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Workshop
on the Changing Climate for Research Funding in Washington
Big 10 Headquarters
March 15, 1996
The workshop attracted 21 participants from 10 research
universities in the upper Midwest . They ranged from Assistant
Professors to Associate Deans for Research. The agenda sent out
ahead of time is attached. Four breakout groups worked from about
11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (with a break for lunch). Each addressed independently
the issues raised in the position paper and in Dr. Clutter's description
of the current and projected budgets for research support at the
Federal level. Not surprisingly, attention focused on the role
of the NSF and specifically the Biology Directorate.
The Breakout Groups Raised The Following Issues:
- The University has to change its definition of professor to
include the totality of teaching, research, and service. Front-line
researchers should be engaged in undergraduate teaching. NSF
should change its policies to support this new culture, encouraging
individual investigators to become "the total professor",
involved in the education of students, generation of new knowledge
through research, and service to the university and the community.
NSF should avoid further balkanization of its funds through new
programs, but it should redefine scientific excellence for its
review panels to include both teaching excellence at the undergraduate
and graduate levels and involvement of undergraduates in the
research project. Programs should ask for evidence of such excellence
in all grant proposals;
- A corollary of this is that the criteria
for grant evaluation should be as explicit as possible and
that program officers should relate to individual investigators
as clearly as possible the role of each of the individual criteria
in the decision to fund or not to fund the grant. The panels
should also be given this information as a follow-up at the
next panel meeting;
- NSF should support individual vs. "big" science
(several groups emphasized this point) and this could include
a cap on total research funding in a given laboratory;
- Cooperative
programs of internships for graduate students in industry and
in undergraduate institutions would broaden career opportunities
for graduate students. Matching grants for such internships
were suggested. NSF should consider supplements to existing grants
to facilitate outreach;
- Efforts should be made at the university
level to identify new sources of outside matching funds (from
state or industrial sources) for NSF grants. This should not
be the responsibility of the PI;
- NSF should help educate scientists
and administrators to communicate better to the public the
value of science. This might include workshops on how to get
this across to community leaders and the public in general;
- NSF
should facilitate the formation of alliances with foreign scientists;
- Smaller grants spread over a larger number of investigators
are not a good idea. Grants should be of an appropriate size;
- Keeping young investigators funded should remain a very high
priority;
- Guidelines for proposals for RTGs and post-doctoral
fellowships should encourage study of disciplines not traditionally
associated with biology, this would allow the trainees to think
about non-traditional career paths;
- Several groups discussed
the need to limit the number of research universities, but
none could think of a role for NSF to play in this downsizing;
- Lengthening the term of the awards was discussed, but the consequences
(fewer new grants) made this less popular;
- The participants
noted the lack of a unified voice to speak for biology at the
National level. (Comparison was made to the American Chemical
Society. ) Biology has many different voices, each with its
own agenda. Much would be gained if these voices could be unified;
- The workshop closed on the note that we in the universities
are all involved in the entire continuum of education, from K
to returning students. It is our responsibility to educate our
society about biology, and we all suffer if we neglect any part
of this.
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