IS g o v e r n m e n t
NSF Aims For Relevant Research News Analysis
populations. With affirmative action programs currently under constitutional atlmost two months ago, the Nation- tack, NSF is faced with having to support al Science Foundation proposed a careers of women and minorities more inchange in the criteria it uses to as- directly, by specifying diversity as a factor sess the quality of research grant applica- in research proposals. Another reason is a tions, reducing from four to two the num- new law that directs agencies to spell out ber of criteria researchers are required to how their programs are paying off in meet if they hope NSF will fund their re- terms of social and economic benefits. search (C&EN, Dec. 9, 1996, page 9). The NSF Director Neal F. Lane is taking scientific community has until the end of pains to tell the research community that January to comment on the new scheme. the agency is merely tidying up its proceThen the National Science Board (NSB) dures and that the changes really are not Bordogna: torquing the system will make any modifications it believes are all that dramatic. He says they reflect the needed and give the revised criteria final content of NSF's strategic plan, which The task force—whose chairman is Warsanction by June. speaks of NSF-supported research needing ren M. Washington of the Center for AtThe first criterion involves the usual ev- to be weighed on "technical merit, cre- mospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.— idence that the proposed research project ativity, educational impact, and the poten- is jointly run by the foundation and NSB. is important and the researcher is compe- tial benefits to society." Others, lower As of Jan. 3, more than a month after the tent. The second pertains to the wider im- down at NSF and who do not want to be announcement, NSF had received only pact of the work. Broader relevance isn't a quoted, say the changes, if enforced, could 150 e-mail responses. Five could be charnew criterion at NSF by any means, but transform the way the research communi- acterized as "extremely defensive," says the task force's executive officer, Paul the agency wants the research community ty thinks about what it does. to know that that aspect will be given How, for example, would a combina- Herer. The rest, he says, were moderate, more weight when peer review panels torial chemistry project advance the edu- even cooperative, in tone. Shirley M. Malcom, head of the Educameet and program officers decide on who cation of graduate students? How might gets supported. The long-used criteria it raise production efficiency or other- tion & Human Resources Directorate at have numbered four—researcher compe- wise transform chemical technology or the American Association for the Adtence, intrinsic merit, societal impact, and biomedicine? Could aspiring grantees vancement of Science and a member of effect on the engineering and scientific in- help a high school student become inter- the task force, says the time has come to frastructure. The third was usually ig- ested in science as a career through vis- put new stress on wider impact. "We nored. It cannot be any more, and that its to schools to talk about their work? want to remind everyone, first of all, that could be distressing to those basic re- Proposals for institutional funding, such nothing is going to be supported without searchers who have never really given the as NSF-supported engineering research scientific merit." But, she adds, researchsocietal impact of their work any thought centers, already must meet such criteria. ers will have to take more time to "make at all. "We want all researchers to be sensi- connections to further concepts and othIs the emphasis on broader impact nec- tive to the issues of life concerning the na- er bodies of work." NSF hasn't spelled out how its proessary and is it revolutionary? It is neces- tion," says NSF Deputy Director Joseph sary because NSF is always looking over its Bordogna. "We're torquing the system a gram managers will evaluate relevancy. shoulder at a critical Congress that wants bit to ensure that we can learn something Bordogna concedes that the two criteria evidence of payoff for the money the gov- about how researchers feel about the im- could be expanded to three, to reflect ernment spends. The question of whether pact of their work." He says NSF could use the equal importance of researcher comthe change is revolutionary has both a yes the help of its awardees when it goes be- petence and a proposal's technical merit. and no answer. It is revolutionary to those fore Congress to justify its budget. NSF What the officials do not want to do is researchers who never thought they had staff would prefer that the relationship of water down in any way the creative, into address the broader impact of their re- research to the rest of society come at novative aspects of the research NSF supsearch, but not so to NSF officials who say least as much out of the minds of research- ports. Indeed, that sort of debate is taking place at the National Institutes of NSF has always had to show it was rele- ers as from their own heads. vant to national purpose. NSF is hoping to get most of the re- Health, which has a similar two-tier proBut the reasons behind the proposed search community's feedback on the cess. NIH does have it politically easier changes go a bit deeper and do reflect proposed criteria changes via the World than NSF, however, because its entire complexities within the research system. Wide Web. The changes are laid out on context is human health, which the pubOne motivation is that NSF wants to make NSF's home page (http://www.nsf.gov), lic can easily identify with. NSF's portfosure universities keep moving toward which also contains quick e-mail access lio of connections is much broader. Wil Lepkowski more diversity in their faculty and student to the agency's Merit Review Task Force.
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JANUARY 13, 1997 C&EN 17
