INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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Sponsors Turn the Screw Last year
clouds have been gathering for several years. Storm thunder rumbled in the distance, Last spring a few flashes of lightning could be seen. And in the past 60 days, the storm has burst upon us in a powerful display, revealing our scientific limitations. This metaphorical passage refers to basic slashes in Federal funding of research and development. I n late summer, the National Science Foundation issued its dicta-deep cuts in spending in the current fiscal year on authorized Foundation grants, ranging up to 30% in some cases. Not all academic institutions have felt the ax to the same extent. Most of the burden, as one might expect, has fallen on those receiving the largest slices of the Federal R&D pie. And the NSF is not the only funding agency so devastated by Congress ; the whole Federal science establishment has been cut, and the mood of the nation is almost anti-technological. Such a turnaround-from fair-haired boy to out-of-favor stepchild in just a couple of short years-always causes soul-searching. So it is with ourselves, and, as usual, accompanied by lots of “I told you so’’ and lots of calls for political action at the highest levels to reverse the trend and return to the halcyon days. But those days have gone forever. The trend from unquestioning acceptance of the value of science and technology to demands for results from investments therein has been evident for a decade. Industry displayed it first, as ably recorded by Dave Kiefer in his perceptive C&EN article of March 23, 1964, “Winds of Change in Industrial Chemical Research.” Government circles have more recently recognized that their funding of research carried with it various social as well as political and military obligations. They have been learning to measure results from their investments, using cost-effectiveness as one measure, social or medical problems alleviated as another. Over-all, therefore, nonindustrial science and technology now find themselves in the position of having to produce results or risk losing financial support. Internal readjustments now must be made, with emphasis shifting away from the “pure,” undirected work toward work of equal scientific challenge on problems whose solution will affect the social needs our society identifies. I n this regard, Big Science begins to resemble industrial science in principle, being directed toward socially relevant matters as the latter is toward producing profit. The constructive response for the scientific community should therefore be to recognize the inevitability of this modification of its financial sponsorship and to accept it as in keeping with the historical traditions of science. Just as Kepler and Newton and the alchemists had their sponsors, who sought return in prestige, money, or power, so also is science today seeking to stabilize at a n equivalent relationship to its sponsors.
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