** Comments please send email to: nsb-inf@nsf.gov

NSB 02-190

Science and Engineering

Infrastructure For

the 21st Century

The Role of the

National Science Foundation

National Science Board
Draft: December 4, 2002

Contents

Foreword

NSB Membership

INF Membership

Preface

Acknowledgements

Executive Summary

I. Introduction

A. Background

B. The Charge to the Task Force

C. Strategy for Conducting the Study

II. The Larger Context for S&E Infrastructure

A. History and Current Status

B. The Importance of Partnerships

C. The Next Dimension

III. The Role of the National Science Foundation

A. Leadership Role

B. Priority Setting Process

C. Current Programs and Strategies

D. Future Needs and Opportunities

IV. Principal Findings and Recommendations

V. Conclusion

Glossary

Bibliography

Appendices

NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD MEMBERS

The National Science Board (NSB) consists of 24 members plus the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Appointed by the President, the Board serves as the policy-making body of NSF and provides advice to the President and the Congress on matters of national science and engineering policy. There are currently nine vacant positions on the Board.

Alphabetical List

Dr. rita r. colwell, (Chairman, Executive Committee), Director, National Science Foundation, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1205, Arlington, VA 22230

DR. NINA V. FEDOROFF, Willaman Professor of Life Sciences, Director Life Sciences Consortium, and Director, Biotechnology Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, 519 Wartik Building, University Park, PA 16802

DR. PAMELA A. FERGUSON, Professor and Former President, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA 50112-0810

DR. MARY K. GAILLARD**, Professor of Physics, Theory Group 50-A5101, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720

DR. M.R.C. GREENWOOD**, Chancellor, University of California, 296 McHenry Library, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

DR. STANLEY V. JASKOLSKI**, Vice President, Eaton Corp. (Retired) W278 N2725 Rocky Point Road, Pewaukee, WI 53072

DR. ANITA K. JONES, University Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia, Thornton Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22903

DR. GEORGE M. LANGFORD, Professor, Department of Biological Science 6044, Dartmouth College, 6044 Gilman Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755

DR. JANE LUBCHENCO, Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology and Distinguished Professor of Zoology, Oregon State University, 3029 Cordley Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331

DR. JOSEPH A. MILLER, JR., Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Corning, Inc., Science Center Drive, SP-FR-02, Corning, NY 14831

DR. DIANA S. NATALICIO, (Vice Chair) President, The University of Texas at El Paso, 500 West University, Administration Building, Room 500, El Paso, TX 79968-0500

DR. ROBERT C. RICHARDSON, Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, Clark Hall 529, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

DR. MICHAEL G. ROSSMANN, Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907

DR. MAXINE SAVITZ, General Manager, Technology Partnerships, Honeywell (Retired), Mail Code 1/5-1, 26000, 2525 West 190th Street, Torrance, CA 90504-6099

DR. LUIS SEQUEIRA, J.C. Walker Professor Emeritus, Departments of Bacteriology and Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706

DR. DANIEL SIMBERLOFF, Nancy Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37966

DR. BOB H. SUZUKI**, President, California State Polytechnic University, 3801 West Temple Avenue, Pomona, CA 91768

DR. RICHARD TAPIA**, Professor, Department of Computational & Applied Mathematics, MS 134, Rice University, 6100 South Main Street, Houston, TX 77005

DR. WARREN M. WASHINGTON, (Chair) Senior Scientist and Section Head, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), P.O. Box 3000, 1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO 80307-3000

DR. JOHN A. WHITE, JR., Chancellor, University of Arkansas, Administration Building 425, Maple Street, Fayetteville, AR 72701

DR. MARK S. WRIGHTON, Chancellor, Washington University, Saint Louis, MO 63130-4899

** Consultant

NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD

COMMITTEE ON PROGRAMS AND PLANS

TASK FORCE ON SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING INFRASTRUCTURE

John A. White, Jr., Chair

Anita K. Jones

Jane Lubchenco

Michael G. Rossmann

Robert C. Richardson

Mark S. Wrighton

Mary E. Clutter
Assistant Director, Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation

Warren M. Washington, Ex Officio

Chairman, National Science Board

Rita R. Colwell, Ex Officio

Director, National Science Foundation

Paul J. Herer, Executive Secretary

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report, based on a study conducted by the National Science Board (NSB), aims to inform the national dialogue on the current state and future direction of the science and engineering (S&E) infrastructure, highlighting the role of the National Science Foundation (NSF) as well as the larger resource and management strategies of interest to Federal policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches.

CONTEXT AND FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY

There can be no doubt that a modern and effective research infrastructure is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership in S&E. New tools have opened vast research frontiers and fueled technological innovation in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and communications. The degree to which infrastructure is regarded as central to experimental research is indicated by the number of Nobel Prizes awarded for the development of new instrument technology. During the past twenty years, eight Nobel prizes in physics were awarded for technologies such as the electron and scanning tunneling microscopes, laser and neutron spectrography, particle detectors, and the integrated circuit.

Recent concepts of infrastructure are expanding to include distributed systems of hardware, software, information bases, and automated aids for data analysis and interpretation. Enabled by information technology, a qualitatively different and new S&E infrastructure has evolved, delivering greater computational power, increased access, distribution and shared-use, and new research tools, such as data analysis and interpretation aids, web-accessible databases, archives, and collaboratories. Many viable research questions can be answered only through the use of new generations of these powerful tools.

