You rarely find the most important things by deliverately looking for them.. Joshua Lederberg, (1925-) | New scientific ideas
form the foundation of the research enterprise. Without them, development would
be stifled; our economy would stall. Hope for those with dreaded diseases would
fade, and our defenses would be vulnerable. Yet the breakthroughs that form this
foundation cannot be predicted or summoned upon demand. Instead, important
discoveries often come from unexpected avenues.
Consider the work of Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer some 30 years ago, when they were among the many scientists experimenting on DNA. Like a number of other researchers in the young field of molecular biology, they were asking fundamental questions about the nature of genetic material. They were working independently of each other, trying to answer questions about such odd-sounding things as bacterial enzymes and mini-chromosomes called plasmids. A fortuitous meeting, however, led to a collaboration that precipitated a revolution in the field: the discovery of recombinant DNA technology. The technique they pioneered is now a staple of the life scientist's toolbox and made genetic engineering--and hence the biotech industry and many of the medical discoveries of today--possible. |
At about the same time, an entirely different scientific discipline yielded an equally unanticipated but important discovery. Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman were engaged in research on computational complexity, a sub-discipline of theoretical computer science. Their pursuit of abstract mathematical concepts led them, however, to the foundation for public key encryption, a mathematics-based methodology that can be used to protect electronic information. Today, many years later, their discovery is felt profoundly, as encryption not only protects from prying eyes the e-mails we send, but also has made the burgeoning realm of electronic commerce viable by ensuring the confidentiality and security of internet-based financial transactions.
The scientists involved in these diverse pursuits had more than their scientific curiosity in common. Their quests for knowledge were all funded, at least in part, by the U.S. government. The above examples of basic research pursuits which led to economically important developments, while among the most well known, are hardly exceptions. Other instances of federally funded research that began as a search for understanding but gave rise to important applications abound. In fact, a recent study determined that 73 percent of the applicants for U.S. patents listed publicly-funded research as part or all of the foundation upon which their new, potentially patentable findings were based.5
The researchers described above might never have made their discoveries were it not for funding from the federal government. No company or private investor would have funded their scientific inquiries because, at the time, no payoff other than the gain of knowledge could have been foreseen.
New discoveries that will lead to equally important future breakthroughs are being performed in laboratories across the country today. It may take 5, 20, even 50 years before we derive the payoffs from some of this research, but once the returns are realized, we will wonder how we could ever have considered not funding it. Such 20-20 vision comes only with hindsight, of course. At the time a decision to fund a particular project is made, no guarantees exist.
Investment in basic research involves a willingness to take risks for eventual gain; for every revolutionary discovery there are other lines of research that yield far less momentous results. Such is the nature of basic research. The results carry the potential to lead to important or unexpected advances, but no assurances. Were a particular outcome of any given research project known in advance, the project would not truly be basic in nature.
James S. Langer, Professor of Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, summed up the essence of this point in an e-mail contribution to this Science Policy Study. "History tells us," he wrote, "that even the greatest scientists could not consistently point out the most profitable directions for research or predict the implications of their own discoveries. Newton spent a large part of his career studying alchemy. Einstein devoted the second half of his life to problems that we now know could not be solved without modern discoveries in elementary-particle physics. Bardeen grossly underestimated the importance of his invention of the transistor, as did most major U.S. industrial corporations at the time...While I am certain that we shall see remarkable scientific advances in the near future, I am equally certain that we cannot trust scientists, engineers, or public policy experts to predict where those advances will occur or in what ways they will have their greatest impacts."
The scientist or engineer pursues basic research in order to understand more about our universe and all of its creatures. While we may draw other benefits from these explorations--improvements to health, the economy, national security, our quality of life--we must not lose sight of the fact that the pursuit of knowledge alone is a worthy endeavor.
The quick harvest of applies science is the usable process, the medicine, the machine. The shy fruit of pure science is understanding.
