GOVERNMENT
NSF Director Neal Lane Faces Challenges on Homefront, in Congress • His job is to heal NSF's perceived identity crisis and low morale as Congress demands more strategic research Wil Lepkowski, C&EN Washington an a mild-mannered physicist from a Texas college known for its strong academics and weak Division 1 football teams cure a government science agency of the worst identity crisis in its history? The physicist is Neal F. Lane, 55, who up to a few weeks ago was provost at Rice University in Houston; the agency is the National Science Foundation (NSF), which he now directs. NSF is chief bearer of the country's research torch. But it has been reeling over the past few months due to lack of leadership at the top and a Congress telling NSF to prove its strategic worth to the American people. Many NSF officials say the agency really ought not to be experiencing an identity crisis, that it should be crowing not quaking. Any glance at its programmatic repertoire shows exciting and dynamic projects and programs: atmospheric and geophysical research on environmental change; manufacturing and materials sciences work that promises to transform industry; biotechnology research that has obvious, if controversial, medical and agricultural fruits; an engineering research program that in its diversity, imagination, and philosophy leaves in the dust even Japan; a behavioral science research plan, however downplayed, that seeks answers to the major problems society faces. To name just a few. Moreover, Congress just gave NSF a hefty 11% raise in its fiscal 1994 budget, bringing its total budget to $3.2 billion. Fiscally speaking, then, NSF is as healthy
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as any government agency. So if any unit of government should be strutting its stuff, it should be NSF, rangemaster of that endless frontier called research. Yet it isn't. NSF is troubled and confused. "We need someone to come in and define us," says one veteran staffer. So an important part of Lane's job is to restore the neurotic patient's selfesteem and give it a sense of purpose in life. Lane, gracious and smiling, met with members of Washington's technical press early this month. It was clear from his answers to questions about the kind of research NSF does that he is still in the process of learning Washington's ropes with its mine-strewn R&D lingo. As with all previous NSF directors, Lane extolled the importance of basic, undirected research to technology and the economy. He pointed to the importance of such "strategically aimed" but nevertheless basic research as the laser, which led to practical developments ranging from compact discs to optical surgery techniques. But he labored over the problem of reconciling NSF's basic research mission with the Administration's strategic aims.
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Lane: all research is curiosity-driven Lane's agenda is to show Congress that NSF can make a difference in the social and economic fabric of the country and not just appear as a feeding trough for curiosity-driven individual investigators. Congress wants NSF's academic grantees' research to relate more to life on the street. And it wants NSF to draw a map of how NSF plans to move
NSF must rethink its mission The Senate Appropriations Committee has detailed a number of tasks for the National Science Foundation that must be completed in time for its fiscal 1995 budget submission to Congress. • Develop a new strategic plan. • Set performance milestones for each NSF program that is part of a major interagency initiative. • Develop a plan for spending not less than 60% of its research activities budget on strategic research, one that does not shroud "curiosity-driven activities under the rubric of strategic activities."
• Set "a large proportion of the foundation's budget" for academic infrastructure. • Develop new initiatives with state-based science and technology programs. • Find new ways for the private sector to help support NSF-funded basic research centers. • Assess whether the National Science Board has lost touch with the changing world scene. • Provide a detailed description of the working relationships between NSF and other agencies that are R&D intensive. NOVEMBER 29,1993 C&EN 45
GOVERNMENT in those ways. By the end of January, Congress expects to have in hand from NSF a strategic plan. If it doesn't, or if the plan is not convincing, says Congress, it may just give NSF's money to other agencies. The directive actually came from Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D.-Md.), a socially minded, up-from-the-streets Baltimore politician who is chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee (VA, HUD & Independent Agencies) that determines NSF's budget. In her committee's report, largely written by committee aide Kevin F. Kelly, Mikulski was surprisingly harsh on NSF (C&EN, Sept. 20, page 7). She reminded NSF that she had already expressed her discontent a year before. And because, to her mind, NSF had paid too little heed, she was really upset this time. Her report said NSF and its grantees had to "focus more clearly on the transfer of knowledge and technology for broader national goals and objectives." She said it was time for NSF "to
