DEALING WITH OXBRMGE
SIR,--I have been following the controversy about the role of Oxbridge in research with increasing'
surprise; but not till last week's letter from Mr. Peter Laslett has my natural reticence been quite overpowered. His statement that 'research and the
writing of books . .. can he done at only a few very special places, and these places in our country are three, Oxford, Cambridge and London'. can only
refer to social research in a very narrow connotation —in fact merely to documentary research. Does he
really think that research into industrial relations. occupational psychology, industrial economics and business organisation, not to mention urban sociology or town planning, can be carried out only at Oxford, Cambridge and London?
It was for the very reason that 1 wanted to pursue research—and to initiate research—into business behaviour and modern social institutions that, main'
years ago, I left Cambridge for Birmingham Univcr. sity. I continue to want to know about the business' man's behaviour, not just what ,other economists write about it, and would certainly, for the same reasons, have made the same.choice today. Personal contact and 'fieldwork' among managers, trade (Wilco leaders and .social workers still seem to me quite essential in the wide and nationally important area of the social sciences.
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