Investing in the National Research Initiative: An Update of the Competitive Grants Program in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1994)

In 1989, the Board on Agriculture identified three major challenges facing the nation's agricultural sector (National Research Council, 1989). In 1994, the board finds these challenges no less compelling.

First, the competitive position of the United States, and particularly its food and fiber industries, would erode in a liberalized trading environment unless productivity increased and market opportunities expanded. Competitiveness in international markets has continued to be of paramount concern to the U.S. farm and food sector. Domestic demand for food rises only slowly with population growth; yet the productive capability of U.S. agriculture and industry continues to increase, enabling it to provide food and fiber to other nations at low cost. In this hemisphere, international trade rules were rewritten to promote open markets under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ratification of the results of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade will extend similar liberalization around the globe. In the future, the ability of U.S. agriculture to capitalize on trade opportunities will depend less on subsidization by the federal government than on continued gains in the sector's productivity.

The importance of scientific advance to the nation's well-being was recently affirmed by The White House in the first major post-Cold War review of national policy. In the report "Science in the National Interest" (Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1994)," the Clinton administration asserted,

In agriculture, for example, technical progress in pest control, based on gains in the understanding of mechanisms of disease resistance, can enhance a farmer's ability to manage risk. Such advances can enable farmers to meet growing world food needs and also lay the foundation for transfer of knowledge to other countries to develop their own economies.

Second, an abundant and safe food supply of high nutritional quality contributes significantly to the promotion of the health of the U.S. population and to the prevention of disease. The well-being of U.S. citizens is greatly affected by their nutritional status. A good diet promotes health and helps prevent disease. U.S. citizens need foods that are affordable and convenient to prepare and consume, yet safe and of high nutritional quality. Improvements in basic crop and livestock products as well as processed foods can contribute to improvements in the diets of the entire U.S. population.

Third, the imperative to protect and enhance the quality of the nation's natural resources on which agriculture depends must be addressed at lowest cost to producers and consumers. Unless the quality of its soil and water are protected, the United States cannot hope to sustain its agricultural productivity, let alone its standard of living, into the future. Certain farming, ranching, and forestry practices can degrade the environment, and it is of utmost importance that alternative management systems based on sound research be developed. The Board on Agriculture recently released two reports that consider how these goals might be attained, Soil and Water Quality: An Agenda for Agriculture (National Research Council, 1993) and Rangeland Health (National Research Council, 1994b).

To meet the challenges of (1) competitiveness, (2) providing an abundant and high-quality food supply, and (3) improving the state of our natural resources, the board proposed a reinvigoration of the nation's agricultural research program to be accomplished through a significant expansion of the role of competitive grants in the traditional USDA funding portfolio. The rationale and strategy for the effort were described in Investing in Research (National Research Council, 1989), which provided a blueprint that was subsequently adopted by the USDA and codified by the Congress in the 1990 farm bill as the NRI.

Today, the board finds that the NRI has yet to reach the potential envisioned for it. This reflects the fact that the original recommendation—to devote $500 million annually to competitive grants—has not been reached; in-

deed, the funding level has hovered at about $100 million for 3 years. Without aggressive expansion, a significant portion of the benefit of new science and technology will go unrealized, and the nation's goals for enhanced competitiveness, improved health, and environmental quality will be more difficult to attain.

The board's original recommendation for the expanded use of competitive research grants in agricultural science recognized how productive that mechanism had proved in medicine and other areas of science. More extensive use of competitive grants would complement the science done elsewhere in the traditional agricultural research system, at federal facilities, and at land grant universities and colleges. Furthermore, it was the board's hope that the opportunities for all agricultural science would be increased by extending the offer of participation to the broader scientific community. The opportunities for such significant return on an investment of taxpayer money continue to exist today.

In restating its 1989 recommendation of a $500 million level for the NRI, the board notes that, in total, USDA research funding has grown from $1.4 billion to almost $1.8 billion in the intervening years. Even raising the target for competitive grants beyond $500 million would be consistent with the board's goal of enlarging the significance of competitive grants in the overall USDA research portfolio. The original proposal implied that about one-third of total USDA research funds would be devoted to competitive grants, a proportion still well below that of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

In Investing in Research, the board argued that significant expansion in competitive grants funding (from $42.5 million to $500 million) could be justified on at least two counts. First was the high rate of return to investment in agricultural research, estimated to range between 45 and 130 percent. These returns translate into benefits for natural resource management, nutritional status of the people of the United States, and the nation's competitiveness in international markets. Second, the board said that "current funding for the agricultural research system cannot adequately support either the in-depth studies or the broad scope of science and technology necessary to maintain the competitiveness and sustainability of the overall agricultural, food and envi-

ronmental system." The $500-million target was selected, at least in part, because the board felt confident the pool of talented scientists was large enough to put such an expanded program to good use—a judgment proved sound by the subsequent surge of quality competitive grant applications. Although raising the target to $750 million, for example, would reinforce for the entire research community the importance of fundamental, peer-reviewed agricultural science, the board recognizes the more immediate need to reach the original goal of $500 million. As the overall agricultural research funding level has grown, $500 million in competitive grants would, at a minimum, maintain some degree of balance in the USDA portfolio.

