NAS/NAE Report: Recommendations for Federal S&T Funding

The NAS/NAE Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and Development, in its November 29 report, makes 13 specific recommendations to improve the federal process of planning investments in science and technology, selecting priorities among programs, and reallocating funds for better use. It defines an FS&T budget as the part of the federal investment in science and technology “spent annually on expanding fundamental knowledge and creating new technologies.” The document, “Allocation of Federal Funds for Science and Technology,” is summarized in FYI #171. The committee’s recommendations are listed below, along with some explanatory quotes:

RECOMMENDATION 1. “The President should present an annual comprehensive FS&T budget, including areas of increased and reduced emphasis. The budget should be sufficient to serve national priorities and foster a world-class scientific and technical enterprise.” Currently, the report points out, the R&D budget “is never considered as an integrated whole” by either the Administration or Congress. This “disaggregated approach is less suitable when major cutbacks must be made,” it says, because R&D programs are interdependent, and cuts in one area “might well have significant and inadvertent impacts” on other areas.

RECOMMENDATION 2. “Departments and agencies should make FS&T allocation decisions based on clearly articulated criteria that are congruent with those used by the Executive Office of the President and by Congress.”

RECOMMENDATION 3. “Congress should create a process that examines the entire FS&T budget before the total federal budget is disaggregated into allocations to appropriations committees and subcommittees.”

RECOMMENDATION 4. “The President and Congress should ensure that the FS&T budget is sufficient to allow the United States to achieve preeminence in a select number of fields and to perform at a world-class level in the other major fields.” The committee believes the U.S. “should strive for clear leadership in the most promising areas...and those deemed most important to our national goals. In other major fields, [it] should perform on par with other nations.” The report describes the process to be used in determining the U.S. position in a field and reallocating funds where necessary.

RECOMMENDATION 5. “The United States should pursue international cooperation to share costs, to tap into the world’s best science and technology, and to meet national goals.”

RECOMMENDATION 6. “Research and development conducted in federal laboratories should focus on the objectives of the sponsoring agency and not expand beyond the assigned missions of the laboratories. The size and activities of each laboratory should correspond to changes in mission requirements.” While admitting that the labs “have an important role in a balanced program,” the committee suggests that downsizing the lab system may be necessary.

RECOMMENDATION 7. “FS&T funding should generally favor academic institutions because of their flexibility and inherent quality control, and because they directly link research to education and training in science and engineering.”

RECOMMENDATION 8. “The federal government should encourage, but not directly fund, private-sector commercial technology development, with two limited exceptions: -Development in pursuit of government missions, such as weapons development and spaceflight; or -Development of new enabling, or broadly applicable, technologies for which government is the only funder available.” The report states that “the government should not subsidize specific private firms for projects that they would undertake anyway.... In many cases, however, no one firm can capture the full benefits of its investment. This is generally the case for investment in basic research and can also apply in development related to emerging technologies.”

RECOMMENDATION 9. “FS&T budget decisions should give preference to funding projects and people rather than institutions. That approach will increase the flexibility in responding to new opportunities and changing conditions.” The report calls for “a presumption against establishing new permanent institutions” in the future.

RECOMMENDATION 10. “Because competition for funding is vital to maintain the high quality of FS&T programs, competitive merit review, especially that involving external reviewers, should be the preferred way to make awards.” The committee concedes, though, that “there is benefit to having a variety of approaches to supporting FS&T.”

RECOMMENDATION 11. “Evaluations of research and development programs and of those performing and sponsoring the work also should incorporate the views of outside evaluators.” But the report warns that “most measures are incomplete, and mindless application actually can undermine the very functions such measures are intended to improve.”

RECOMMENDATION 12. “Research and development should be well managed and accountable but should not be micromanaged or hobbled by rules and regulations that have little social benefit.”

RECOMMENDATION 13. “The federal government should retain the capacity to perform research and development within agencies whose missions require it. The nation should maintain its resulting flexible and pluralistic system of support. The executive and legislative branches should implement the procedures outlined in the committee’s Recommendations 1 through 4 to ensure a more coherent FS&T budget process whether or not a Department of Science is established.” The committee is cool to the idea of a Science Department. Advising that R&D relevant to agency missions should be retained where it is, the committee notes that this would limit any Department of Science “to activities that fall outside existing mission agencies.” This would not necessarily do much to improve the coordination and integration of the research budget. The committee believes “that its recommendation will contribute more to planning, coordinating, and evaluating federal science and technology than either the current system or a Department of Science.”

The report can be purchased from the National Academy Press at 1-800-624-6242. It is also available at no charge on the World Wide Web at http://www.nas.edu/anp/online/