Among Federal agencies, NSF is a leader in providing the academic community with access to forefront instrumentation and facilities. Much of this infrastructure is intended to address currently intractable research questions, the answers to which may transform current scientific thinking. In an era of fast-paced discovery, it is imperative that NSF’s infrastructure investments provide the maximum benefit to the entire S&E community. NSF must be prepared to assume a greater S&E infrastructure role for the benefit of the Nation.

STRATEGY FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE STUDY

The Board, through its Task Force on S&E Infrastructure (INF), engaged in a number of activities designed to assess the general state and direction of the academic research infrastructure, and illuminate the most promising future opportunities. These activities included reviewing the current literature, analyzing quantitative survey data, soliciting input from experts in the S&E community, discussing infrastructure topics with representatives from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other Federal agencies, and surveying NSF’s principal directorates and offices on S&E infrastructure needs and opportunities. A draft report is being released for public comment on the NSB/INF web site.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A number of themes emerged from the diverse input received. Foremost among them was that, over the past decade, the funding for academic research infrastructure has not kept pace with rapidly changing technology, expanding research opportunities, and increasing numbers of users.

Information technology has made many S&E tools more powerful, remotely usable, and connectable. The new tools being developed make researchers more effective – both more productive and able to do things they could not do in the past. An increasing number of researchers and educators, working as individuals and in groups, need to be connected to a sophisticated array of facilities, instruments, and databases. Hence, there is an urgent need to increase Federal investments aimed at providing access for scientists to the latest and best scientific- infrastructure as well as updating infrastructure currently in place. While a number of Federal Research and Development (R&D) agencies are addressing some of their most critical needs, the Federal government is not addressing the needs of the Nation’s science and engineering enterprise with the required scope and breadth.

To expand and strengthen the Foundation's infrastructure portfolio, the Board developed four recommendations. The Board will periodically assess NSF’s implementation of these recommendations,

Recommendation 1: Increase the share of the budget devoted to S&E infrastructure.

NSF’s future investment in S&E infrastructure should be increased in order to respond to the needs and opportunities identified in this report. It is hoped that the majority of these additional resources can be provided through future growth of the NSF budget. The more immediate needs must be at least partially addressed through increasing the share of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure. The current 22 percent of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure is too low and should be increased. In increasing the infrastructure share, the focus should be on providing individual investigators and groups of investigators with the resources they need to work at the frontiers of S&E.

Recommendation 2: Give special emphasis to the following activities, listed in order of priority:

§ Develop and deploy an advanced cyberinfrastructure to enable new S&E in the 21^st century.

This investment should address leading-edge computation as well as visualization facilities, data analysis and interpretation tool kits and workbenches, data archives and libraries, and networks of much greater power and in substantially greater quantity. Providing access to moderate-cost computation, storage, analysis, visualization and communication for every researcher will lead to an even more productive national research enterprise. This is an important undertaking for NSF and other Federal agencies because this new infrastructure will play a critical role in creating the research vistas of tomorrow.

§ Increase support for large facility projects.

Several large facility projects have been approved for funding by the NSB, but have not been funded. At present, an annual investment of at least $350 million is needed over several years just to address the backlog of facility projects construction. Postponing this investment now will not only increase the future cost of these projects but also result in the loss of U.S. leadership in key research fields.

§ Address the mid-size infrastructure funding gap.

A mid-size infrastructure funding gap exists. While there are programs for addressing "small" and "large" infrastructure needs, none exists for infrastructure projects costing between millions and tens of millions of dollars. NSF should increase the level of funding for mid-size infrastructure and develop new funding mechanisms, as appropriate, to support mid-size projects.

§ Increase research to advance instrument technology and build next-generation observational, communications, data analysis and interpretation, and other computational tools.

Instrumentation research is often difficult and risky, requiring the successful integration of theoretical knowledge, engineering and software design, and information technology. In contrast to most other infrastructure technologies, commercially available data analysis and data interpretation software typically lags well behind university developed software, which is often not funded or under-funded, limiting its use and accessibility. This research will accelerate the development of instrument technology to ensure that future research instruments and tools are as efficient and effective as possible.

Recommendation 3: Expand education and training opportunities at new and existing research facilities.

Investment in S&E infrastructure is critical to developing a 21^st century S&E workforce. Educating people to understand how S&E instruments and facilities work and how they uniquely contribute to knowledge in the targeted discipline is critical. Training and outreach activities should be a vital element of all major research facility programs. This outreach should span communities from existing researchers who may become new users, to undergraduate and graduate students who may design and use future instruments, to kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) children, who may become motivated to become scientists and engineers. There are also opportunities to expand public access to National S&E facilities though high-speed networks and special outreach activities.

Recommendation 4: Strengthen the infrastructure planning and budgeting process through the following actions:

§ Foster systematic assessments of U.S. academic research infrastructure needs for both disciplinary and cross-disciplinary fields of research. Re-assess current surveys of infrastructure needs to determine if they fully measure and are responsive to current requirements.

§ Develop specific criteria and indicators to assist in balancing infrastructure investments across S&E disciplines and fields and in establishing priorities.