In Investing in Research, the board endorsed the need to reduce the federal budget deficit as a precondition for maintaining the health of the general economy on which the food and fiber sector depends. It suggested that reductions in spending on the Depression-era commodity price supports might be directed to deficit reduction but that a portion of the savings might go to investment in research. Federal outlays for these subsidies amounted to $12 billion in FY 94 and $8.5 billion in FY 95 (Agricultural Outlook, 1994). Adherence to international trade agreements negotiated since 1989 implies the need to reduce spending further on commodity subsidies that distort markets. Clearly the better way to equip producers to respond to market signals rather than to government edicts is to improve the efficiency of their operations. That is the fundamental reason to expand aggressively the NRI.

Any investment of public resources requires diligent attention to program management and evaluation. The board finds that the operation of the NRI grant program has been enhanced; however, more can be done.

Although work on such initiatives must be ongoing, particular attention should be paid to enhancing the visibility of the competitive grants program now, on the threshold of what the board hopes will be significant expansion for the NRI.

In its 1989 report, the board recognized the particular need for evaluation of a new program that had unusual features: a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary grants, a new type of mission-linked team grant, research-strengthening

grants, and an extremely broad programmatic scope. Unfortunately, with growth in the NRI funding less than had been hoped and consequent efforts to hold down administrative costs, the NRI management has had only limited resources to devote to program evaluation. The board emphasizes that evaluation will not only improve the performance of the NRI but also provide evidence of the contributions it makes to national goals for competitiveness, human health, and the environment.

The board believes that the NRI should initiate a vigorous effort to define key performance measures for the program, including the participation of the broader science community and the effectiveness of the variety of grant types, especially multidisciplinary. Further, systematic documentation of the program's scientific and socioeconomic benefits should be pursued. USDA's Economic Research Service should be enlisted to cooperate with NRI scientists in an effort to translate benefits into socioeconomic terms. The lack of an accepted methodology for research program evaluation is not peculiar to the NRI. However, the NRI could provide leadership in the effort to design assessments of research that help establish accountability in the use of public funds. The White House statement on science policy emphasized the need "to put in place better mechanisms to evaluate our investment strategy" and directed each federal science agency to "develop measures to evaluate its contributions" (Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1994). Evaluation across the four funding mechanisms—competitive grants, formula funds, special grants, and intramural research—would be appropriate as well.

Life scientists, engineers, and social scientists might collaborate in devising methods for evaluating the NRI's contributions to the advancement of science and to broad socioeconomic goals. Although assessment of the output of basic research is notoriously difficult, there are measures that might provide some information. Numbers of patents generated might be one such indicator, for example, although the temptation to err on the side of being too mechanistic has to be resisted. The methodology of evaluation should be established clearly so that the data the methodology requires can be collected during the research project and so that other appropriate information, for example, the impact on industry or consumers, can be identified and gathered.

The board had hoped that the NRI would provide significant new opportunities for multidisciplinary research. Opportunities for work at the intersection of disciplines often lead to advances of fundamental importance. Multidisciplinary research projects are notoriously difficult to design and execute, however. The board commends the NRI program managers for recognizing these difficulties. Further consideration, however, should be given to offering

planning grants to prospective research teams, extending the funding period for multidisciplinary grants to 4 years, and finding innovative ways to identify individual contributions to multidisciplinary team research projects. An increase in the funds available to the NRI would allow a balance of effort between fundamental and mission-linked multidisciplinary work. At the same time, the NRI should continue its attempts to avoid appearance of equating a program area with a specific discipline. Problems in animal systems, for example, may be jointly or separately addressed by animal scientists, engineers, human nutritionists, crop scientists, and economists. Refinements of the requests for grant proposals and in the selection of peer reviewers will expedite the integration of disciplines in every program area.

Finally, the board observes that scientific understanding of a food and fiber system contributes to and supports the goal of sustaining that system. Ultimately, it is a farming or forestry system, not an individual practice, that is judged to be sustainable or not. By the same reasoning, it is unwise to attempt to judge each grant proposal as a stand-alone proposition, out of context of the system in which it will ultimately find application. Moreover, it is difficult to find objective criteria on which to judge sustainability, a working definition of which continues to be hotly disputed.

Although advances in fundamental science may be critical to the development of new technologies, or even make them possible, it is usually difficult to make an a priori judgment about the value of that basic work, which is what use of a relevancy protocol might dictate. However, all can agree on the need to continue to search for a better way to evaluate the outcomes of agricultural science. Effective evaluation holds promise for improving program management, but more important, it serves as a way to identify and perhaps reconcile differences over the ultimate goals of agricultural research.