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move beyond rhetorical statements" about the benefits of research and "identify that which is specific, immediate, and realizable in pursuit of this broader mission." She talked of NSF issuing "performance milestones" for every major research program. If NSF did not comply, she said, "future federal budgets should instead be allocated more generously to agencies such as the National Institute of Standards & Technology, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, the national energy labs, or the National Institutes of Health, all of whom seem poised to pursue critical technologies with entrepreneurial vigor and enthusiasm." The need to be more strategic comes not only from Congress but also from the Administration itself. Late in the summer, White House science adviser John H. Gibbons and Office of Management & Budget director Leon Panetta jointly issued a memo that tried to incorporate the Administration's research programs with its overall technology
goals. The memo proposed to eliminate for budgetary purposes the broad categories of basic research, applied research, development, and facilities because they were more and more becoming "artificial distinctions" and were "not particularly helpful in policy and budget decision making." The new categories proposed are manufacturing, communications and information, natural resources and the environment, education and training, transportation, national security, energy supply and demand, food and fiber production, health, and other R&D. So the foundation has to factor in those categories as it rethinks its packaging. Lane knows his task of conferring on NSF a strategic character is a delicate one. He knows the research community storms and fusses when told what to do. He also wants to protect the independent spirit of academic research. Yet he knows, too, that the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy is all too ready to spot signs of ingratitude among scientists who at
one level of reality are taking government welfare checks for doing exactly what they most enjoy. He is hoping academia can come to enjoy the new reality. Some on Lane's staff maintain that the changes he needs to make, while not cosmetic, are actually "marginal/' Change a few words here and there in program descriptions, establish some creative public relations approaches, explain how most NSF-supported research actually does relate to real problems, and the job will get done. Maybe so. Much of the NSF staff is working hard to prepare an acceptable package of that sort to be presented to Mikulski in January. Lane succeeds fellow physicist Walter E. Massey, who departed earlier this year after less than two years as NSF's director. Massey made some encouraging starts at moving NSF in the direction of social and economic relevance. But, confoundingly, he left the foundation's morale in tatters. Many staffers complained that Massey's of-
fice was walled off to them and that he was seldom around to hear them anyway. And those who cynically believed Massey took the job as director to pave the way to a prestigious academic job felt smugly confirmed when he left to become vice president of the University of California, the country's biggest state university system. However, Massey did create a special commission that worked to define NSF's strategic role in a changing world. In language many saw as ambivalent, the commission said NSF should move ahead strategically, but carefully. Most policy observers in Washington believed the commission could have sounded a bit more excited than diffident about NSF's practical potential. Mikulski, however, thought it sounded strong enough for her tastes. "Walter [Massey] lost the [academic research] community," comments one of NSF's current strategists. "He never had the opportunity to bring it along. Lane may not only be more coachable than
Massey, but also perceptive enough so that the community may actually come in and help him make these changes." The staffer points to a recent survey done by the American Association for the Advancement of Science showing that more than half of the academic research community is willing to do more to relate their work to society's needs. In his press briefing, Lane had the chance to practice the kind of arguments he will have to make before Congress early next year. His line of thought went like this: "I think that we cannot afford, as a nation, to weaken in any way our ability to carry out these pioneering studies. If we don't do them, it will impact negatively the future of all our lives. And if the discoveries aren't made here, then we will miss the short-term benefits, the most important being the educated people who come out of the universities where these research activities are going on." But he then drew a semantic maze around himself by declaring "everything we do in the NSF is basic re-
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GOVERNMENT search." Seemingly unmindful of the semantic trap set by his newly broadened definition of basic research, Lane went on to say that strategic research was not so far different from curiositydriven research. It is, he said, academia's traditional approach to targeted research. They could be seen as one and the same. "I believe," he continued, "that all research that's worth its salt and that attracts the brightest and best people is, in a very real sense, curiosity-driven, whether or not there's a strategy. If you've got the best scientists in the world working on, let's say, condensed matter to understand semiconducting materials better, that's strategic. Because just having said that word, semiconducting materials, anything you learn thaf s fundamental about semiconductors is of strategic importance. Because it could well lead to a device that we don't know about." Those in the room familiar with the literal mind-set of appropriations