Lincoln Barnett, (1909-1979) | It is in our best interests as a nation to enable our scientists to continue to pursue fundamental, ground-breaking research. Our experience with 50 years of government investment in research has demonstrated the economic benefits alone associated with this investment. Economists' estimates as to the effect of technology on the growth of the Nation's economy vary, depending, in part, upon whether they are calculating private or public rates of return. A report from the Committee for Economic Development,6 in citing a 1993 study,7 estimated a consensus rate of return to private firms from investments in research at 2030 percent. The Congressional Budget Office concluded recently that the public rate of return from research ranges from 30 to 80 percent;8 a 1992 study 9 cited in a report from the Progressive Policy Institute10 indicated that 49 percent of economic growth could be attributed to technological progress.11 Regardless of the actual figures, few economists disagree that the federal investment in research pays real economic dividends. One need only consider the effect on the economy of the biotech and high-tech industries, both of which owe much of their success to advances in basic research, to understand the tremendous benefit to the economy that basic research expenditures can bring. |
In his appearance before the Committee, Mr. George Conrades, the President of GTE Internetworking and a trustee of the Committee on Economic Development (CED), affirmed the CED's belief in the importance of the federal investment in basic research: "America's long-standing endowment of basic research has been overwhelmingly successful, providing American society with not only new knowledge but also the practical benefits of economic growth and improvements in the welfare of its citizens...Because federal support is essential for a thriving basic research enterprise, the long-term federal budget outlook is critical. Basic research should be a high priority in federal budgets in the decades to come."12
Other countries, such as Japan13 and South Korea,14 have recognized the success of American science and the downstream benefits that government funding of basic research bring and have begun to surpass the U.S. in funding expressed as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. If we are to retain our technology-based economic edge in the future, we must not allow this investment to dwindle. Funding of basic research today will be a major determinant of future economic strength. We have the resources to make this investment, and we owe it to succeeding generations to use them.
The above recommendation comes with the recognition that, notwithstanding the short-term projections of budget surpluses, the resources of the federal government are limited. In fact, the discretionary portion of the federal budget, which must fund all of the government's programs and operating expenses, including defense, has shrunk to approximately one-third of the overall budget. This is down from nearly two-thirds in 1962, and the decrease is due to the growth of non-discretionary spending for federal entitlements and interest on the national debt, as the figure below shows.
To put the current spending for basic research in perspective, consider the National Science Foundation's funding: it is approximately equal to the width of the line separating the different portions of the pie in the preceeding chart. Besides making research funding a higher priority, making room for any future increases in spending for scientific research means controlling entitlement spending and reducing the federal debt.
The resources of the federal government will always be limited in that there are always greater numbers of worthwhile projects than there are dollars in the treasury to fund them. Our challenge, now and in the future, will be to maintain a steady flow of understanding-driven scientific and engineering studies even in the face of limited federal resources. Meeting this challenge means that priorities for spending on science and engineering by the federal government will have to be set. While it is clear that industry does fund a substantial amount of basic research, and that the federal government has funded, and in certain circumstances should continue to fund, research of a more applied nature, industry cannot be expected to fund research that has no guarantee of practical applications. Therefore, major funding for basic research must come from the federal government.
*The phrase "federal research funding" requires clarification. This term is used throughout the report to refer to the roughly $35 billion spent by the federal government on research and development that does not include the Department of Defense's weapons development accounts. The 1995 National Research Council report's Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology,(the "Press Report") definition of a "Federal Science and Technology budget" should be considered synonymous with the use of the phrase "federal research funding" in this document.
The primary channel by which the government stimulates knowledge-driven basic research is through research grants made to individual scientists and engineers. Typically, these funds go to professors who lead a university-based research team, but in some cases, researchers in non-profit research centers, hospitals or even in industrial settings or federal laboratories receive this type of funding.
There is only one proved way of assisting the advancement of pure science--that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.
James B. Conant | To obtain these grants, the researchers must vie for the limited federal funding available in a competitive process that is based on peer review. In his testimony, Mr. Conrades underlined the important role these scientists play in the scientific enterprise "...we revere the important role of the individual investigator, particularly the academic researcher who we believe to be at the core strength of the U.S. research enterprise as they compete for federal monies."16 Direct funding of the individual researcher must continue to be a major component of the federal government's research investment, as it is the ideas generated by individual scientists that are in large measure responsible for the creative directions that basic research takes. |
Creativity, or scientific risk-taking, is critical to opening up new avenues of research and bringing about exciting advances. Yet, as the research enterprise--and the number of scientists within it--has grown, competition for peer-reviewed grants has become fierce. If limited funding and thus intense competition for grants causes researchers to seek funding only for "safe"--that is, incremental--research instead of research that challenges the status quo or pushes the boundaries of conventional wisdom, the research enterprise as a whole will suffer.
