Wikipedia
Some of the research that is conducted in the field of psychology is more "fundamental" than the research conducted in the applied psychological disciplines, and does not necessarily have a direct application. The subdisciplines within psychology that can be thought to reflect a basic-science orientation include biological psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and so on. Research in these subdisciplines is characterized by methodological rigor. The concern of psychology as a basic science is in understanding the laws and processes that underlie behavior, cognition, and emotion. Psychology as a basic science provides a foundation for applied psychology. Applied psychology, by contrast, involves the application of psychological principles and theories yielded up by the basic psychological sciences; these applications are aimed at overcoming problems or promoting well-being in areas such as mental and physical health and education.
Usage examples of "basic science".
A project known as Biosphere II attempted to sort out the basic science of oxygen/carbon transactions in the global ecosystem by setting up a 'closed' ecology, a system with no inputs, beyond sunlight, and no outputs whatsoever.
Genome-sequencing may have been oversold as the answer to human diseases, but it's very good basic science.
I was interested to see that the supreme holy person of the Buddhist world had been tutored in basic science.
I knew enough basic science to have expected a Doppler effect, but this was a false effect, since we had not been anywhere near the speed of light until translation to C-plus and were now far beyond it within the Hawking fold.
The time before that had been to be paraded in public by politicians and then have to beg for funding of basic science research in front of half a dozen review committees - for Brohier, an experience hardly more pleasant than a funeral.
And now she was thirty-six going on thirty-seven, not yet tenured, teaching elementary courses to humanities students who didn't give a damn but needed these few basic science courses so they could get B.