The Outlook for Science and Technology 1985 (1985) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
II. An Outline of Selected Issues
II. An Outline of Selected Issues
Pages 17-50
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From page 17... ...
they are described in outline rather - than in detail, to keep this report brief. Within these limits, the issues are: · international competition in science and technology; · scientific and engineering personnel; · cooperative work across disciplines; research and transportation; · facilities and instrumentation; .
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It does this by using three examples taken from Part of this report, all of them economically important: supercomputers, biochemical engineering, and advanced polymeric compos~tes. Supercomputers Rapidly developing microelectronic technology and computer architectures have created the bases for major advances in computational speeds.
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From page 19... ...
In addition, the basic research programs of the NSF, which contribute to the conceptual and algorithmic bases for new styles of supercomputing, and the NSF computer access program, which will put the new machines into the hands of the broad scientific communities that must pioneer their use, are very important and need to be kept strong. Access to supercomputers is becoming indispensable to frontier research in a growing number of scientific and engineering fields, among them fusion research, quantum chemistry, particle physics, materials ~.
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Of course, there are other elements in the international competition in supercomputers that are not included in this brief discussion. These include: · the appropriate role of government and industry in implementing the new computer architectures designed in the universities; for example, what would be the respective roles of government and industry in what is usually considered applied research and development?
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Achieving that leadership requires a wider knowledge base than is now available, greater numbers of trained personnel, support for pilot studies of biochemical engineering processes, and working connections between basic biological research and engineering practice. The knowledge needed has been summarized in Part I
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The goals of such centers could be to: · carry out high-quality scientific and engineering research; · perform toxicologic assessments; · provide scientists and engineers trained in specific disciplines for research on advanced composites; and · infuse engineering curricula with new knowledge. Issues for the Congress These three felds computers, biochemical engineering, and advanced composites-illustrate both special needs and general guidelinesfor maintaining their strengths.
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From page 23... ...
Scientific and Engineering Personnel Only a few issues are discussed under this broad topic. These issues include the real difficulties of a young investigator trying to begin a career in research; the paucity of clinician-researchers; possible shortages of trained research personnel some five years from now; and the role of foreign nationals in U.S.
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From page 24... ...
Current clinical training programs in universities offer both inadequate salaries to trainees and uncertainty of continued support. The fact that fewer clinicians are entering research undermines the transfer of basic research to clinical practice and lessens the contributions of physicians in directing research into the proper channels for understanding and managing human diseases.
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S citizens; 38 percent ofthe doctoral degrees in mathematics and 35 percent in the agricultural sciences went to foreign students.
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The benefits to the United States are substantial; they include the exposure of a new generation of foreign scientists and engineers to American society and culture, the opportunity for American faculties and students to gain foreign perspectives on current research, and the improvement of international scientific and engineering communication. In some instances, the presence offoreign students has made up for Tow enrollments of American students and faculty shortages, and helped to meet industrial needs.
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From page 27... ...
Finally, and more subtly, foreign students and faculty members often have a theoretical rather than an experimental bent, a difference that may affect both the directions of future research and the efficacy of programs intended to accelerate the use of knowledge. Overall, it is in the U
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From page 28... ...
institutions, corporations, and other nations. Cooperative Work Across Disciplines Consideration of new funding modes, research structures, and agency organization may become a major legislative issue, driven by a growing need for multidisciplinary research.
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The current scale of competitive grants is too small to support a competitive molecular biology laboratory focused on agriculture. In summary, Congress can usefully continue to consider mechanisms, such as the competitive grants program, that will reduce disciplinary barriers among the agricultural sciences and between them and the biological sciences.
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From page 30... ...
Issues for the Congress The impetus toward multidisciplinary research, including the particular needs of agriculture, suggests several issues: · articulating an appropriate federal role for encouraging multidlisciplinary research; · providing incentives for universities to undertake multidisciplinary research, whether within their campuses, with other universities, or with industry; and · encouraging the infusion of basic biology into agricultural research. Research and Transportation A chronic issue for Congress is maintaining and improving the national transportation system.
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From page 31... ...
Transportation systems undoubtedly can use to advantage much of the research done in other sectors. Thus, the development of advanced composites, discussed in Part I, as well as progress in combustion and heat transfer technology, in computer-aided design and manufacturing, and in optical scanning techniques have improved, and will continue to improve, transportation systems.
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From page 32... ...
A recent report ofthe Transportation Research Board ofthe National Research Council supports these assertions anal estimates that an annual investment of $30 million over 5 years in an interdisciplinary research program would translate into a saving of about $600 million each yearfrom improvements in highway performance. Among the immediate issues, then, are: · the creation of a research program on highway transportation that is coherent, durable, aclequately funded, anal of a quality commensurate with the level of national investment; and · the nee~lfor systems studies to attain optimal utilization ofthe various components of the transportation system-air, marine, motor vehicle, and rail.
