That linkage includes the relationship between campus-based specialists and county agents who provide direct programming to the people. In the future, the Extension office in each county may become a genuine outreach office for the entire university, not just the Extension Service. An Applied Perspective . Extension and experiment stations have created an applied research capability that is both unique and powerful. Throughout disciplines and across university departments, a tension exists between basic and applied research.
Definitions vary, as do relative values.
But, on the whole, applied research is valued less than basic research, and university people doing applied research are accorded lower status and esteem than their basic research colleagues. Extension and experiment station personnel have dealt with these issues for a longer time and with greater effectiveness than any other groups on campus. As land-grant universities look to the future, they'll need the understanding developed by Extension and experiment stations about how to conduct and extend applied research in all areas of knowledge. Extension's commitment to educating people throughout the state, at all levels of society and in every community, is unparalleled. There are periodic threats to the great land-grant vision on which Cooperative Extension is based.