§ Conduct an assessment to determine the most effective budget structure for supporting S&E infrastructure.

§ Develop budgets for infrastructure projects that include the total costs to be incurred over the entire life-cycle of the project, including research, planning, design, construction, commissioning, maintenance, operations, and, to the extent possible, research funding.

Because of the need for the Federal government to act holistically in addressing the requirements of the Nation’s science and engineering enterprise, the Board developed a fifth recommendation, aimed principally at OMB, OSTP and the National Science and Technology Council (NTSC).

Recommendation 5: Develop interagency plans and strategies to do the following:

§ Establish interagency infrastructure priorities that meet the needs of the S&E community and reflect competitive merit review as the best way to select S&E infrastructure projects.

§ Improve the recurrent funding of academic research so that, over time, institutions become capable of covering the full cost of the federally-funded research they perform, including sustainability of their research infrastructure.

§ Stimulate the development and deployment of new infrastructure technologies to foster a new decade of infrastructure innovation.

§ Develop the next generation of the high-end high performance computing and networking infrastructure needed to enable a broadly based S&E community to work at the research frontier.

§ Facilitate international partnerships to enable the mutual support and use of research facilities across national boundaries

§ Protect the Nation’s massive investment in S&E infrastructure against accidental or malicious attacks and misuse.

CONCLUSION

Rapidly changing infrastructure technology has simultaneously created a challenge and an opportunity for the U.S. S&E enterprise. The challenge is how to maintain and revitalize an academic research infrastructure that has eroded over many years due to obsolescence and chronic under-investment. The opportunity is to build a new infrastructure that will create future research frontiers and enable a much broader segment of the S&E community. The challenge and opportunity must be combined into a single strategy. As current infrastructure is replaced and upgraded, the next generation infrastructure must be created. The young people who are trained using state-of-the-art instruments and facilities are the ones who will demand and create the new tools, and make the breakthroughs that will extend the science and technology envelope. Training these young people will ensure that the U.S. maintains international leadership in the key scientific and engineering fields that are vital for a strong economy, social order and national security.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Background

Since the beginning of civilization, the tools humans invented and used have enabled them to pursue and realize their dreams. So it is with science and engineering (S&E). New tools have opened vast research and education vistas and enabled scientists and engineers to explore new regimes of time and space. Advanced techniques in areas such as microscopy, spectroscopy, and laser technology have made it possible to image and manipulate individual atoms and fabricate new materials. Advances in radio astronomy and instrumentation at the South Pole have allowed scientists to probe the furthest reaches of time and space and unlock secrets of the universe. Communications and computational technologies, such as interoperable databases and informatics, are revolutionizing such fields as biology and the social sciences. With the advent of high-speed computer-communication networks, greater numbers of educational institutions now have access to cutting-edge research and education tools and infrastructure.

It is useful to distinguish between the terms “tool” and “infrastructure.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary provides only one definition of infrastructure; i.e. “an underlying foundation or basic framework (as of an organization or system).” It provides many definitions of tool, the most applicable being “anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose.” Given these definitions, it may be useful to say that infrastructure not only includes tools but also provides the basis, foundation and/or support for the creation of tools.

“Research infrastructure” is a term that is commonly used to describe the tools, services, and installations that are needed for the S&E research community to function and for researchers to do their work. For the purposes of this study, it includes: (1) hardware (tools, equipment, instrumentation, platforms and facilities), (2) software (enabling computer systems, libraries, databases, data analysis and data interpretation systems, and communication networks), (3) the technical support (human or automated) and services needed to operate the infrastructure and keep it working effectively, and (4) the special environments and installations (such as buildings and research space) necessary to effectively create, deploy, access, and use the research tools.[1]

An increasing amount of the equipment and systems that enable the advancement of research are large-scale, complex, and costly. “Facility” is frequently used to describe such equipment, because typically the equipment requires special sites or buildings to house it and a dedicated staff to effectively maintain and use the equipment. Increasingly, many researchers working in related disciplines share the use of such large facilities, either on site or remotely.

“Cyberinfrastructure” is used in this report to connote a comprehensive infrastructure based upon distributed networks of computers, information resources, on-line instruments, data analysis and interpretation tools, relevant computerized tutorials for the use of such technology, and human interfaces. The term provides a way to discuss the infrastructure enabled by distributed computer-communications technology in contrast to the more traditional physical infrastructure.[2]

There can be no doubt that a modern and effective research infrastructure is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership in S&E. The degree to which infrastructure is regarded as central to experimental research is indicated by the number of Nobel Prizes awarded for the development of new instrument technology. During the past twenty years, eight Nobel prizes in physics were awarded for technologies such as the electron and scanning tunneling microscopes, laser and neutron spectrography, particle detectors, and the integrated circuit.

Much has changed since the last major assessments of the academic S&E infrastructure were conducted over a decade ago. For example:

§ Research questions require approaches that are increasingly multidisciplinary, and involve a broader spectrum of disciplines. Collaboration among disciplines is increasing at an unprecedented rate.

§ Researchers are addressing phenomena that are beyond the temporal and spatial limits of current measurement capabilities. Many viable research questions can be answered only through the use of new generations of powerful tools.

