的或探索性的研究

Fundamental research is typically associated with university research. It may be carried out for its own intrinsic interest and it will add to the total knowledge base but no immediate applications of it in the ―real world‖ well be apparent. Note that it will provide a valuable