Friday, March 15, 1996

Comments on Statement submitted by Dr. J. Robert Schrieffer and D. Allan Bromley, to the House Science Committee, February 28, 1996.

by

Frank Press, Chairman

Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and Development
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
National Research Council

I am grateful to Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley, president and president-elect of the American Physical Society, respectively, for their concurrence with most of the recommendations in the recent report, prepared by a committee I chaired, on Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology. Clearly, broad support by the scientific and technical community is critical to achieving the goal of our report--that of maintaining the excellence of American science and technology in the face of severe budget pressures and changing national needs. Doing so means making choices, which means provoking disagreements. That has certainly been the case with this report, and, as commented on in recent testimony prepared for the House Science Committee, the debate has been lively, and much of it useful.

In the interest of furthering the debate, below are responses to the two objections raised by Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley to recommendations in our report in their written statement to the House Science Committee. First, Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley:

"strongly disagree with Recommendation 7 that '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.' We believe that this recommendation is based on the specious assumptions that universities and national laboratories have similar capabilities and address similar problems. In truth, the two sets of institutions are complementary. Universities unquestionably perform excellent research as they carry out their education and training missions, but they are ill equipped to pursue large, complex projects for which the national laboratories, with their many outstanding and costly users facilities, are ideally suited. Rather than pitting universities against national laboratories, as Recommendation 7 would imply, we believe that the federal government should reinforce cooperation between the two sets of institutions."

The report specifically states that there are superb federal laboratories that should not be weakened. The committee never argued that "universities and national laboratories have similar capabilities and address similar problems." Certainly, a committee with members who have worked at and with national laboratories, closely examined them, or served on their advisory panels would not make such a naive assumption. In fact, the report specifically states in Recommendation 6, which Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley do endorse, that:

Compared with extramural programs supporting academic [emphasis added] and industrial research and development projects, federal laboratories offer distinctive features: relatively long-term and stable funding of research programs; availability of unique facilities; full-time research opportunities without other distractions for staff scientists and engineers; closer links to the missions of their agencies; the ability to sustain programs for longer periods than those specified in the terms of a typical grant; and a capacity for rapid response to emergencies and sudden opportunities. Many federal laboratories serve functions that, although they may not be at the frontiers of creating new knowledge, are nonetheless essential to science and technology, such as providing precise measurements and specification of standards, or fulfilling specific program needs in health, defense, agriculture, the environment, forestry, and other areas.

This certainly recognizes the complementary role of federal laboratories, and is hardly "pitting universities against national laboratories." Rather, the report pits work at both types of institutions against a common measure: external merit review. Recommendation 7 also points out that university research is not always of higher quality than that of federal laboratories, but it commends universities for combining training and research, a key factor in elevating American science and technology to a world leadership position. In any case, reading Recommendations 6 and 7 together seems to us to fairly represent the roles of the federal laboratories and universities. Where the nature or quality of the work dictates that federal laboratories are best suited to conduct it, there is no debate. When work might be undertaken by academic centers or federal laboratories, however, linkage to education and other factors make federal dollars go further in universities.

The second objection by Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley focuses on the committee's recommendation that "in the future, government support for basic and applied science and technology be presented, analyzed, and considered in terms of a Federal Science and Technology (FS&T) budget," rather than an R&D budget as is currently the case. They comment that:

We take strong issue with this proposal. While it may have intrinsic intellectual merit, it creates unwise, unnecessary, and potentially damaging restrictions on policy makers. As the needs of the nation change, it is essential that planners, administrators, and Congress have maximum flexibility in changing the mix of activities that constitute the federal R&D program. By creating the distinction of a science and technology (S&T) budget, the report's proposal would erect an artificial barrier between sets of activities that are closely related. It would also prevent the practical reallocation of resources from one set of activities to the other as defense and civilian requirements vary. We thus urge the retention and use of the now traditional R&D budget (currently totaling $73 billion) within which appropriate changes in emphasis between military and civilian programs can continue to be made.

Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley apparently consider the current R&D budget to be a policy tool in which rational analyses and trade-offs are made among categories. The committee discussed this issue thoroughly and concluded that the current R&D budget does not work that way. In fact, the committee clearly stated (on page 8 of its report) that "the research and development budget is never considered as an integrated whole during the development of the President's budget or given an overall review by the Congress." It is a derived number, a summation at the end of the budget process. Moreover, its contents are a jumble, containing many items, particularly in the defense and space parts, which are difficult to defend as research and development in any commonly understood sense. The view that the conventional $73 billion aggregation is essentially meaningless in making policy was expressed to the committee by many people--from the Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and agency officials. It jibes with the experience of the five members of the panel who served in the Executive Branch and the Congress. We concluded that, in the long run, a more coherent index which excludes items not intended to create new knowledge and new technology would be more useful in making policy decisions than the current R&D figure.

We also do not believe that defining a budget for federal investments in fundamental science and technology in any way lessens the opportunities to shift funds from one category to another within the total federal budget. Simply because the committee saw the 6.1 to 6.3 categories as part of the federal science and technology base does not deny shifting funds from 6.4 to 6.7, or from any other budget category, to support fundamental science and technology R&D. The reality is that science and technology funding competes not against the total R&D budget, but rather primarily against funds for activities outside research; for example, defense S&T competes against procurement of weapons systems as well as salaries and housing for the armed forces; NOAA must compete against funding of the FBI; NSF against HUD and the VA; and so on.

Finally, where there is shifting of funds within the total conventional R&D budget, it mostly differs from that portrayed in their objection. With some exceptions, where there have been outright transfers, the movement, from what we have been able to determine, is mostly from the DOD science and technology base (i.e., 6.1 - 6.2) to the higher categories. One senior DOD official commented to us that "it is all one way; " that is, from long-term investments in the S&T base to shorter-term, politically more urgent categories related to the development of weapons systems. Drs. Schrieffer and Bromley prefer to hope (as we do) that the opposite is possible, but neither history nor data are comforting. For example, the defense S&T base declined as a proportion of the total defense RDT&E budget in most of the last 20 years, from 17.1 percent in 1973 to 11.8 percent in 1994. The only year in which there was a significant exception to this trend was a 2.1 percentage increase in 1991.

Representative Vern Ehlers, a newly elected member of Congress and a member of the APS, worried at the February 28th hearing of the House Science Committee that the FS&T budget would become a political target and commented about the report: "It's very logical and rational, but I have to worry about its political ramifications. " We are heartened by the former part of his statement and anticipated the latter in the preface of our report where we wrote: "Some will think us politically unwise that we recommend a process and guidelines for identifying activities that can be reduced or eliminated and for reallocating the savings to ones more essential to preserving U.S. leadership in science and technology. We have been told that... the cuts will be made but not reallocated to federal science and technology. Perhaps. But we see no alternative."