Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Basic research that brings little economic benefit is falling increasingly
out of favour at the National Science Foundation, the main source of funding
for research at American universities. Both Congress and the NSF’s director,
Walter Massey, want the agency to work more closely with industry and support
research that will have direct commercial impact.

Last week, Congress ordered the NSF to carry out a fundamental shift
in emphasis in order to develop the country’s economic strength. Congress
proposed spending more on engineering research, manufacturing processes
and ‘fundamental research with ties to future industrial interests’.

The directives were passed with little debate as part of a report that
accompanies the NSF budget. Congress cut almost $400 million from the NSF’s
budget request, leaving it with $1.9 billion for 1993.

Congressman George Brown, chairman of the committee on science, space
and technology, which oversees the government’s research funding, opposed
the move. He called it a cavalier and irresponsible attempt to modify the
NSF’s charter without proper debate.

Two months ago, after the proposed directives first surfaced in Congress,
Massey circulated a similar proposal in a memorandum to the National Science
Board, which oversees the NSF’s work. Massey proposed that the NSF become
‘the lead agency in transferring the results of basic research from the
academic community to the market place’.

To effect this transformation Massey appointed a new ‘commission on
the future of the NSF’. This group, composed of prominent figures from academia
and industry, will hold several hearings and report on its conclusions by
the end of November.

Lewis Branscomb, a former IBM executive who is a member of the commission,
says it represents ‘a commendable effort to get NSF and its constituency
to think about how the world has changed’. But he says it would not make
sense to ‘make professors talk to company people; they have nothing to talk
²¹²ú´Ç³Ü³Ù’.

The commission’s first meeting, however, did not seem to presage any
great shift in the NSF’s focus on basic research. John McTague of the Ford
Motor Company, invited to present the views of industry, said that the NSF
should support ‘non-obvious’ research that is neglected by industry. Forcing
NSF to fund industrial research ‘would be a mistake’, he said.

The NSF has already taken several steps in recent years to fund research
cooperatively with industry, especially through a series of science and
engineering research centres. Academic researchers participate in these
centres, but funding comes from private companies and state governments,
as well as the NSF. The focus of research for the centres is determined
partly by what the industrial sponsors think could be valuable. In his memorandum,
however, Massey called these programmes ‘token efforts’.

Branscomb, who now lectures at Harvard University, says the current
debate at the NSF is part of a ‘general sort of thrashing around in Congress
and the administration’ over how to link government sponsored research to
commercial technology. Yet defenders of NSF’s traditional mission say that
other agencies are far better equipped to shoulder the task of promoting
applied research.

In the congressional session that just ended, members of Congress enthusiastically
supported industrial R&D programmes funded by the departments of commerce,
energy and defence. Next year’s Pentagon budget, for instance, includes
$1.5 billion for commercial R&D and for a programme aimed at helping
military contractors convert to production of civil products. ‘When you
have three major agencies tooling up, why make the NSF jump into this,’
asked one congressional official.