He explained his particular ethos and style of management of CSIRO in this way: Well, I suppose I always wanted to extrapolate from my own experience, small-scale experience, and some personal opinions. I had a strong desire always to see pure and applied research undertaken side by side in the same laboratory... And I was still very much aware that the recognition that many – most, I should say – of the really important and fundamental discoveries in science which subsequently led to a massive technological development have come through curiosity-led research, and often through serendipity, which is terribly important. I think the Birch report was very helpful, and I agreed with his report that the whole core of the policy-making in the science that we were going to carry out was a matter of defining the right proportion of, shall we say, pure research, strategic mission-oriented, and technical research – and getting that proportion right... I felt that fundamental research in the end was going to reap the real benefits in the long run ... discovering something like electricity ... was absolutely fundamental research and had an enormous impact on the world. On the other hand, there was the awareness that you're in charge of an organisation that's spending a million dollars of taxpayers' money every day, and that's a very sobering thought, so you had to keep the reins on as well. Indeed, there were many frustrations in being CSIRO's Chairman at that time, of which he nominated as the worst "the frustration of finding it so difficult to bring in new young blood because of the descending budget in real terms."