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CONCLUSION 27 Conclusion At the dawn of the 1990s, the United States is confronted with an academic research enterprise that shows the strains of rapid, dynamic growth and the consequences of its own success. In the last four decades, the nation has produced an academic research capability that is vastly larger and more decentralized than could have been foreseen by the most visionary policy-makers at the end of World War Two. The extraordinary success of the enterprise invites high ambitions for U.S. universities and colleges during the next decade. Powerful forcesâwithin and without the university communityâare generating pressures to further expand the role of academic research and broaden the institutional and geographic research base. By pressing for an expansion of frontier research, as well as greater geographic diversity, the nation now faces decisions of how, to whom, to what extent, and for what purposes to allot limited resources. Sustaining the quality of current research institutions and programs will require increased financial and human resources, as well as organizational innovation. Policy- makers in government, industry, and universities will be forced to find an optimal balance among these competing demands and make pivotal investment and human-resource decisions that will profoundly influence the character and role of universities during the next century. Maintaining the pre-eminence of the academic research enterprise will necessitate reconsidering the major premises upon which it was established. Each university and college faces a range of choices, from accepting the challenge of an expanded mission to attempting to maintain its traditional role. For the enterprise as a whole, new strategies for its continued vitality must be consideredâstrategies far different from those employed by the research community, university administrators, and research sponsors in previous decades. Developing these strategies will test the nation's ingenuity and resourcefulness. The complexity of the issues, and the relationships among them, will require a comprehensive process and must involve all who hold a stake in the future of academic research.