SCIENCE'S SURVIVAL STRATEGYResearchers are learning how to live in a new budgetary environment "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," advised Harry S Truman. Many scientists might now be pondering the advantages of canine company. After decades of growth, federal research spending has leveled off and is starting to decline, a casualty of budget-balancing efforts and the end of the cold war. The Clinton administration's request for spending on science and technology next year is 3.4 percent less than in 1994 after adjusting for inflation, according to the National Academy of Sciences. And because the ax has not fallen evenly on all subjects, some fields, such as high-energy physics, have taken much larger hits. Other areas, notably biomedicine, have continued to grow. Now the sea change has begun to affect the culture of science. Empty laboratories are still unlikely in top-flight research institutions. But many universities now lack the flexible funds that they have traditionally used to help young scientists start their careers, says Cornelius J. Pings, president of the Association of American Universities. Pings notes that industry-sponsored research at universities (including foreign industry) has increased in recent years, partly compensating for the federal shortfall. Last year a survey of 121 member companies of the Industrial Research Institute found that those firms planned to increase their research budgets by 5.6 percent in 1997. But the proprietary restrictions on corporate research can threaten academic freedom, Pings fears. "The other adaptation is to do less research--there's no escaping that," he states. John H. ("Jack") Gibbons, the president's science adviser and head of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), maintains that overall the Clinton administration "has tried to protect" research with "essentially level purchasing power" in the face of the overarching need to balance the federal budget. Yet Gibbons acknowledges that over the past five years "we've gotten rid of most of the fat, and we're into the meat and bones." The budget agreed on by Congress and the White House this past May means that deeper slicing might happen over the next five years, considering the growth in such politically sacred entitlement programs as Medicare. The budget resolution, by limiting nonmandatory "discretionary" spending, could force "cuts significantly greater than the 14 percent cut to federal R&D by 2002 projected from the president's latest budget," according to Kei Koizumi of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Cuts on that scale might never materialize, of course. Like previous budget resolutions, the latest one defers most of the monetary squeeze until its last few years, after 2000, and targets may change before then. Still, professional scientific organizations, opposing the threatened reductions, point out that the U.S.'s economic competitors in Asia are convinced of science's rewards and are increasing their research. The U.S. budgetary gloom has prompted scientific organizations to urge supporters to speak out more for their profession. The American Institute of Physics, for instance, informs interested readers by e-mail how they can most effectively convey their views to congressional representatives. And Neal Lane, director of the federal National Science Foundation, which supports $1.8 billion in nonmedical basic research, has urged researchers to become "civic scientists" who promote their endeavors in public. Other science leaders have gone even further. One is Bruce M. Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences. Alberts says scientists "have to think more broadly about what they respect" and bemoans "intellectual snobbery" that values only work that probes the deepest mysteries. Alberts maintains that "the future stability of the world" could depend on whether researchers can, for instance, provide the world's poor with rewarding ways to live that do not entail moving to overcrowded cities. The budget squeeze is pushing science-funding agencies toward undue scientific conservatism, he believes. As a result, they neglect important cross-disciplinary studies that could yield important progress: Alberts sees neglected opportunities in human tissue engineering, to cite just one area that might be considered risky. He believes funding decisions should follow from high-level "thoughtful leadership" and then peer review of research proposals by scientists. In response to political pressure to justify research expenditures, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have recently revised the criteria they use for awarding grants. Both have clarified the value they attach to innovative work that is likely to have consequences beyond its immediate discipline. Although the changes may not mean agencies will immediately start supporting new areas of research, Alberts says the revised criteria "send young scientists the right signal." Another prominent science leader who has designs on policy is Richard N. Zare, a chemist at Stanford University. Zare, the current head of the National Science Board, has served notice that he intends to be an activist. The board has traditionally concentrated on overseeing the National Science Foundation, but Zare notes that its mandate allows it to consider research more broadly. "In constrained budgets, you face even more the need of making smart, long-range plans," Zare declares. "Everything you start is because you stop something else." Zare is now consulting with scientific leaders to see whether they might expand the use of priority-setting methods to steer money toward the most promising science. The idea has been floated in various reports over the years, but researchers have so far been unable to agree on a formula. "We keep talking about setting priorities, but we never do it in a satisfactory fashion," Zare says. A principal obstacle to science planning, almost everyone agrees, is that budgets for different scientific agencies are distributed piecemeal among congressional committees. As a result, the administration has to contend with fragmented political battles. Gibbons maintains that the OSTP has had a substantial effect on the administration's science planning. Yet one influential new figure in research policy is not impressed: Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., of Wisconsin, who since January has been chairman of the House Science Committee. Sensenbrenner, whose committee has jurisdiction over the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, is attempting to strengthen science and save money by extending peer review. The OSTP is "not doing its job," Sensenbrenner asserts. He blames the failure on Vice President Al Gore's interventions in support of specific areas of technology for priority development. Federal funds should not support near-term development, Sensenbrenner believes. In the last Congress, bitter battles were fought over the administration's backing of the $225 million Advanced Technology Program, which Republicans dubbed corporate welfare and tried to abolish. Sensenbrenner seems to hew to a new consensus that federal support for technological research--as opposed to pure science--is justifiable, but only for long-term work and only if "we do not have government dollars replacing corporate dollars." The House has accordingly passed legislation that would reduce the Advanced Technology Program's proposed budget by almost 50 percent. Sensenbrenner has also moved swiftly to extend competitive scientific review in some administration-backed energy technology programs. At the same time, he is demanding clear explanations from administrators: they must provide "plain English" accounts of how they evaluate research programs. "Agency heads who drag their feet will be sweating in front of my committee," Sensenbrenner warns. Already hurting from budget blows, science soon may be learning that money talks. --Tim Beardsley in Washington, D.C. |