Pure research, basic research, or fundamental research is research carried out to increase understanding of fundamental principles. It is not intended to yield immediate commercial benefits; pure research can be thought of as arising out of curiosity. However, in the long term it is the basis for many commercial products and applied research. Pure research is mainly carried out by universities.^{[citation needed]}

Pure research advances fundamental knowledge about the human world. It focuses on refuting or supporting theories that explain how this world operates, what makes things happen, why social relations are a certain way, and why society changes. Pure research is the source of most new scientific ideas and ways of thinking about the world. It can be exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory; however, explanatory research is the most common.^{[examples needed]}

Pure research generates new ideas, principles and theories, which may not be immediately utilized; though are the foundations of modern progress and development in different fields. Today's computers could not exist without the pure research in mathematics conducted over a century ago, for which there was no known practical application at that time. Pure research rarely helps practitioners directly with their everyday concerns. Nevertheless, it stimulates new ways of thinking about deviance that have the potential to revolutionize and dramatically improve how practitioners deal with a problem.

Pranab Kumar Bardhan is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley (since 1977). Educated in Presidency College, Kolkata and Cambridge University, England, he had been on the faculty of MIT, Delhi School of Economics, and Indian Statistical Institute, before joining Berkeley. He has been Visiting Professor/ Fellow at London School of Economics, Trinity College, Cambridge, St Catherine's College, Oxford, and University of Siena, Italy.

He has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on political economy of development policies, and on international trade and globalization. A part of his work is in the interdisciplinary area of economics, political science, and social anthropology.

He has been on the editorial board of a number of economics journals, including The American Economic Review (1978–81), the Journal of Economic Perspectives (1989–94), the International Economic Review (Associate Editor, 1971–1985), and the Journal of Development Economics (Chief Editor, 1985 to 2003).