Robert Bud is Emeritus Keeper at London's Science Museum. He has led science, medicine, and curatorial research at the Museum, writing and editing books across chemical, biotechnological, and scientific instrument history.

• Introduction: the biography of a concept; Stage 1. Origins and Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century; 1. Applied science conceived: the early nineteenth century; 2. Applied science Institutionalised: the Liberal Science College; 3. Competing concepts of applied science and technology; Stage 2. Research in the Early Twentieth Century; 4. The dawn of the twentieth century; 5. From the magi to industrial function; 6. 'Western civilisation' and applied science; Stage 3. After World War Two; 7. Co-existence through growth; 8. From applied science to technological innovation; Conclusion.

'In scope, conceptual finesse, and wide-ranging erudition, this is a ground-breaking book. Building on its core theme of the fashioning, deployment, and eventual fading, since the 1960s, of the concept of applied science, it offers insights of profound importance not only for historians of modern Britain but also for decision-makers and commentators concerned with the direction of research policy in our own day.' Robert Fox, University of Oxford