"To reform government, we must rethink government" is the
lead sentence of an August 24 Office of Management and Budget report
entitled "The President's Management Agenda" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2002/mgmt.pdf).
A component of this agenda is the development of an "objective
investment criteria for federal R&D projects" that will evaluate
several DOE applied R&D programs. Separate criteria will be developed
for evaluating basic research programs.
These R&D criterion are one of the nine program initiatives
that the White House says "address the most apparent
deficiencies where the opportunity to improve performance is
the greatest." The section entitled "Better R&D Investment
Criteria - Department of Energy" is about two and one-half
pages long. It begins by stating that science and technology
are "critically important," and "as a result, every federal
research and development (R&D) dollar must be invested as
effectively as possible."
OMB faults the conduct of federal R&D on several grounds. It
states that "the ultimate goals of this research need to be
clear." "Vague goals lead to perpetual programs achieving
poor
results," OMB charges, criticizing NASA's space science
program goal of charting our destiny in the solar system and
the USGS goal of providing science for a changing world. The
report cites the lack of evaluation criteria to measure the
effectiveness of R&D investment, and to determine what these
investments have produced. Measurements are rarely linked to
funding decisions. "Without this information, decisions about
programs tend to be made on the basis of anecdotes, last
year's funding level, and the political clout of local
interest groups," the report states.
Another criticism is that "Many R&D projects have ended up
stepping beyond the legitimate purposes of government to
complete with - or unnecessarily subsidize - commercial
ventures." In addition, "many R&D projects directly benefit
corporations that could fund their own R&D projects without
federal assistance."
To correct this problem, OMB and DOE are developing
performance criteria for several applied R&D programs. These
criteria will be used to determine the FY 2003 budget for DOE
programs in the following areas: Solar and Renewable Energy,
Nuclear Energy, Clean Coal, Fossil Energy, and Energy
Conservation. Input is being sought from other White House
offices, federal R&D agencies, research management experts,
"and groups with an interest in the federal R&D portfolio to
improve investment criteria and their implementation."
OMB expects that the efficiency of these programs will
increase by at least 10 percent through the application of
these evaluation criteria. This efficiency "will be measured
by expected dollar per barrel of oil avoided/produced and
dollar per ton of pollution reduced," with criteria "tailored
to the specific objective of the research." Programs that
benefit individual firms, instead of entire sectors, will be
reduced by not less than 50 percent. Additional program
performance criteria are described.
Regarding other applied and basic research, OMB writes, "After
our initial effort in applying uniform investment criteria to
the applied energy technology programs, OMB will assist in the
transfer of investment criteria to the rest of DOE, and other
Departments and applicable agencies with applied R&D programs
in time to assist in the formulation of the President's 2004
Budget. OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy
will also work with NASA, the National Science Foundation, the
Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, and
DOE to develop separate criteria, to be issued in Spring 2002,
for evaluating basic research during formulation of the 2004
Budget."
Evaluation of federal programs was made more systematic by the
Government Performance and Results Act, passed during the
Clinton Administration. It was widely recognized that
evaluating basic research would be difficult. The efforts by
the Bush Administration to tie an evaluation methodology
directly to budget formulation for FY 2004 warrant attention.
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