ABSTRACT:At a time when productive water resources research is essential to protecting the quality of and wisely using our limited water resources, pervasive trends toward consumerism, fiscal restraint, centralized management, and using research for other social objectives threaten research productivity. The research prioritization and management structure that these trends have created was examined in the microcosm of its application at the Utah Water Research Laboratory. The result indicated that ephemeral prioritization and the failure of research users to target researchers to their own particular needs is diluting productivity. Incremental research prioritization and greater use of advisory councils in facilitating user‐researcher interaction are suggested as corrective approaches, but the only firm conclusion at this point in time must be that empirical studies of the performance of alternatives in research management structure are solely neede
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