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I INTRODUCTION SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS: A NATIONAL ASSET Scientists and engineers, through their discoveries and innovations, expand the range of choices open to a nation and its people. In the United States, we look to our scientists and engineers to help make the nation strong, to advance the prevention and cure of disease, to deepen our understanding of man and nature, to educate and train tomorrow's scientists and engineers, and in many other ways to help us attain our individual and national goals. In the years ahead, the nation's needs for scientists and engineers unquestionably will increase, and probably at a faster rate than they have in the past. Although the supply of this manpower also will in- crease, it may not keep pace with all the possible needs to which domestic and international influences will give rise. Difficult choices will have to be made among the many alternatives to which our limited supply of skilled manpower might devote its efforts. The total number of its citizens that a nation can count as scientists and engineers is only a crude index of its capability to meet its needs in science and engineering. Truer measures are the number of able scientists and engineers whose services are effectively used and the quality and relevance of their training. In this report, the Committee on Utilization of Scientific and Engi- neering Manpower is concerned with improving the utilization of scien- tists and engineers, irrespective of the shortages or surpluses that may
exist at any particular time. At present, there are both unfilled positions and unemployed scientists and engineers. Conditions vary by region and specialty. There are unmistakable shortages of manpower in the ad- vanced technologies of new engineering systems, of scientists and engi- neers with technical and administrative skills required for the effective management of large scientific and technological undertakings, of teachers of science and engineering, and of persons with doctorates in mathematics. Also at the present time, there are identifiable surpluses resulting, for example, from industries changing from older to new technologies. As the aircraft industry has redirected its major effort from airborne vehicles to space vehicles, adjustments have become necessary in the deployment of engineers. Currently, changes in the programs of the Department of Defense are resulting in cutbacks in certain types of employment. A number of engineers face problems of adapting them- selves to more advanced technologies as their older skills become obsolete. Thus, the employment situation remains mixed. Our concern for im- proved utilization must go beyond those now employed. ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT Chapter II describes the nation's needs for scientific and engineering manpower and the resources available to serve those needs. Chapters III, IV, and V set forth the Committee's findings and recommendations, divided according to three sectors: the federal government, industry, and colleges and universities. Aspects of utilization associated with the federal government, covered in Chapter III, relate not only to scien- tists and engineers employed within the federal government, but also to those employed by industry and by colleges and universities, but engaged in work that is supported, in whole or in part, by federal funds. Scarcely any aspect of manpower utilization has relevance exclu- sively to only one of the three sectors. Education of scientists and engi- neers, for example, is supplied largely by colleges and universities; but the education they receive affects, in critical ways, the utilization of manpower in the other sectors. Nevertheless, even though utilization links the three sectors, the content of these chapters is organized accord- ing to the sectors in order to make explicit the principal audience to which the Committee addresses each of its recommendations. Chapter VI recommends and discusses research efforts needed to strengthen our understanding of manpower utilization. Chapter VII integrates the findings of the Committee, first by describing the major considerations that cut across all aspects of utiliza- tion, and then by drawing together, in summary form, all the recom- mendations introduced in the report. Throughout the report, the recom- mendations are marked by colored numerals and set in bold type.
