Executive Summary

Over the years NSF's investments in research and education have helped the Nation achieve an unmatched capability in scientific and technical fields - a capabilitythat has taken on increasing importance as we approach the 21st century.

Today, NSF's role as a leader and steward of the Nation's science and engineering enterprise faces new tests - promoting new approaches to research, education, and workforce training that reach all Americans; responding to the increased importance of science and engineering in many aspects of daily life; modernizing the Nation's research infrastructure, and adapting to a constrained budget environment.

This plan underscores the advantages that result from advances in understanding, and it emphasizes the principles that have guided the Foundation from its beginning - excellence, openness, stewardship, and impact on society. It provides a framework for moving forward in a changing environment that is grounded in the enduring values that guide NSF's mission, and it encourages flexibility in the methods used to promote the progress of science and its benefits to society.

The NSF mission, as established by Congress, is to promote the progress of science and engineering. In today's environment, fulfilling this mission requires that NSF continue to advance the discovery of new knowledge and exercise greater leadership in mathematics, science, and engineering education while taking steps to promote the dissemination, integration, and application of new knowledge.

The purpose of this plan is to delineate NSF's unique contributions to science and engineering research and education and to the Federal research portfolio. The plan provides a context for shaping NSF's future by noting how recent domestic and global changes have affected our national research and education priorities. Within this context, the plan sets forth NSF's mission, its vision, and the following long-range goals:

• Enable the U.S. to uphold a position of world leadership in all aspects of science, mathematics and engineering. This goal grows from the conviction that a position of world leadership in science, mathematics, and engineering provides the Nation with the broadest range of options in determining the course of our economic future and our national security.
• Promote the discovery, integration dissemination, and employment of new knowledge in service to society. This goal emphasizes the connection between world leadership in science and engineering on the one hand, and contributions in the national interest on the other. It provides the impetus for setting fundamental research priorities in areas that reflect national concerns.
• Achieve excellence in U.S. science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education at all levels. This goal is worthy in its own right, and also recognizes that the first two goals can be met only by providing educational excellence. It requires attention to needs at every level of schooling and access to science, mathematics, engineering, and technology educational opportunities for every member of society.

• Develop intellectual capital: Seek out and support excellent activities among groups and regions that traditionally have not participated as full stake holdersin science, mathematics, and engineering, including women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities.
• Strengthen the physical infrastructure: Modernize existing facilities and instruments and plan for future needs, including taking full advantage of the capabilities of emerging information technologies.
• Integrate research and education: Infuse education with the joy of discovery and an awareness of its connections to exploration through directed inquiry, careful observation, and analytic thinking for students at all levels.
• Promote partnerships: Continue to collaborate with the academic community, industry, elementary and secondary schools, other Federal agencies, state and local governments, and comparable organizations worldwide. NSF's approach to partnerships emphasizes shared investments, shared risks, and shared benefits.

* Science in the National Interest, Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, August 1994.