§ Enabled by information technology (IT), a qualitatively different and new S&E infrastructure has evolved, delivering greater computational power, increased access, distribution and shared-use, and new research tools, such as flexible, programmable statistics packages, many forms of automated aids for data interpretation, and web-accessible databases, archives, and collaboratories. IT enables the collection and processing of data that could not have been collected or processed before. Increasingly, researchers are expressing a compelling need for access to these new IT-based research tools.

§ International cooperation and partnerships are increasingly used to construct and operate large and costly research facilities. With many international projects looming on the horizon, the U.S. Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are concerned about the management of these complex relationships.

§ The reality of today's world requires that academe secure its research infrastructure and institute safeguards for its working environment and critical systems. Issues are also being raised about the security of information developed by scientists and engineers, such as genomic databases.

These changes have created unprecedented challenges and opportunities for 21^st century scientists and engineers. Consequently, the National Science Board (NSB) determined that a fresh assessment of the national infrastructure for academic S&E research was needed - to ensure its future quality and availability.

B. The Charge to the Task Force

In September 2000 the National Science Board established the Task Force on Science and Engineering Infrastructure (INF), under the auspices of its Committee on Programs and Plans (CPP). The complete charge to the INF is included in Appendix A. In summary, the INF was charged to:

“Undertake and guide an assessment of the fundamental science and engineering infrastructure in the United States … with the aim of informing the national dialogue on S&E infrastructure and highlighting the role of NSF as well as the larger resource and management strategies of interest to Federal policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches. The report should enable an assessment of the current status of the national S&E infrastructure, the changing needs of S&E, and the requirements for a capability of appropriate quality, size and scope to ensure continuing U.S. leadership.”

In its early organizing meetings and in discussions with the CPP, the INF defined the scope and terms of reference for the study. Because the charge focused on “fundamental science and engineering,” the INF decided to address primarily the infrastructure needs of the academic research community, including infrastructure at national laboratories or in other countries, as long as it served the needs of academic researchers. The INF also determined that the study should focus on “research” infrastructure, in contrast to infrastructure serving purely educational purposes, such as classrooms, teaching laboratories and training facilities. However, the INF recognized that many cutting-edge research facilities are “dual use,” in that they also provide excellent opportunities for education and training as well as research. Such infrastructure was included within this study.

Finally, while the study was concerned with the status of the entire academic research infrastructure, the Task Force decided that it should also provide an in-depth analysis of NSF’s infrastructure policies, programs and activities, including a look at future needs, challenges and opportunities. This was done for the purpose of providing specific advice to the NSF Director and the National Science Board. While other R&D agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Energy (DoE), Department of Defense (DoD) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) play an important role in serving the infrastructure needs of academic researchers, detailed surveys of their infrastructure support programs are not provided.

C. Strategy for Conducting the Study

In responding to its charge, the Task Force recognized certain limits in what it could do. Conducting a new comprehensive survey of academic institutions was not deemed to be practical, in that it would take too much time to accomplish. As an alternative, the INF engaged in a number of parallel activities designed to assess the general state and direction of the academic research infrastructure, and illuminate the most promising future opportunities. The principal activities were the following:

§ The INF surveyed the current literature, including reviewing and considering the findings of over 60 reports, studies, and planning documents. This literature list appears in Appendix B.

• Representatives from other agencies, such as NASA, DoE, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made presentations to the INF and responded to many questions. In addition, specialists were invited to address the Task Force on relevant topics at several meetings.

• The seven NSF directorates[3] and the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) provided assessments of the current state of the research infrastructure serving the S&E fields they represent, as well as an assessment of future infrastructure needs and opportunities through 2010.

• Drafts of the report were presented to and discussed with the NSF Director’s Policy Group, the NSB Committee on Programs and Plans, and the full National Science Board.

II. THE LARGER CONTEXT FOR S&E INFRASTRUCTURE

A. History and Current Status

Today S&E research is carried out in laboratories supported by government, academe, and industry. Before 1900, however, there were relatively few government-supported research activities. In 1862 Congress passed the Morrill Act, which made it possible for the many new states to establish agricultural and technical (land grant) colleges for their citizens. Although originally started as technical colleges, many of them grew, with additional state and Federal aid, into large public universities with premier research programs.

Before World War II, universities were regarded as peripheral to the Federal research enterprise. In the years between World War I and World War II, the immigration of scientists from Europe helped to develop American superiority in fields such as physics and engineering. World War II dramatically expanded Federal support for academic and industrial R&D. The war presented a scientific and engineering challenge to the United States to provide weapons based on advanced concepts and new discoveries that would help defeat the enemy. Large national laboratories, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, were founded in the midst of the war.

The modern research university came of age after World War II when the Federal government decided that sustained investments in science would improve the lives of citizens and the security of the Nation. The Federal government increased its support for students in higher education through programs such as the GI Bill. It also established NSF in 1950 and NASA in 1957. An infusion of Federal funds made it possible for universities to purchase the increasingly expensive scientific equipment and advanced instrumentation that were central to the expansion of both the R&D and the teaching functions of the university.

The advent of the Cold War combined with the wartime demonstration of the significant potential for commercial and military applications of scientific research led to vast increases in government funding for R&D in defense-related technologies. This resulted in a significant expansion of the R&D facilities of private firms and government laboratories. Concomitantly, the Federal government increased its support for academic research and the infrastructure required to support it. The U.S. government has been a partner with industry and universities in creating the infrastructure for many critical new industries, ranging from agriculture to aircraft to biotechnology to computing and communications.[4] This infrastructure extends across the Earth’s oceans, throughout its skies, and from Pole to Pole.