Indications that truly innovative research may be being stifled were presented by another witness before the Committee, Dr. Michael Doyle, Vice President of the Research Corporation, a private foundation dedicated to providing grants to scientists for pursuit of research. In describing the Research Corporation's Research Innovation Awards program, which was designed to fund young faculty for pursuit of innovative scientific projects that did not necessarily follow upon their prior work, Dr. Doyle stated that the program funded far fewer applications than it had originally intended to because most were not significantly innovative. "There was an unexpected uniformity in evaluations which suggested that we were dealing with a systemic problem rather than an isolated occurrence. Our interpretation of this is that 'innovation' presents considerable risk to a new faculty member concerned with obtaining the necessary resources to establish a research program." 17
He went on to state that, "With federal funding sufficient to support only those proposals having the highest rankings, those with lower rankings but higher levels of innovation are left unfunded." A similar view was offered by Dr. Homer Neal, Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. "Numerous forces exist that will tend to blunt the efforts of those who dare to propose radically new ventures...The emphasis on paradigm conformity for faculty [is one example] of how we can gradually lose some of the creativity that we have long cherished as a mainstay of our technological success." 18
Many of the e-mail contributors to the study summed up the situation far more bluntly. Said one such commentator, Suzanne Rutherford, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago: "There are no rewards for risky science. It is too important to publish."
Stifling the creativity so important to the progress of science poses significant dangers to the long-term health of the research enterprise and must be avoided. Particular care should be taken in ensuring that scientists in the early stages of their research careers are able to capitalize on the energy and vitality their new ideas bring to the overall research enterprise. Identification of scientists who show tremendous potential--even when many of their ideas are unorthodox--should also be pursued, and funding for these particularly gifted scientists provided.
The practice of science is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, and scientific progress in one discipline is often propelled by advances in other, often apparently unrelated, fields. For example, who would have thought that nuclear physics research (the study of the inner workings and properties of the atomic nucleus) and data gathering techniques developed for experiments on elementary particles (quarks and such) would lead to a device that has advanced the boundaries of biomedical research and health care? Yet both of these lines of inquiry led ultimately to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a tool now used in laboratories and hospitals around the world both to conduct basic biological research and also to diagnose illness. Such cross-over between fields is yet another example of the unexpected payoffs that can come from basic research.
In some cases, a scientific advance may languish in obscurity for a significant length of time before it abruptly surfaces in the context of some new, unexpected development. For example, the (largely unsuccessful) search for a viral basis for human cancers led to the discovery of a unique category of viruses with unusual characteristics, called retroviruses, in the 1970s. It was not until many years later that a member of this class of viruses took on great significance as the probable cause of AIDS. Suddenly, the earlier body of work on what had seemed to be an interesting but not particularly practical avenue of study enabled the fight against AIDS to progress far faster than it would have had the earlier work not been pursued. In an example which illustrates an even greater lag time between initial discovery and eventual application, Boolean algebra was developed in 1854, but did not find widespread application until the development of modern computers.
Trends in Nondefense R&D by Function, FY 196099
Outlays for the Conduct of R&D, Constant FY 1998 $ Billions
| Source: AAAS, based on OMB Historical Tables in Budget of the United States Government FY 1999 . Constant dollar conversion based on GDP deflators. FY 1999 is the President's request. Note: Some Energy programs shifted to General Science beginning in FY 1998. |
Funding across a wide range of disciplines is important to the strength of the overall research enterprise. However, the current popularity of certain fields, primarily health-related ones, threatens to undercut funding in other disciplines (see graph previous page). As Mr. Conrades stated in his testimony, "While federal and public priorities will require that some research areas and disciplines receive more funding than others, it is important for policymakers to recognize the imperative of an overall balance in the portfolio of federal basic research...The current trend to concentrate more and more federal money on health research while neglecting other areas of science and engineering is shortsighted."19
Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors...Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
Albert Einstein | The hopes of a nascent Nation and her
people were elegantly simple: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the
centuries since the blood of our ancestors was shed in pursuit of those ideals,
the Colonies that became the United States were transformed from aspiring Nation
into the world's single greatest power.
