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Suggested Citation:"THE RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1989. Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends, and Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1468.
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Page 17
Suggested Citation:"THE RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1989. Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends, and Issues. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1468.
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Page 18

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EMERGING TRENDS 17 Emerging Trends The ability of universities to broaden their missions and play a larger role in the nation's research enterprise will depend on the resolution of three sources of tension, each pulling at the fabric of the enterprise. The first strain on the enterprise is slow adaptation to an increasingly complex research and educational environment; the organization, culture, and resources of academic institutions and their research sponsors constrain their response to new demands and opportunities. The second source of stress on the enterprise is the replacement of retiring high-quality research personnel during the next decade; it may not be possible, given the current production level of research scientists and engineers. The third source emanates from the need to sustain the quality of current research institutions and programs, which is increasingly expensive to do and—in an era of severely constrained fiscal resources—increasingly difficult. THE RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT The environment in which the academic research community must function will increase in complexity. National and international economic, political, and social cross-currents influence the priorities, topics, and contexts of scientific investigation. These influences are combining to challenge the traditional way scholars and their host institutions operate and relate to each other. Furthermore, many new scientific and technological opportunities require more flexible, cross- disciplinary relationships both within and among universities, industries, and governments. There are many factors at work here. First, important and exciting advances in fundamental science are occurring are creating more complex questions on the research frontier and many of the questions are more frequently in multi-disciplinary settings at the interface between disciplines. Furthermore, some traditional fields, such as molecular biology and microelectronics, are merging with other fields or being redefined. Second, as product life cycles become shorter, advances in fundamental knowledge become more relevant to technology development. As a result, industries, universities, and financial institutions are developing sophisticated relationships that include a multiplicity of formal and informal structures. Some faculty members, for example, are assuming entrepreneurial roles, including developing relationships with non-academic organizations to pursue the commercial development of their research. Third, international cooperation is intensifying in many scientific and engineering fields. The growing research capabilities of other nations provide new opportunities for collaboration—especially in astronomy, oceanography, and high- energy physics—that require large capital investments. International cooperation is also required for research on such problems as global climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain. New technologies increasingly shape the scholarly agenda in the sciences and engineering. State-of-the-art instrumentation allows for experiments requiring heretofore un-achievable precision and scale. New generations of computers make possible large-scale

EMERGING TRENDS 18 data analysis and provide the mechanism for rapidly transferring and sharing information among institutions, organizations, and nations. News of new processes and products of scientific research reach an ever-wider U.S. audience. To the extent that popularization contributes to public understanding of science, it enhances political support. But it also brings greater societal scrutiny to the research enterprise. There is, for example, growing public pressure on federal regulatory and grant-making agencies to control the use of toxic substances and radioisotopes, and experiments involving animals. In addition, societal intervention in the research agenda is increasingly exercised through the courts, notably in environmental protection, radiation and carcinogen disposal, and the release of genetically engineered material. In addition to increasing regulatory complexity in some fields, the lack of regulations in other fields is also a problem—often forcing researchers to curtail or abandon lines of inquiry in areas such as biotechnology. The most pronounced recent trend is state and local regulation of research. A few state, county, and city governments have begun to influence the conduct of local university research through controls on the type and location of university facilities and on research protocols, such as the use and care of test animals and the use of genetically altered organisms. Should this trend become more widespread, investigators and their host institutions would have to adapt to a changing array of costly reporting requirements, safeguards, controls, and regulatory supervision. Universities and research sponsors face difficulty in rapidly adapting to a changing research environment. In response to the changing research environment, some members of the academic enterprise are testing innovative strategies for organizing, conducting, managing, and financing research. Rapid adaptation to new demands and opportunities in the research area, however, is slowed by many factors—including tradition, inertia, the competition for university resources, the demands of the university's educational mission, and the aging of faculty—impinging on the current organization, culture, and resources of university-based scholars and their funding agencies. There is growing debate within universities over the ability of the current disciplinary and governance structures to respond adequately to the expanding research agenda, as well as to find an appropriate balance of commitments to scholarship, education, and public service. New research opportunities often require more flexible budgeting and assignment of research faculty, inter-disciplinary approaches, expansion of non-faculty research personnel, extra-departmental initiatives, and allowance for faculty entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, larger-scale multi-disciplinary research efforts require hierarchical management and more centralized governance structures for rapidly making strategic decisions and for inter- departmental planning. In addition, the intense regulatory environment in many areas of research requires active participation by the institution's administration in deciding faculty research topics and protocols, as well as in serving as a necessary buffer against unwarranted outside interference. On the other hand, the present university disciplinary structure has proved adaptable to new research opportunities and, more importantly, provides a necessary, albeit cumbersome, system for quality control through peer review. Young faculty, who are

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Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends, and Issues Get This Book
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The U.S. academic research enterprise is entering a new era characterized by remarkable opportunities and increased strain. This two-part volume integrates the experiential knowledge of group members with quantitative data analyses in order to examine the status of scientific and technological research in academic settings. Part One reviews the status of the current research enterprise, emerging trends affecting it, and issues central to its future. Part Two is an overview of the enterprise and describes long-term trends in financial and human resources. This new book will be useful in stimulating policy discussions—especially among individuals and organizations that fund or perform academic research.

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