EDITORIAL
Science Officers Saluted The progress of chemical science is commonly ascribed to the contributions of research scholars in industrial, academic, and government laboratories. Their observations of new forms of measurements, refining of known ones, applications to significant problems of analysis, and uncovering of new phenomena represent the stuff of the chemical future. Playing a crucial supporting role with the research scholars are two other communities of chemists, without whom the productivity of the U.S. research establishment would undoubtedly falter. One community is composed of the designers and innovators in chemical instrument technology who provide researchers with indispensable modern measurement tools. Their contributions were recognized in this column last fall. The second supporting community is the corps of administrators of financial resources in federal and state governments and in private institutions. They are charged with identifying, for the purpose of financial support, the chemical research directions and ideas whose exploration would best advance the needs of their respective institutions. They include program officers a t the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Departments of Energy and Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, private philanthropic foundations, and external supporting offices of the major chemical corporations, among others. These individuals have an important and sweeping responsibility for-and impact on-the intellectual growth of chemical science. They participate in decisions about which basic direction should be followed, which analytical applications need exploration to address society's needs, and which chemical businesses deserve venture capital to support plans for product or service development. The science fund-
ing officers in this country deserve our, and the general public's, respect, admiration, and thanks for the quality of their work. Science funding officers do not make decisions in a technical vacuum. A vast army of chemists from the research scholar community serve on a volunteer basis as advisers, reviewers, and critics in aid of the funding officers. In this way many of our readers have participated in deciding the future directions of chemical science. Your opinions play an enormously important role in identifying to the funding officer, the significant available opportunities for research. Ultimate decisions, however, rest with the science funding officer whose competence, sound judgment, discerning evaluation of opinions, and dedication to chemistry ensure the support for future chemical research. I have met many impressive people among the administrators of financial resources. I would like to point to one member of this community that I especially admire and respect: Arthur F. Findeis of the National Science Foundation. Fred, as he is known, earned his research scholar spurs in analytical chemistry at the University of Alabama before moving to the NSF as program officer for chemical instrumentation and analysis. His good judgment about the important directions in basic analytical science is widely recognized and respected. An especially important contribution has been his effective argument for the need to broaden the scope of support of analytical chemistry as an intellectual discipline. Findeis is a federal science funding officer with the spirit of a research scholar. On behalf of the analytical chemistry community, I salute him and all his comrades.
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 64, NO. 11, JUNE 1, 1992
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