Understanding-driven research makes up an important, but limited, segment of the federal government's overall research portfolio. Much of the research funded by the federal government could more accurately be called "targeted basic research." This term describes research that is largely basic in nature but is done with a sense that some downstream use may exist--but is not done in direct pursuit of a specific application. This targeted basic research occurs in the mission-oriented national laboratories and federal agencies, and is also pursued by many of the scientists funded by individual federal grants. |
More than one witness pointed out the tenuous distinction between purely understanding-driven basic research and targeted basic research in testimony before the committee. Said Claude Barfield, Director of Science and Technology Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, "While much science is conducted out of curiosity and the desire to explore the unknown, it is also true that a great deal of scientific research since 1945 has been targeted to particular problems and applications--indeed, it is striking that it is precisely in the areas where the federal government has targeted scientific resources that the United States has emerged with technological predominance--high-end electronics, pharmaceuticals, genetics and aeronautics."20
Mr. Conrades underscored this point in his written testimony. "A common misperception is that fundamental research is conducted in an ivory tower, with no regard for practical benefits. On the contrary, a consistent virtue of U.S. basic research has been the pursuit of fundamental knowledge with a sharp eye out for downstream applications." 21
Government agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and cabinet level departments--Defense and Energy, for instance--employ science in pursuit of their missions. As such, a great deal of the science that is performed in or funded by these agencies or departments is driven at least as much by the overarching goals of the agency or department as it is by the research interests of an individual researcher. Although this research is typically basic in nature, in that no immediate or even short-term objective is sought, it is nevertheless performed with long-term, overriding goals in mind.
The Department of Defense has been highly successful in funding targeted basic research, to the betterment of both the national defense and science as a whole. Its mission, which is arguably more straightforward than many of the other agencies and departments that fund science, is first translated into specific priorities. Funds for basic research that are aimed at addressing these goals--targeted basic research--are allocated in the form of competitively-selected, peer reviewed "6.1" 22 research grants over 50 percent of which go to individual university researchers. 23 The researchers funded by these grants do high-quality, innovative research that often leads to advances important for all of science and, equally importantly, to the development of civilian technologies.
At the same time, the Department of Defense and its in-house researchers are able to draw from the results these scientists produce and, upon further development or refinement, turn them into new advances for protecting national security. The Internet, which was originally a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-sponsored project sparked by the military's need for advanced field communications, is one example of targeted basic research sponsored by the Defense Department that paid off for science as a whole while furthering the Department's objectives at the same time. That the Defense Department's 6.1 research grants have been successful in stimulating high-quality fundamental research is indicated by the fact that these grants provided funding for 66 Nobel prize winners before they won their prizes. 24
Research within federal government agencies and departments ranges from purely basic, knowledge-driven research, to targeted basic research, applied research and, in some cases, even product development. Research in the Department of Defense, for example, spans this entire spectrum. The Defense Department decides upon certain 6.1 projects to pursue further, with selected projects receiving 6.2 research funding. This research, which is generally applied in nature, is done primarily in industry and in-house defense laboratories. It bridges the gap between the basic 6.1 research and 6.3 research, which is in essence product development. This multi-step process provides a clear mechanism for establishing priorities based in part upon the success or failure of earlier steps.
Other departments and agencies do not necessarily require an equally formal structure for prioritizing, and, of course, most of the other agencies and departments do not produce products and so do not need to proceed as far down the research spectrum. However, in all mission-oriented departments and agencies, once overall missions have been clearly identified, research priorities that reflect the relative importance of specific areas of study need to be set. The infrastructure needs necessary for carrying out essential federal R&D programs must then be assessed consistent with the agency's or department's mission and priorities.
In some cases, Congress may decide to pursue an independent review of these objectives. A Congressional review of this type for the National Institutes of Health's research program is currently underway. 25 Concerns have been raised that funding for particular NIH programs may be based more on the strength of a particular advocacy group's voice than on scientific merit. One consequence of this is that the flexibility NIH needs to set research priorities has been reduced, potentially shutting off promising avenues of research in other areas. Although federal funding for health research continues to grow, there is still a limited amount of money available, meaning that some promising research goes unfunded. To ensure that the money we spend is used wisely and to the greatest effect, Congress and the NIH need to change the way health and medical research priorities are set. The Congressional review now in progress, as well as a recently-completed report from the Institute of Medicine, 26 are examples of attempts to address this problem.
While Congress appropriates money for various federal research programs, it is the taxpayers of this country who actually pay the bills. Science cannot ignore this fact and hope to operate successfully. Vannevar Bush recognized this, and so even while he championed the merits of curiosity-driven research done by independent researchers, he nevertheless recognized that this research ought to be done with overarching goals in mind. He outlined three such goals: defense, the economy, and health.
Scientists alone can establish the objectives of their research, but society, in extending support to science, must take account of its own needs.
