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I. INTRODUCTION
ECONOMIC COMPETITION, RESEARCH, AND
THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
This nation's preeminence in scientific innovation is a major and
durable strength. In looking to the future, however, many knowledgeable
observers have raised serious concerns about our ability to sustain a high
rate of innovation and to transfer new knowledge rapidly to industrial and
social needs. The National Science Foundation has a crucial role to play
in addressing these concerns.
In view of its mission "to promote the progress of science and
engineering" and "to address the national health, prosperity, and
welfare," the Foundation has responsibility for the creation of new
scientific knowledge and for providing students with the quality and
breadth of instruction required to meet the changing needs of science and
society. The Foundation must ensure that today's scientific frontiers are
being explored vigorously and that the results of this research are made
available to society as rapidly as possible. As many of today's new
industries represent the harvest of research in former decades, today's
basic research sows the seeds for new industries of future decades. Any
strategy for economic competitiveness that fails to recognize the
importance of a long-term commitment to basic research will be
self-defeating.
GOALS
Viewed in the aggregate over the long term, the economic payoff of
Investment in education and research is enormous, but its sources and
timing are uncertain. In some cases, science evolves along fairly
predictable lines whose benefits can be largely anticipated; but
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revolutionary discoveries of much greater long-term economic signif icance
usually depend on knowledge whose utility was unforeseen. No one
envisioned that basic studies in the microwave spectrum of ammonia would
lead to the invention of the laser, whose contemporary uses range from
printing documents to long-distance communication to ship welding to
repairing detached retinas. Similarly, no one anticipated that research
on magnetic moments and nuclear spin would lead to nuclear magnetic
resonance, which today finds countless uses ranging from chemical analysis
of compounds to medical diagnostics; or that work on the molecular biology
of bacterial viruses and intestinal bacteria would create a new industry.
And who would have predicted that research on perovskites, a common class
of mineral insulators, would lead to the discovery of high-temperature
conductivity, whose potential applications seem enormous?
The lesson of these and other examples is that the United States must
continue to support a wide variety of research activities -- short and
long term, basic and applied -- organized in the many different ways that
are appropriate to the various research problems and opportunities.
The principal rationale for the NSF Science and Technology Centers is
to ensure continued preeminence in science and an adequate base of trained
scientists -- two ingredients essential to our success in economic
competition. They should not be intended to respond to government or
industry perceptions of what is required to remedy deficiencies in U.S.
competitiveness in the short term.
BALANCING MODES OF RESEARCH
The major issue in inaugurating a new program of Science and
Technology Centers is one of balance among modes of research support. The
single investigator with a small research team remains the appropriate
mode for many fields of scientific inquiry. This mode has the advantages
of pluralism, decentralization, and flexibility to move in new directions
as opportunities unfold. Individual investigator support has been
enormously successful for the National Science Foundation and productive
for the nation. Its preeminence must not be diminished.
Although not identified separately in the NSF budget, group projects
receive a growing share of NSF research funding. They are concentrated in
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the materials, physical, and biological sciences. Groups typically
involve a few researchers collaborating or simply sharing equipment. They
usually lack an administrative structure, an educational mission
independent of university departments, and the ability to fund promising
new projects; but they have many of the virtues of single investigator
projects and should be treated as favorably.
The term "center" implies a larger scale activity with a formal
management and organizational structure. Centers are not a new idea for
NSF. On the contrary, they are already an important part of the
Foundation's funding portfolio. In view of the need to support more
collaborative research and build university infrastructure in many areas
where progress is otherwise limited, centers should be expanded a
component of increased research funding.
It is in the context of the President's intention to double the NSF
budget over five years that the panel supports the Foundation's Science
and Technology Centers initiative. At the outset of its deliberations,
the NSF Director assured the panel that, although he envisages a
three-fold increase in the total number of NSF centers during that period,
the centers will still represent only about 10 percent of the Foundation's
budget. Awards to principal investigators for single and collaborative
projects will continue to represent about 60 percent of the budget for
research. In the event that the additional funds are not appropriated as
anticipated, the panel believes that the Science and Technology Centers
program should be reduced proportionately.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
nsf budget