committees winced a bit at the thrusts and turnabouts in Lane's elaboration. But in later remarks, he did seem to appreciate the delicate balance he would need to shift attitudes in academia and to show Mikulski NSF was serious. "There's already been a lot of change in the community of scientists and engineers," he said. "I was here about 12 years ago [as head of NSF's physics division] and see quite substantial changes in the kinds of things that we support, the modes of things we support, the degree of interaction with industry, the degree of interaction with state governments in education and human resources. "Can we do more? Perhaps we can. But we must look at it very carefully and be sure that if we continue to move in that direction it is consistent with our fundamental mission, which is to look after the progress of science and engineering in this country." Lane went on to say that it was important that the curiosity-driven spirit of research be preserved within a political system. Researchers, he said, "all recognize that the reason the public is investing the money and supporting them is because of the expectation that out of their discoveries will come things that are good for society and that, therefore, there will need to be some decisions made on the front end. It's a strategic decision; it's a po48 NOVEMBER 29,1993 C&EN
litical decision. It wasn't made by scientists saying how much money do I want." What can be said is that the foundation's future, as far as the Clinton Administration is concerned, is secure. It is indeed an Administration whose centerpiece is technology policy. But it is also an Administration that, in the words of White House science adviser Gibbons, needs to "draw a protective line" around basic research, which means the encirclement of NSF as the country's basic research agency. "People will have to get used to the notion of redistributing available resources instead of adding more money to do new things," says Charles Brownstein, director of NSF's office of planning and assessment. "There will be little new money. It isn't a question, though, of having to do more with less but of doing other things with the same amount of money. It's not just accountability, but knowing you're doing interesting things and making a good case for what you did with your money." Lane's job will be a tough one, and he knows it. He knows NSF has acquired an image of instability and loss of direction over the past several months. And he thinks he understands why that happened: "The foundation has been looking hard at its role in a rapidly changing world. When we start looking at ourselves in any kind of way that reaches out to the larger community that makes it an inclusive activity, the exercise itself sends out mixed signals. As some of my colleagues might say, 'Why are they asking us? Don't they know what they're doing?' "So I think it's just inevitable that if you try to include your larger community in that dialogue, it's going to come across as making people think you don't quite know what your direction is." Lane's challenge is to draw more rhetorical connections, and add a dash of soul, between academic and industrial labs and the rest of society. He will also need to think a little more deeply about research and push for relevance. At one time in the early 1970s, the foundation was trying to get many of its grantees to think in such broad ways in a program that tried to relate research to national needs. Over time, the social relevance theme faded away. Now it is back in a new, more mature fashion, and it is up to Lane to light a new torch. •
Federal Alertnew regulations This listing highlights new regulations published in the Federal Register from Aug. 2 to Oct. 8. Complete information can be found on the pages listed for the particular issue. • FINAL Energy Department. Issues procedural rules on safety and liability for all contractors and subcontractors operating DOE nuclear facilities; effective Sept 16 (Aug. 17, page 43680). Environmental Protection Agency. Approves two new capillary column methods for analyzing total trihalomethanes in drinking water; effective Sept 2 (Aug. 3, page 41344). Rules that fly ash, bottom ash, boiler slag, and fuel gas emission control wastes from electric power plants are not to be regulated as hazardous waste under Resource Conservation & Recovery Act; effective Sept. 2 (Aug. 9, page 42466). Halts request for reporting all health and safety data on 92 substances and mixtures listed under Toxic Substances Control Act; effective Nov. 9 (Aug. 11, page 42675). Establishes standards of performance for reduction of volatile organic emissions from new synthetic organic chemical manufacturing plants; effective Aug. 31 (Aug. 31, page 45948). Limits discharges of organic pollutants from pesticide manufacturing plants into U.S. waters; effective Oct. 28 (Sept. 28, page 50638). Food & Drug Administration. Revises certain labeling provisions for drug products; effective Aug. 3 (Aug. 3, page 41348). Requires manufacturers to file abbreviated new drug and antibiotic application and certain other information when submitting standard application; effective Oct. 8 (Sept. 8, page 47340). • NOTICES Energy Department. Issues environmental impact assessment for construction of asymmetric electron positron collider to produce B mesons with finding of no significant impact (Sept. 20, page 48874). Environmental Protection AgenCloses federal program for disposal of pesticides containing 2,4,5-T and Silvex, requiring any remaining stocks to be destroyed independently (Sept 22, page 49301).