John F. Kennedy | Witness testimony reflected the current relevance of this point. Mr. Jim McGroddy, a former Vice President for Research at IBM, pointed out that "Science has also benefited, both in the quality of science itself, and most certainly, in its ability to contribute to Bush's three goal areas, by a number of mechanisms which couple the science to its larger societal goals. When science is effectively managed, via a collaborative effort of the scientists themselves and their supporting and benefiting constituencies (or their surrogates), we get the best of both worlds." 27 Mr. Conrades made a similar point: "Like any far-reaching enterprise that comprises hundreds of institutions and thousands of workers, America's basic research establishment must constantly renew itself in response to changing conditions in global economic, political, and scientific markets. This enterprise must also recognize the legitimate expectations of the society that supports its efforts."28 |
The basic research enterprise in this country is as dependent on the taxpayers who finance this effort as it is on the scientists who carry out the actual research. In order to maintain the public's support for science in an era of limited funds for research, an emphasis on both maximizing the return on the taxpayer's investment and the setting of research priorities is necessary. While it may be paradoxical that the research that is most important for the federal government to fund is the most difficult to explain to the American people, maximizing success, efficiency and accountability within the federal government's research programs are critical to sustaining support for the basic research enterprise.
The national laboratories are a unique national resource within the research enterprise. They offer an environment that is highly conducive to interdisciplinary research as they are unencumbered by the artificial lines of separation that divide universities into departments. In addition, they have access to large, expensive equipment that would be difficult for a university department--and impossible for the individual investigator--to afford. Finally, security procedures that would be difficult to employ in other settings allow them to carry out classified research relevant to national security needs.
The rapidly expanding field of computational science represents one area in which the resources available in our national laboratories may thrust these centers to the forefront of a new scientific paradigm. Scientific hypotheses are usually pursued--and tested--by experimentation, but there are some scientific questions of such large scale that they cannot be adequately broken down into testable components. Some of these questions pose challenges that cannot be ignored. For example, our decision to cease nuclear weapons testing has meant that we must devise new ways of determining whether our aging nuclear stockpile is stable and thus safe--without actually performing the ultimate physical test: detonation. Computational science is a potential solution to this dilemma, and the national laboratories are at the forefront of developing the techniques and tools that will enable the massive computational power necessary. Similarly, determining which nuclear fusion process holds the most promise for future electric power generation, and designing a reactor to contain the process and extract the power requires extremely complex and difficult calculations. Again, computational modeling techniques provide a possible answer.
Nevertheless, concerns that national laboratories are not pursuing their mission either effectively or efficiently have made them the subject of numerous efforts to reform and improve their management and operations, most notably, in the 1995 "Galvin Report" Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories.29 Suggesting that current management systems were stifling creativity and innovation and not providing effective high-level focus on the operations of individual laboratories, the Galvin Report recommended an approach--"corporatization"--that would enable individual research laboratories to operate more effectively. This process, which would involve the creation of a new not-for-profit R&D corporation, would be implemented with the goal of reducing unnecessary overhead and management inefficiencies. While the Department of Energy did establish the Laboratory Operations Board in response to the Galvin Report, unfortunately no progress has yet been made on implementing more fundamental reforms.
Sensitivity to societal needs such as health, defense and jobs is one way in which the scientific enterprise should be accountable to the American people. But the federally funded research enterprise also has the obligation to ensure that the money spent on basic research is invested well and that those who spend the taxpayers' money are accountable to them. The Government Performance and Results Act30 was developed for the purpose of providing such accountability across all of the federal government.
Application of the Results Act to the mission-directed research taking place inside the national laboratories and federal agencies is akin to the practice in the business world of using "roadmaps" that were developed earlier in order to detail overall goals and estimated timetables to measure success of a research program. When scientific or engineering research is performed in the context of attaining a particular goal or mission it is very important that some measure of research performance accountability be used to gauge whether the research program is effective. As Mr. McGroddy said in his testimony, "Science is not so different from other human activities that it cannot benefit from external inputs, from management. And science is too critical...for it to be shortchanged in...the wisdom with which we manage this critical resource, this large investment."31
It is vital that application of the Results Act to federal science projects not result in a loss of efficiency by overwhelming scientists with burdensome bureaucratic obligations and distracting them from their research efforts. Equally important is the need to maintain flexibility in the scientific pursuit of mission goals. Science often takes unexpected turns and researchers must be able to follow these unanticipated bends in the road to follow new, potentially more rewarding paths. We cannot simply apply the Results Act to science in the same manner it is applied elsewhere in the government. If in implementing the Results Act we allow government officials to ignore the judgment of scientists, we will have failed in the underlying goal. In order to apply the Results Act to science programs in an effective way, scientists themselves must be involved in establishing the actual framework through which the Results Act can work.
