Selections from “Science in the National Interest”
The following are selections from the recent OSTP report:
“Technology - the engine of economic growth - creates jobs, builds new industries, and improves our standard of living. Science fuels technology’s engine. It is essential to our children’s future that we continue to invest in fundamental research. Equally important, science and mathematics education must provide our children with the knowledge and skills they need to prepare for the high-technology jobs of the future, to become leaders in scientific research, and to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship in the twenty-first century.”
“The return from our public investments in fundamental science has been enormous, both through the knowledge generated and through the education of an unmatched scientific and technical workforce. Discoveries in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and other fundamental sciences have seeded and have been driven by important advances in engineering, technology, and medicine.”
“Science does indeed provide an endless frontier. Advancing that frontier and exploring the cosmos we live in helps to feed our sense of adventure and our passion for discovery. Science is also an endless resource: in advancing the frontier, our knowledge of the physical and living world constantly expands. The unfolding secrets of nature provide new knowledge to address crucial challenges, often in unpredictable ways. These include improving human health, creating breakthrough technologies that lead to new industries and high quality jobs, enhancing productivity with information technologies and improved understanding of human interactions, meeting our national security needs, protecting and restoring the global environment, and feeding and providing energy for a growing population.”
“As our institutions anticipate, manage, and respond to change, we must continue to focus on the enduring core elements of our national interest: the health, prosperity, security, environmental responsibility, and quality of life of all of our citizens. At the same time, we must respond to the changing character of the challenges presented by each of these core elements. For example, as the nature of today’s external security threat has shifted profoundly, we have come to recognize economic and technological strength as integral to national security. Likewise, improved science and mathematics education for all citizens is now recognized as a strategic imperative for our individual and collective futures.”
“Vibrant scientific disciplines are best guaranteed by the initiatives of talented investigators and in turn provide the strongest and most enduring foundation for science in the national interest. That quantum theory would lead to today’s electronics, or investigations of DNA structure to genetic engineering, could not be anticipated. Countless examples could be provided; the few which accompany this statement [see FYI #129] are tangible evidence of inspiration, promise, and improved quality of life for our citizens. We can be confident that our children and grandchildren will look back at today’s fundamental science and its ultimate benefit with the same surprise and appreciation that we experience today.”
