# Research program

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{{short description|Professional network conducting research}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2020}}
A '''research program''' ([British English](/source/British_English): '''research programme''') is a professional network of scientists conducting [basic research](/source/basic_research). The term was used by [philosopher of science](/source/philosophy_of_science) [Imre Lakatos](/source/Imre_Lakatos) to blend and revise the [normative](/source/normative) model of science offered by [Karl Popper](/source/Karl_Popper)'s ''[The Logic of Scientific Discovery](/source/The_Logic_of_Scientific_Discovery)'' (with its idea of [falsifiability](/source/falsifiability)) and the descriptive model of science offered by [Thomas Kuhn](/source/Thomas_Kuhn)'s ''[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions](/source/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions)'' (with its ideas of [normal science](/source/normal_science) and [paradigm shift](/source/paradigm_shift)s).<ref>Imre Lakatos, auth, John Worrall & Gregory Currie, eds, [https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Methodology_of_Scientific_Research_P.html?id=RRniFBI8Gi4C ''The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes: Volume 1: Philosophical Papers''] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)</ref> 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](/source/monopoly) 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.<ref name=Bechtel>{{cite book |last1=Bechtel |first1=William |author-link1=William Bechtel  |title=Philosophy of science: an overview for cognitive science |date=1988 |publisher=L. Erlbaum |location=Hillsdale, New Jersey |isbn=9780805802214 |oclc=875311964 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ZxcAgAAQBAJ}}, ch 4 "Post-positivist philosophy of science", subch "Lakatosian research programmes", pp 60-63</ref> A research programme vies against others to be most ''progressive''.<ref name=Bechtel/> 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.<ref name=Bechtel/> A research program might ''degenerate''—lose progressiveness—but later return to progressiveness.<ref name=Bechtel/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Examples ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20000815073358/http://globalchange.gov/ United States Global Change Research Program]
* [http://wcrp.wmo.int/ World Climate Research Programme] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090804120642/http://wcrp.wmo.int/ |date=2009-08-04 }}

program
Category:Concepts in the philosophy of science

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