Applying the Results Act to understanding-driven basic research is even more complex, as the payoffs stemming from basic scientific research are often realized far downstream from the time the research is performed, and scientific progress is often most profound when research reveals wholly unexpected results. It is the very nature of fundamental scientific inquiry that not every experiment will succeed though some few will succeed spectacularly. As in an investment portfolio, it is never apparent at the outset which individual investment will pay off. Thus, the determination of whether the nation's basic research investment is successful requires a balanced research portfolio, a long-term view and a tolerance for less-than-perfect success rates.
Effective partnerships among various entities in the research enterprise can be a valuable means of leveraging the federal government's research investment. This view was summarized by Dr. Lewis Branscomb, former Director of Research at IBM and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, at a hearing devoted entirely to the subject of partnerships. "If we truly believe in lean government, in leveraging private talent and capital, in knowledge infrastructure to make America the most attractive and productive place in the world for research-based innovation, partnerships will be an increasingly important tool," he said.32
Research partnerships can take on many different forms. As Dr. Branscomb said of the various combinations of research partnerships, "They are found among all combinations of the three most important types of research institutions: universities, industrial laboratories, and 'national' laboratories. If you imagine a triangle with each type of research institution at the vertices, there are important links among each pair." Dr. Branscomb continued by describing the central role that the government plays in these interactions due to its role in funding research: "Sometimes, you will want to imagine government--both federal and state--agencies in the center of the triangle, using their influence and resources to encourage the various links in the triangle."
While different partnership combinations have different requirements, a few basic principles for the structuring of successful research partnerships were identified over the course of this Study. First, participants should have common goals and complementary skills, and should understand and accept the others' priorities. Second, the partnership must be based on a shared interest in the research that will be performed and provide each participant with meaningful results. Finally, participants must set explicit outcome goals and procedures before the collaboration begins. Finally, trust and communication between partners is critical to success and must be cultivated.
Partnerships between federal agencies or national laboratories and industry and/or universities are often formalized in the form of CRADAs. Dr. David Mowery, a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, stated in his testimony that "Federal agencies and research laboratories have signed hundreds of CRADAs since the late 1980s; between 1989 and 1995, the Department of Energy alone signed more than 1,000 CRADAs." 33
CRADAs are an effective structure for partnerships. They serve a dual purpose by helping to leverage federal research funding and allowing research conducted by federal agencies to benefit more quickly the U.S. economy through technology commercialization by the private sector. To ensure that private funds are being used appropriately to leverage federal research funds, research sponsored through CRADAs must assist agencies in fulfilling their mission.
During the hearings, issues were raised about the difficulty of negotiating intellectual property rights among CRADA partners and the appropriateness of foreign-owned subsidiaries participating in CRADAs. The latter is an issue of significant importance since, according to Dr. Branscomb, "Foreign direct investment in American research establishments is the most rapidly growing sector of U.S. research."
As universities seek ways to leverage their federal research dollars and companies look for opportunities to capture basic research results without building up expensive in-house research programs, partnerships between university researchers and industrial entities have become more prevalent.
The potential benefits to universities from partnerships with industry were outlined by MIT President Charles Vest in his testimony before the Committee. "Over the longer term, collaborations can have a transforming effect on the ability of institutions to attract high quality faculty, to encourage faculty and their students to interact more closely with industry, and to design curricula and academic programs better attuned to the needs of industry and the challenges we face as a Nation."34
Nonetheless, a number of challenges must be addressed if universities and industry are to collaborate effectively. First, universities must not lose sight of their ultimate aim of teaching students and performing basic scientific and engineering inquiry. As Dr. Vest stated, "Universities should work synergistically with industry; they must not be industry. Unless universities retain their culture, base of fundamental research, and educational mission, they will not have value to bring to the partnership."
Second, university researchers who benefit from federal funds should not be discouraged from publishing or otherwise disseminating their research results--a practice critical to furthering the pursuit and dissemination of scientific knowledge--due to proprietary claims to these results made by their industry partners. This point was underscored by Dr. Mowery, who noted, "Unbalanced policies, such as restrictions on publication, raise particular dangers for graduate education, which is a central mission of the modern university and an important channel for university-industry interaction and technology transfer."
