Priority setting and evaluation as tools for planning research strategy.

The growing role of research as a factor for socioeconomic development has also stimulated efforts for setting priorities and for evaluating research strategies. Priorities can be set for problems which are known for their consequences or their existing characteristics. The only way to ensure research on new problems is to allow more space for basic research aimed at revealing new data and at describing new phenomena. Evaluation methods for applied research are available, and they have been successfully used for making research units more effective and for improving the quality of the research in question.