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EMERGING TRENDS 19 strongly trained in disciplines, enter a reward system that favors a single-discipline setting to establish professional credentials. Moreover, the traditional collegial culture of universities, including the faculty tenure system, provides an atmosphere essential to fostering the creative process and maintaining academic proficiency. For the external sponsors of academic research, the topics and capital requirements of new research opportunities pose challenges to their decision-making and budgetary structures. Inter-disciplinary research opportunities generate pressure for federal funding mechanisms that cut across divisions within a given agency, and often across agencies. Collaborative ventures among government funding agencies are often limited by competing Congressional committee jurisdictions and federal agency bureaucracies, and conflicting procedures and legal restrictions. The active participation of state governments in funding research provokes demands for federal-state consultation and cooperation in funding decisions. Among industries, collaborative ventures for supporting academic research are often constrained by anti-trust laws, competitive pressures, and trade secret and patent rights concerns. RESEARCH PERSONNEL During the next decade, faculty retirements will increase demand for academic research personnel. Steady-state student enrollments during the past two decades have reduced the number of new faculty job openings. As a result, between 1973 and 1987, the percentage of academic scientists and engineers under 35-years of age fell from 27 to 12 percent.14 This aging of the faculty indicates an increased number of faculty are slated for retirement in the foreseeable future. In some instances, however, the impact of these retirements may be eased temporarily by the end of mandatory-retirement policies and movement of non-tenure-track personnel into faculty positions. The risks of such solutions, however, are that they may dissuade students from choosing academic careers by reducing placement opportunities for new graduates. Fewer numbers of U.S. students are now interested in or qualified for academic science and engineering careers. The number of baccalaureate degrees in science and engineering awarded to U.S. citizens has stabilized or declined in most fields. This situation results from the current decline in the college-age population and the steady rate at which 22-year olds attain such degrees. In the early 21st century, enrollments may slowly return to 1983 levels, riding an upswing in the number of 18- to 22-year olds. During the next several decades, however, assuming current enrollment rates, U.S. higher education enrollments will most likely not exceed current levels.15 Nor is it likely that increased participation of women, minorities, and foreign students in undergraduate science and engineering programs will offset these general demographic declines. 16 Since the mid 1960s, the rate at which students with natural science and engineering baccalaureate degrees from U.S. institutions went on to earn Ph.D.s has declined by half. This reduction has been especially apparent among U.S. males, a group that has historically been the mainstay for doctoral degrees. The recent growth in Ph.D. awards in several fields is due in part to greater participation by foreign students. In engineering, almost 60 percent of all doctorates are now awarded to foreign students, as are over a third of