Finally, private sector entities that partner with universities should not view their university partners as full-fledged substitutes for their own research programs. There is a concern that the amount of basic research done in private sector labs has been steadily declining, and university partnerships should not become excuses to dismantle "in-house" research activities.
Dr. Branscomb summed up these points when he described the importance of evaluating the motives of potential partners in a collaboration between universities and companies. "If the universities value the partnership as a means of exposing faculty and students to leading-edge technical issues that are driving innovations of benefit to society, and are not basing their expectations primarily on revenues from patents, a stable, productive relationship may endure. If the firms see universities as sources of new ideas and as windows on the world of science, informing their own technical strategies, rather than viewing students as a low-cost, productive source of near term problem-solving for the firm, they too will be rewarded."
Although science is believed by many to be a largely individual endeavor, it is in fact often a collaborative effort. In forging collaborations, scientists often work without concern for international boundaries. Most international scientific collaborations take place on the level of individual scientists or laboratories. For example, two or more laboratories may agree to work together by providing complementary approaches to a scientific problem. Or individual scientists themselves may travel to other countries to work in another researcher's lab as a professor on sabbatical, for example, or for all or part of post-doctoral or graduate training. Or, they may take advantage of breakthroughs in communication technology, by sharing ideas and research--and even using distant experimental equipment by remote control--via the Internet.
International collaborations are not limited to those that take place on the level of the individual scientist or laboratory, however. The U.S. government participates in a number of larger scale collaborations. According to the testimony of Ms. Caroline Wagner, a Senior Analyst at RAND's Critical Technologies Institute, "Ten agencies dedicate significant portions (more than $1 million each) of their federal R&D budgets to international cooperative activity. These are, in descending order of spending: NASA, the Department of Defense, the Agency for International Development, the National Science Foundation, the Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services, the Smithsonian, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce." 35
One rationale for entering into international science collaborations is that the costs of large scale science projects, such as colliders for high-energy physics research, can be shared among the participating countries. Homer Neal, a physicist at the University of Michigan, said in his testimony, "With the demise of the SSC (Superconducting Super Collider), and the message we have received that the expense associated with our field is now sufficiently high that most subsequent projects should be international in scope, many American university physicists have joined one of the two approved LHC [Large Hadron Collider] structures."36
Dr. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, underscored this point. "Some research facilities are so expensive that international collaboration is necessary in order to make them affordable. In order for the U.S. to be able to capitalize on discoveries made elsewhere and facilities located elsewhere, we must have world-class researchers who maintain constant communication and work frequently in collaboration with the best scientists in other countries."37
The justifications for participation in international science projects go beyond those of cost-reduction for large programs. As Dr. Alberts pointed out, "The U.S. can benefit scientifically through increased international cooperation because many scientific and technological advances are made in other countries. A growing fraction, already over half, of all scientific articles have foreign authors."
Dr. Neal described one example of a successful international collaboration: the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. "[It] is perhaps the most successful international laboratory in the world...The Laboratory has a management structure that ensures that only high quality scientific projects are embarked upon, that all projects are continually reviewed to check that they are on schedule and on budget, that basic services are provided for visiting scientists and students, and that the overall intellectual vitality of the Laboratory remains high."
Not all international collaborations have been so successful, however. In describing problems encountered during joint Russian-U.S. endeavors aboard the Russian Space Station (Mir), Admiral James Watkins, President of the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education, said in his testimony, "The precedent [Mir] sets, therefore, is one of our Nation appearing to lack the conviction of leadership in meaningful international collaborations...experiences with Mir to date could have at least been foreseen as one possibility and hence could have been agreed to as a legitimate basis on which the U.S. would extract itself from the agreement."38
The pitfalls illustrated by the Mir example and the current troubles with the project to build the even larger International Space Station underscore the need to develop criteria that Congress can use to determine whether or not the U.S. should enter into a particular international scientific agreement.
Because large-scale international science projects often take place over many years, the annual appropriations cycle in Congress can result in unstable funding for these projects. This affects the ability of the U.S. to act as a dependable partner in these agreements. As Admiral Watkins put it in his opening statement, "We are viewed as an unreliable partner by the G-7 and those other allies eminently qualified to partner on large-scale and societally-meaningful basic research." This lack of reliability affects our ability to take part in scientific projects that, ultimately, have the potential to benefit greatly science and, in turn, our Nation.