Most of the Nation’s academic research infrastructure is now distributed throughout nearly 700 institutions of higher education; and it extends into more than 200 Federal laboratories and hundreds of non-profit research institutions. Many of these laboratories have traditions of shared use by researchers and students from the Nation’s universities and colleges. In this role, participating Federal laboratories have become extensions of the academic research infrastructure.

Assessing the current status of the academic research infrastructure is a difficult undertaking. Periodic surveys of universities and colleges attempt to address various aspects of this infrastructure. But the gaps in the information collected and analyzed leave many important questions unanswered. A national survey of academic research instrumentation needs, conducted nearly a decade ago, provides the latest available information on annual expenditures for instruments with a total cost of $20,000 or more.[5] As indicated in Table 1, in 1993, the purchase of academic research instrumentation totaled $1,203 million, an increase of six percent over the amount reported in the previous survey in 1988. The Federal government provided $624 million, or 52 percent of the total.

Table 1. 1993 Expenditures for Purchase of Academic Research Instrumentation
	$ Millions	% Total
All Sources of Support	1203	100%
Federal Sources	624	52%
NSF	213	18%
NIH	117	10%
DoD	106	9%
Other Agencies	186	15%
Non-Federal Sources	580	48%
Academic Institutions	292	24%
State Government	102	8%
Foundations, Bonds and Private Donations	105	9%
Industry	80	7%
Source: Academic Research Instruments: Expenditures 1993, Needs 1994, NSF-96-324.

NSF provided $213 million in support of research infrastructure during 1993, while NIH provided $117 million and DoD contributed $106 million. Of the non-federal sources of funding, the largest single source was the contribution from the academic institutions. A sizable contribution of $105 million came from private, non-profit foundations, gifts, bonds, and other donations.

A 1998 NSF survey representing 660 research-performing colleges and universities reveals how these institutions fund capital research construction, in contrast to research instrumentation. Table 2 indicates that, overall, research-performing institutions derived their S&E capital projects funds from three major sources: the Federal government, state and local governments, and institutional resources. Institutional resources consist of private donations, institutional funds, tax-exempt bonds, and other sources.

Table 2. Source of Funds to Construct and Repair/Renovate S&E Research Space: 1996 and 1997

Source of Funds	Percent of funds for new construction	Percent of funds for repair/renovation
Federal Government	9%	9%
State/Local Government	31	26
Institution all Sources	60	65
TOTAL	100%	100%
TOTAL COSTS	$3.1 billion	$1.3 billion

NOTE: Only projects costing $100,000 or more

SOURCE: National Science Foundation/SRS, 1996 Survey of Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities at Colleges and Universities.

The Federal government directly accounted for 9 percent of all construction funds ($271 million) and 9 percent ($121 million) of all repair/renovation funds. Additionally, some Federal funding was provided through indirect cost recovery on grants and/or contracts from the Federal government. These overhead payments are used to defray the indirect costs of conducting Federally funded research and are counted as institutional funding.

Another NSF survey representing 580 research-performing institutions in 2001 provides some information on the current amount, distribution and adequacy of academic research space, which includes laboratories, facilities and major equipment costing at least $1 million.

As Table 3 indicates, in 1988 there were 112 million net assignable square feet (NASF) of S&E research space. By 2001 it had increased by 38 percent to 155 million NASF. Doctorate-granting institutions represented 95 percent of the space, with the top 100 institutions having 71 percent and minority-serving institutions having 5 percent. In addition, 82 percent of institutions surveyed reported inadequate research space, while 51 percent reported a deficit of greater than 25 percent. The greatest deficit was reported by computer sciences, with only 27 percent of the space reported as adequate, and more than double the current space required to make up the perceived deficit. To meet their current research commitments, the research-performing institutions reported that they needed an additional 40 million NASF of S&E research space or 27 percent more than they had.

Table 3. Academic Research Space by S&E Field, 1988-2001

Field	Net assignable square feet (NASF) in millions					% NASF reported as adequate	% additional NASF needed
	1988	1992	1996	1999	2001	2001	2001
All fields......................................................	112	122	136	150	155	29%	27%
Agricultural sciences................................	18	20	22	25	27	30%	11%
Biological sciences..................................	24	28	30	32	33	27%	32%
Computer sciences..................................	1	2	2	2	2	27%	109%
Earth, atmospheric, and ocean .........,,..	6	7	7	8	8	38%	26%
Engineering.............................................	16	18	22	25	26	23%	26%
Medical sciences.....................................	19	22	25	27	28	23%	34%
Physical sciences & mathematics...........	17	17	19	20	20	33%	25%
Psychology & social sciences...............	6	6	7	9	9	38%	32%
Other sciences.......................................	4	2	2	3	3	72%	18%
Note: Components may not add to totals due to rounding. Source: Survey of Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities, 2001, NSF/SRS.

