Research Corporation
Foundation that supports scientific research
Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) is an organization in the United States devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences. It was one of the first foundations in the United States. Since 1912, RCSA has identified trends in science and education, financing many scientific research projects. It has various grants programs and strategic partnerships, and has funded the early work of at least 40 scientists who have received Nobel Prizes.
History
The Research Corporation was founded in 1912 by Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor, environmentalist and philanthropist, with initial funding derived from the profits from his patents on the electrostatic precipitator. Research Corporation was the second foundation established in the United States (Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1906) and America's first foundation devoted solely to the advancement of science. The organization is devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences. For over 100 years, RCSA has catalyzed transformative research by funding top early-career teacher-scholars at America's colleges and universities.
The Research Corporation played a major role in the minds of many scientists of the period in formulating ideal policies about the role of intellectual property in science. During the 1920s and 1930s, many scientists took out patents of their developments and assigned them to the Research Corporation in order to guarantee that any profits made from their work would be used for further scientific research (one notable example is Ernest O. Lawrence, who assigned his cyclotron patent to the company).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Research Corporation” as foundation that supports scientific research. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as foundation that supports scientific research. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7315075. VIAF identifies the subject as 140714065. The Library of Congress control number is n80020285. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912 and 1906.
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This entry incorporates text from “Research Corporation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.