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From page 33... ...
To undertake frontier research, some disciplines now require facilities with capital costs of several hundred million to several billion dollars. Recent high-cost proposals envisage new facilities for materials research comprising synchrotron radiation and neutron-scattering facilities, earthquake engineering facilities, major new astronomy facilities, and the superconducting supercollider.
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That is, does support for large-scale facilities, such as sources of synchrotron radiation, reduce funding for laboratory-scale materials research or support for individual university researchers? If so, what remedies are applicable?
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There is a significant gap in access to mediumscale, technologically advanced instrumentation between academic and industrial researchers working in the same area. While several federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy have initiated instrumentation programs to bring stateof-the-art equipment into university laboratories, these programs tend to be small compared to the magnitude of the problem.
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As indicated earlier, this field requires critical research elements in order to translate basic biology into large-scale processes. Advanced research demands, among other things, fermentation equipment and tissue culture laboratories, the latter costing approximately $250,000 each.
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university-basect research facilities-a new chemistry builcling, for instance; (3) regional research facilities, usually based at a universityfor example, the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory in Durham, North Carolina; and (4)
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As the president of Stanford University recently observed in Science: "The political spasms we are now seeing result from the struggles ofthe scientific venture to escape from the prison of its own undercapitalization.
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The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee ofthe National Institutes of Health still exercises the main responsibility for supervision of research protocols. The need to coordinate the policies of the federal agencies whose responsibilities encompass various applications was recognized in the recent publication for comment in the December 3l, 1984, Federal Register of a "Proposal for a Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology," prepared by the Cabinet Council Working Group in Biotechnology.
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Also, it is difficult to emphasize sufficiently that the spectacular successes achieved in isolating and copying certain human genes leave unsolved the much more difficult tasks of inserting these genes into the right cell and the right DNA position, and then having them function properly. Further, the differences between the genetic content of germline and somatic cells the first transmissible from parent to offspring and the second not are often lost in the discussion.
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be put inside the appropriate cell, * Useful background on this issue, especially on therapy involving somatic cells, is provided in the recent report by the congressional Office of Technology Assessment entitled Human Gene Therapy.
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These and other factors in genetic therapy with human somatic cells are articulated in a recent statement, entitled "Points to Consider in the Design and Submission of Somatic-Cell Gene Therapy Protocols, " by the National Institutes of Health Working Group on Human Gene Therapy. Germline Cells.
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From page 44... ...
The outlook for somatic therapy is brighter, but it stillfaces major technical difficulties. The issues in the area of human biology include: <> ~ · maintaining oversight through the National Institutes of Health of plans for human gene therapy; and · encouraging programs to enlarge J;~ndamental understanding offetal biology.
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From page 45... ...
proposed an alternative policy that, in lieu of"gray areas," returned to a basic "black and white" approach whereby DOD research contracts would stipulate whether a particular project was open or classified. Many in the scientific community welcomed this as a positive development, although most have reserved judgment until the new policy is formally adopted and implemented.
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From page 46... ...
The Department of Commerce has acquiesced recently to DOD's insistence that the latter has the rights of review and timely refusal of export licenses. From the narrow standpoint of scientific communication, the proposed revision ofthe Export Control Act creates the possibility teat individual researchers would be required to obtain vali dated export licenses each time they planned to give a lecture, participate in a symposium, or work in a laboratory where foreigners were to be present and where so-called "militarily critical technical data" were to be presented or discussed.
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From page 47... ...
competitive position in international markets, andprotectingfreedom of scientific communication raise difficult and durable issues. As a result, COSEPUP has initiated a new study to address those issues, entitled The Impact of National Security Controls on International Technology Transfer.
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As the NRC report pointed out: All calculations of the atmospheric effects of a major nuclear war require quantitative assumptions about uncertain physical parameters. In many areas, wide ranges of values are scientifically credible, and the overall results depend materially on the values chosen.
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Issues for the Congress The immediate issues concerning research on the prospects of a "nuclear winter" are straightforward: · adequate support must be provider! to conduct the research program caZledfor in recent reports; · all research findings should be public, within the legitimate constraints of national!
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THE O UTLOOK FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOG Y 1985 These essential qualities will be sustained only if timely attention is given to the basic resources needed, from instrumentation and facilities to the research climate and training for young investigators. in sum, the course of the nation's research system, and the magnitude of its contributions to meeting national goals, continues to depend on the wisdom, support, and guidance of the federal government.
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