Maintaining the academic research infrastructure in a modern and effective state over the past decade has been especially challenging because of the increasing cost to construct and maintain research facilities and the concomitant expansion of the research enterprise, with substantially greater numbers of faculty and students engaged in S&E research. The problem is exacerbated by the recurrent Federal funding of research below full economic cost, which has made it difficult for academic institutions to set aside sufficient funds for infrastructure maintenance and replacement.

A recent RAND study estimated that the true cost of facilities and administration (F&A) for research projects is about 31 percent of the total Federal grant. Because of arbitrary caps placed on Federal F&A rates, the share that the Federal government actually pays is between 24 and 28 percent. This amounts to between $0.7 and $1.5 billion in annual costs that are not reimbursed. Moreover, the infrastructure component in negotiated F&A rates has increased since the late 1980s, from under 6 percent in 1988 to almost 9 percent in 1999.^[6]

A recent government study indicated that the Federal government’s contribution to construction funds at the Nation’s research performing colleges and universities has declined since 1990 – from 16 to 9 percent. Colleges and universities picked up the slack by increasing their institutional share from 52 to 60 percent. This includes private donations, which increased from $419 million to $597 million.[7]

Over the past decade, a number of diverse studies and reports have charted a growing gap between the academic research infrastructure that is needed and the infrastructure that is provided. For example:

• A 1995 study by the NSTC indicated that the academic research infrastructure in the U.S. is in need of significant renewal, conservatively estimating the facilities and instrumentation needed to make up the deficit at $8.7 billion.[8]

• In 1998, an NSF survey estimated costs for deferred capital projects to construct, repair or renovate academic research facilities at $11.4 billion, including $ 7.0 billion to construct new facilities and $4.4 billion to repair/renovate existing facilities.[9]

• A 2001 report to the Director, NIH estimated that $5.6 billion was required to address inadequate and/or outdated biomedical research infrastructure. The report recommended new funds for NIH facility improvement grants in FY 2002, a Federal loan guarantee program to support facility construction and renovation, and the removal of arbitrary caps of the Federal F&A rate.[10]

• In 2001, the Director of NASA reported a $900 million construction backlog and said that $2 billion more was needed to revitalize and modernize research infrastructure.[11]

• A recent study indicated that DoE’s Office of Science laboratories and facilities, many of which are operated by universities, are aging and in disrepair – over 60 percent of the space is over 30 years old. A DoE strategic plan identified over $2 billion of capital investment projects over the next ten years (FY 2002 through FY 2011.)[12]

• In FY 2001 an informal survey of NSF directorates and the Office of Polar Programs estimated that future academic S&E infrastructure needs and opportunities through 2010 would cost an additional $18 billion.[13]

• An NSF blue-ribbon advisory panel recently estimated that an additional $850 million per year in cyberinfrastructure would be needed to sustain the ongoing revolution in S&E.[14]

While these surveys and studies provide a rough measure of the magnitude of problem, they say little about the cost of lost S&E opportunities. In a number of critical research fields, the lack of quality infrastructure is limiting S&E progress. For example, the lack of long-term stable support for “wetware” archives is preventing more rapid advances in post-genomic discoveries.

B. The Importance of Partnerships

As S&E infrastructure projects grow in size, cost and complexity, collaboration and partnerships increasingly enable them. These partnerships increase both the quality of the research enterprise and its impact on the economy and on society. The number of government-funded infrastructure projects that entail international collaboration has increased steadily over the last decade. The very nature of the S&E enterprise is global, often requiring access to geographically dispersed materials, phenomena, and expertise, as well as collaborative logistical support. It also requires open and timely communication, sharing, and validation of findings, data, and data analysis procedures. Projects in areas such as global change, genomics, astronomy, space exploration, and high-energy physics have a global reach and often require expertise and resources that no single country possesses. Further, the increasing cost of large-scale facilities often requires nations to share the expense. NSF currently supports a substantial and growing number of projects with international partnering. Among them are the twin GEMINI Telescopes, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the IceCube South Pole neutrino observatory, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the Ocean Drilling Program, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).

ALMA conceptual image courtesy of the European Southern Observatory

In the future, a growing number of large infrastructure projects will be carried out through international collaborations and partnerships. The Internet, the World Wide Web and other large distributed and networked databases will facilitate this trend by channeling new technologies, researchers, users and resources from around the globe. ^[15].

All large future infrastructure projects should be considered from the perspective of potential international partnering, or at a minimum of close cooperation regarding competing national-scale projects. An additional challenge is maintaining interest in and political support for long-term international projects. Any absence of follow-through on high profile projects could increase the danger of the U.S. becoming known as an unreliable international partner.

Congress has generally been unwilling to set aside multiyear funding for a project at its outset, requiring assiduous efforts by sponsoring agencies to ensure sustained funding.

Interagency coordination of large infrastructure projects is also extremely important. For example, successful management of the U.S. astronomy and astrophysics research enterprise requires close coordination between NASA, NSF, DoD, DoE and many private and state-supported facilities. Likewise, implementation of the U.S. polar research program, which NSF leads, requires the coordination of many Federal agencies and nations. University access to the facilities of many of the national laboratories has been facilitated through interagency agreements. There are a number of models for effective interagency coordination, such as committees and subcommittees of the White House-led NSTC.

