Report: comprehensive budget for R&D needed

The president and Congress should base funding decisions for R&D projects on the United States' worldwide position in the area upon which each project focuses, according to a report released in November by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

The report, drawing heavily on the findings of a 1993 NAS report, said assessments of the US position in a given field of R&D should dictate whether its funding in that field should be increased or decreased.

It noted that decreasing budgets will force the government to cut funding in some areas while emphasizing others and recommended a funding methodology that would ensure US pre-eminence in selected fields. Funding in the remaining fields of research should be structured to keep the country poised to take advantage of important discoveries in those areas.

"Only in this way can the president and Congress determine the levels of investment for important, high-priority areas; make the trade-offs needed to free up funds for new initiatives; and incorporate the results of systemic program and agency evaluations," the report said.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last year asked NAS, NAE and the Institute of Medicine to report on the criteria that should be used to properly allocate funds to R&D activities. The resulting 97-page report, Allocation of Federal Funds for Science and Technology, noted that funding pressures are even greater now than when the committee requested the work.

The document called for some fundamental changes in R&D budgeting, beginning with a redefinition of the R&D budget itself. Traditionally, that budget is estimated at $70 billion annually. NAS/NAE found that almost half of that is spent on activities such as testing and evaluation at NASA and the departments of Defense and Energy.

It called on the president and Congress to redefine R&D as "those activities that produce or expand the use of new knowledge or enabling technologies." It estimated this at $35 billion to $40 billion a year.

The foremost recommendation of the report called on the president to present a comprehensive federal science and technology budget that would include areas of increased or reduced emphasis. Traditionally, R&D budgets are not presented as an integrated whole, making it difficult to cut funding because so much R&D work is interdependent, the report said.

It also criticized those who advocate distinctions between the concepts of basic and applied research. It said such distinctions are difficult to make and are rarely decisive in defining the federal role in R&D. It also disputed the notion of a national Department of Science because it would separate federal research from the departmental missions it would support.

In other recommendations, the report extolled the virtues of competitive merit review and research performed at universities; favored projects and people over institutions; urged international cooperation on large, expensive projects; advised keeping national labs focused on agency missions; and expressed skepticism about government involvement in commercial aspects of technology development.

Presidential Science Adviser John Gibbons said in a written statement that the report proposed fundamental changes that will be difficult to enact.

The report is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.nas.edu/nap/online. It may also be obtained from the National Academy Press at 2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20418; tel. 1-800-624-6242.