The phrase "foundational studies" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to the preliminary or basic level of research or education that lays the groundwork for more advanced work. For example: "We need to ensure that our children receive a good foundation of knowledge through foundational studies in math, science, and language arts."
For the purposes of foundational studies of mathematics, it is assumed that mathematics is consistent; otherwise, any foundation would fail.
Since Libby's foundational studies, tens of thousands of carbon-14 measurements of natural materials have been made.
"On the one hand her foundational studies are well in the past; she is obviously a professional who is competing very well among her peers.
Because mathematics has served as a model for rational inquiry in the West and is used extensively in the sciences, foundational studies have far-reaching consequences for the reliability and extensibility of rational thought itself.
Kuhlmann (2010b) also advocates AQFT as the prime object for foundational studies, focusing on ontological considerations.
In this review, we describe some of the foundational studies underpinning the use of heterobivalent degraders for targeted protein degradation.
The available data "quite strongly suggest a cool-down does not reduce postexercise soreness," says Rob Herbert, a senior research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia and senior author of what is probably the foundational study of cooling down, from 2007.
Before the advent of behaviourism, when the science of neurology was still in its infancy, the American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842 1910) brought some of these factors together in his theory of emotion, which he set out in his foundational study The Principles of Psychology (1890).
Frege's step ahead was decisive for the development of logic and foundational study.
This foundational study provided evidence for the argument that intuitive cognitive biases found in early childhood persist in adulthood, even in well-educated populations interested enough in natural history to visit museums.
One foundational study concluded that "cryptic" transcription occurs preferentially in long genes and in genes that are infrequently transcribed [12].