In the fields of high-energy and nuclear physics, NSF and DoE have developed an effective scheme that facilitates interagency coordination while simultaneously obtaining outside expert advice. The High Energy Physics Coordination Panel (HEPAP), supported by NSF and DoE, gives advice to the agencies on research priorities, funding levels, and balance, and provides a forum for DoE-NSF joint strategic planning. This scheme has facilitated joint DoE-NSF infrastructure projects. For example, the HEPAP-backed plan for U.S. participation in the European Large Hadron Collider has been credited with making that arrangement succeed.[16]

Partnerships with the private sector also play an important role in facilitating the construction and operation of S&E infrastructure. For example, much of the equipment available in the Engineering Research Centers and the National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN) has been funded by industrial firms. Public-private sector partnerships have also helped to enable the Internet, the Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) and the TeraGrid project.

C. The Next Dimension

While there have been many significant breakthroughs in infrastructure development over the last decade, nothing has come close to matching the impact of IT and microelectronics. The rapid advances in IT have dramatically changed the way S&E information is gathered, stored, analyzed, presented and communicated. These changes have led to a qualitative, as well as quantitative, change in the way research is performed. Instead of just doing the “old things” cheaper and faster, innovations in information, sensing, and communications are creating new, unanticipated activities, analysis, and knowledge. For example:

§ Simulation of detailed physical phenomena - from subatomic to galactic and all levels in between - is possible; these simulations reveal new understanding of the world, e.g. protein folding and shape, weather, and galaxy formation. Databases and simulations also permit social and behavioral processes research to be conducted in new ways with greater objectivity and finer granularity than ever before.

§ Researchers used to collect and analyze data from their own experiments and laboratories. Now, they can share results in shared archives, such as the protein data bank, and conduct research that utilizes information from vast networked data resources.

§ Automated data analysis procedures of various kinds have been critical to the rapid development of genomics, climate research, astronomy, and other areas, and will certainly play an even greater role with accumulation of ever larger databases.

§ Low-cost sensors, nano-sensors, and high-resolution imaging enable new, detailed data acquisition and analysis across the sciences and engineering – for environmental research, genomics, applications for health, and many other areas.

§ The development of advanced robotics, including autonomous underwater vehicles and robotic aircraft, allow data collection from otherwise inaccessible locations, such as under polar ice. Advanced instrumentation makes it possible to adapt and revise a measuring protocol depending on the data being collected.

Research tools and facilities increasingly include digital computing capabilities. For example, telescopes now produce bits from CCD panels rather than photographs. Particle accelerators, gene sequencers, and seismic sensors, and many other modern S&E tools also produce information bits. As with IT systems generally, these tools depend heavily on hardware and software.

The exponential growth in computing power, communication bandwidth, and data storage capacity will continue for the next decade. Currently, the U.S. Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) has as its target the development of machines with 100 Teraflop/second capabilities[17] by 2005. Soon many researchers will be able to work in the “peta” (10¹⁵) range. [18] IT drivers –smaller, cheaper, and faster – will enable researchers in the near future to:

§ Establish shared virtual and augmented reality environments independent of geographical distances between participants and the supporting data and computing systems.

• Integrate massive data sets, digital libraries, models and analytical tools from many sources.

§ Visualize, simulate and model complex systems such as living cells and organisms, geological phenomena, and social structures.

With the advent of networking, information, computing and communications technologies, the time is approaching where the entire scientific community will have access to these frontier instruments and infrastructure. Many applications have been and are being developed that take advantage of network infrastructure, such as research collaboratories, interactive distributed simulations, virtual reality platforms, control of remote instruments, field work and experiments, access to and visualization of large data sets,[19] and distance learning (via connection to infrastructure sites).[20]

Advances in computational techniques have already radically altered the research landscape in many S&E communities. For example, the biological sciences are undergoing a profound revolution, based largely on the use of genomics data and IT advances. Genomics is now pervading all of biology, and is helping to catalyze an integration of biology with other sciences. Central to genomic sequencing and analysis is access to high-speed computers to store and analyze the enormous amount of data. Automated methods for model search, classification, structure matching, and model estimation and evaluation already have an essential role in genomics and in other complex, data intensive domains, and should come to play a larger role in the social sciences.

The Nation's IT capability has acted like adrenaline to all of S&E. The next step is to build the most advanced research computing infrastructure while simultaneously broadening its accessibility. NSF is presently working toward enabling such a distributed, leading-edge computational capability. Extraordinary advances in the capacity for visualization, simulation, data analysis and interpretation, and robust handling of enormous sets of data are already underway in the first decade of the 21st century. Computational resources, both hardware and software, must be sufficiently large, sufficiently available, and, especially, sufficiently flexible to accommodate unanticipated scientific and engineering demands and applications over the next few decades.

III. THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

A. NSF’s Leadership Role

Among Federal agencies, NSF is a leader in providing the academic research community with access to forefront instrumentation and facilities. This role is conferred upon it by its history and mission. NSF is the only agency charged to broadly promote the progress of science; to advance the National health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the National defense; and for other purposes.[21] While other agencies support S&E infrastructure needed to accomplish their specific missions, only NSF has the broad responsibility to see that the academic research community continues to have access to forefront instrumentation and facilities, to provide the needed research support to utilize them effectively, and to provide timely upgrades to this infrastructure.