Finally, because it is important that international science projects not appear to be simply foreign aid, proposed scientific facilities for projects where the U.S. is a major funder should not be located outside of the U.S. unless there is a compelling rationale to do so.
Science and technology, and the various forms of art, all unite humanity in a single and interconnected system. As science progresses, the worldwide cooperation of scientists and technologists becomes more and more of a special and distinct intellectual community of friendship, in which, in place of antagonism, there is growing up a mutually advantageous sharring of work, a coordination of efforts, a common language for the exchange of information, and a solidarity, which are in many cases independent of the social and political differences of individual states. Zhores Aleksandrovich Medvedev (1925-) [1970] | America's position as the world's only
superpower and its pre-eminence in science and technology suggest important new
roles for U.S. science policy in the international context. As Dr. Alberts stated
in his testimony, "International science and technology cooperation is also
necessary in order to make progress on many common problems in environment,
health, food, water, energy and other global challenges...It is greatly in our
interest that wise and informed decisions be made by other countries and
international organizations in addressing these common problems. We have a great
opportunity to develop more rational decision-making in foreign countries through
working with the scientific organizations in those countries, so as to help them
become more respected and involved in advising their governments."
Democracy itself may be furthered through science. Dr. Alberts made this point as well. "In a world full of conflicting cultural values and competing needs, scientists everywhere share a powerful common culture that respects honesty, generosity and ideas independent of their source, while rewarding merit...Knowledge is power, and diffusing it much more widely across the globe also provides a strong force that favors democracy." For these changes to take place, however, a scientifically coordinated, coherent and informed State Department must be ready to help formulate scientific agreements and implement a framework for a worldwide approach to science and technology that is in America's interest. However, according to testimony of the witnesses, this scientific expertise and commitment is severely lacking within the Department of State. |
Admiral Watkins, for instance, noted, "State Department involvement, understanding, and support today can offer the best hope of funding success tomorrow, but leadership there always seems to be lacking in both timely enthusiasm and technical qualifications...S&T [science and technology] counselors assigned to our embassy staffs worldwide are most often not given a serious role in deliberation on important foreign affairs matters that have significant technical content."
Dr. Alberts concurred with Admiral Watkins' characterization of science within the Department of State. "Overall, U.S. international relations have suffered from the absence of a long-term, balanced strategy for issues at the intersection of science and technology with foreign affairs." Dr. Alberts noted, however, that the State Department had recently asked the National Academy of Sciences to undertake "a study on the contributions that science, technology and health can make to foreign policy and to make recommendations on how the department might better carry out its responsibilities to that end."
More than one witness suggested that the State Department take advantage of the technical expertise that exists within various agencies. "Each of the federal agencies that has large international programs or cooperative projects has [personnel who] include technical and program people as well as legal experts for [international] agreements," said Dr. Alberts. He continued by saying, "The State Department presently has an understaffed office to coordinate the substance of cooperation, particularly when it involves interests of diverse U.S. agencies with potentially differing interests."
According to Admiral Watkins, this lack of sufficient technological proficiency at the State Department has coincided with "an unannounced reorganization [that] has eliminated the State Department's senior position for international science, technology and health, and redistributed those functions within a slimmed-down Department bureau that's increasingly focused on global environmental issues. Yet, it is within this office...that much of the coordination of major S&T initiatives with other Nations should be routinely monitored and overseen in close coordination with the appropriate government agencies," according to Admiral Watkins.
Another witness, Dr. J. Thomas Ratchford, Director of the Center for Science, Trade and Technology Policy at George Mason University concurred in this observation, saying, "...in spite of successive attempts to upgrade science and technology as an important element of the policy-making apparatus of the State Department, science has receded slowly over the years as a factor in the foreign policy equation. More recently, resources devoted to science have been diverted for other purposes, especially the environment." 39
It is interesting to note a parallel between the lack of appreciation currently afforded science within the State Department and that within the U.S. armed forces prior to WWII. Early in the Second World War, Vannevar Bush experienced tremendous frustration in trying to get the military to embrace scientific research as a major focus of its war effort. He eventually succeeded, of course, and by the end of the war the various service branches were competing with each other to establish research-granting programs. Today, the U.S. risks missing important opportunities because of the failure of the State Department to fully appreciate the role of science in its overall mission.