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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The National Science Foundation's proposed program for Science and
Technology Centers at universities can have an important place in the
Foundation's portfolio of research support and make significant
contributions to science and to the nation's economic competitiveness. To
accomplish this will require proper management, adequate resources, and,
above all. the selection of programs for which the centers are the most
effective form of organization. Great care will be needed to keep the
Science and Technology Centers program in proper balance with other modes
for supporting U.S. science.
Centers have advantages over other support modes for those areas of
scientific inquiry that would benefit from formal, sustained collaboration
in pursuit of an intellectual objective.
Such work may involve one or
more disciplines; it may depend upon research facilities or
instrumentation large enough or costly enough that their use is best
shared.
Centers can contribute to the nation's economic competitiveness by
advancing the frontiers of knowledge; providing the opportunity for timely
exploitation of new discoveries; educating young researchers at the
highest professional level to fill university, government, and industrial
positions; and accelerating the application of new knowledge to the
resolution of economically important problems.
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FEATURES OF NSF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTERS
The panel believes that centers should have the following features:
o Their primary goal is to exploit opportunities in science where
the complexity of the research problems or the resources needed
to solve these problems require the advantages of scale,
duration, or facilities that can be provided only by the center
mode of research.
They have a set of related research objectives that may entail
work across disciplines or within a single discipline.
O They are campus-based, led by regular faculty, and integrated
into academic programs; there is a tangible commitment to the
centers by their home universities.
They provide education and research experience for undergraduate
and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, industrial
fellows, and others.
o Through outreach activities, whose type and scope will vary with
the mission of the center, they provide opportunities for
intellectual exchanges with researchers in other scientific
fields and in industry, government, and other sectors. They may
have financial support from non-federal sources, but that should
not be a prerequisite.
O They display diverse organizational structures, ranging from a
center of activity at a single university to a linkage of several
centers of activity.
0 They may range widely in size. Typically, their annual cost to
the NSF will be from $1 million to $5 million, but may be as low
as $500,000 and, in some instances, as high as $10 million.
O They have a finite life with stable funding for a period not to
exceed nine years.
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NSF MANAGEMENT
The panel recommends that the Science and Technology Centers program
be managed as follows:
NSF should maintain a separate budget for Science and Technology
Centers administered by a new program office for Science and
Technology Centers. The panel assumes that the Foundation will
receive proposals for this program annually.
o Proposals for centers should have a two-stage review -- an
initial merit review of the quality of the proposed research,
followed by a review that determines whether the work to be done
justifies a center form of organization.
0 Centers should be reviewed by outside visiting committees every
three years.
CAUTIONS
The panel endorses Science and Technology Centers as one valuable mode
of research support. At the same time, the panel cautions that
o There is a risk that a significant portion of federal funds and
university resources will be diverted from the support of
individual investigators, especially if the Foundation's budget
remains static or declines. In those circumstances, the
projected budget of the NSF Science and Technology Centers
program should be reduced proportionately.
The number of centers should not be increased unless existing
centers have adequate resources to carry out their missions.
Centers, like other organizations, may in time become resistant
to new ideas and unreceptive to new members with different
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perspectives and backgrounds. It is easily forgotten that
scientific advances flow from dedicated researchers and their
ideas, not from institutions.
o
Interdisciplinary research, although essential for the solution
of many problems, should be pursued only when there is a
demonstrated need or opportunity, not because of current fashions
or the enhanced likelihood of funding.
O No single type of center should be allowed to dominate the
program relative to other types of centers.
o
o
Science and Technology Centers are only a partial cure for
deficits of facilities, staffing, and instrumentation in academic
research.
The work of centers should not focus on near-term commercial
applications to the neglect of scientific advances of greater
long-term economic significance.
Notwithstanding these cautions, the panel believes that Science and
Technology Centers can make significant contributions to science and the
nation's economic competitiveness with proper management, resources, and
evaluation, provided there continues to be a balance among the principal
modes of research support.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
economic competitiveness