Because of its unique responsibilities and mission, NSF must address issues and adopt strategies that are different from other agencies. For example, application mission agencies, such as DoD or DoE, focus primarily on what is enabled by a facility. NSF’s infrastructure investments must also consider other issues, such as the educational impacts of the facility on designers, operators, and students, the balance of support across disciplines and fields, and the development of next-generation instruments. This broad, integrated strategy is reflected in NSF’s three strategic goals, expressed here as outcomes:

People - A diverse, internationally competitive and globally engaged workforce of scientists, engineers, and well-prepared citizens.

Ideas - Discovery across the frontiers of S&E, connected to learning, innovation and service to society.

Tools - Broadly accessible, state-of-the-art and shared research and education tools.

These goals are mutually supportive and each is an essential element of the strategy to ensure the health of the U.S. S&E enterprise. For example, advances in infrastructure go hand-in-hand with scientific progress and workforce development. Research discoveries create the need for new infrastructure and underpin the development of new infrastructure technologies. In turn, infrastructure developments open up new research vistas and help to sustain S&E at the cutting edge. The development of new infrastructure also has an enormous impact on the education of students who will be the next generation of leaders in S&E.

Except for the South Pole Station and the other Antarctic Program facilities, NSF does not directly construct or operate the facilities it supports. Typically, NSF makes awards to external entities, primarily universities, consortia of universities or non-profit organizations, to undertake construction, management and operation of facilities. All infrastructure projects are selected for funding through a competitive and transparent merit review process. NSF retains responsibility for overseeing the development, management and successful performance of the projects. This approach provides the flexibility to adjust to changes in science and technology while providing accountability through efficient and cost-effective management and oversight. An essential added benefit of NSF’s model is the opportunity to train young scientists and engineers by engaging them directly in planning, construction and operation of major facilities and large-scale instrumentation.

Throughout its 50-year history, NSF has enjoyed an extraordinarily successful track record in providing state-of-the-art facilities for S&E research and education. NSF management and oversight have not only enabled the establishment of unique national assets, but have also ensured that they serve the S&E communities and the discovery process as intended. Some of the areas where NSF plays a major (perhaps a dominant) Federal funding role are:

§ Atmospheric and climate change research

§ Digital libraries for S&E

§ Biocomplexity and biodiversity research

§ Exploration of the earth’s mantle

§ Gravitational physics

§ High-performance computing and advanced networking

§ Machine learning and statistics

§ Cognitive psychology

§ Ground-based astronomy

§ Materials research

§ Oceanography

§ Plant genomics

§ Polar research

§ Seismology and earthquake engineering

B. Establishing Priorities for Large Infrastructure Projects

In establishing infrastructure priorities, the S&E community, in consultation with NSF, develops ideas, considers alternatives, explores partnerships, and develops cost and timeline estimates. By the time a proposal is submitted to NSF, these issues have been thoroughly examined. Upon receipt by NSF, proposals are first subjected to rigorous external peer review, focusing on the criteria of intellectual quality and broader impacts of the project. Only the highest rated proposals undergo a review process that involves subsequently higher levels of NSF management. Proposals that survive this process are reviewed by a top-level NSF panel that makes recommendations to the Director. Projects recommended by the panel for NSF funding must meet all of the following criteria:

• Provide an exceptional opportunity to enable frontier research and education.
• Have high priority within the relevant S&E communities and/or support the best interdisciplinary work located in the boundary spaces between disciplines.
• Are timely (i.e., the right investment at the right time).
• Are ready to be initiated, in terms of feasibility, engineering cost-effectiveness, interagency and international partnerships, and management.

Projects selected for recommendation to the Director are then grouped as follows: first priority is given to approved projects that have been started but not completed, second priority to projects that have been previously approved by the NSB but not yet started, and third priority to new projects. The panel then ranks the projects within each of these groups in priority order on the basis of the following considerations:

• How “transformative” is the project? Will it change the way research is conducted or change fundamental S&E concepts/research frontiers?
• How great are the benefits of the project? How many researchers, educators and students will it enable? Does it broadly serve many disciplines?

· How pressing is the need? Is there a window of opportunity? Are there interagency and international commitments that must be met?

After considering the strength and substance of the Panel’s recommendations, the balance among various fields and disciplines, and other factors, the Director selects the candidate projects to bring before the National Science Board for consideration. The NSB reviews individual projects on their merits and authorizes the Foundation to pursue the inclusion of selected projects in future budget requests. In August NSF brings a rank ordered list of all approved large facility construction projects to the >NSB, as part of the budget process. The NSB reviews the list and >either approves or argues the order of priority. As part of its budget submission, NSF presents this rank-ordered list of projects (or a subset of it) to OMB. >

C. Current Programs and Strategies

Table 4 indicates that the FY 2003 budget request for tools totaled $1,122 million, representing about 22.3 percent of the overall NSF budget request. Over the past few years this number has ranged from 22 to 26 percent.

In the category of Research Resources, a range of activities are supported, including multi-user instrumentation; the development of instruments with new capabilities, improved resolution or sensitivity; upgrades to field stations and marine laboratories; support of living stock collections; facility-related instrument development and operation; and the support and development of databases and informatics tools and techniques.

Table 4. NSF Investment in Tools, FY 2001-2003

(Millions of Dollars)

Totals may not add due to rounding.

¹ Includes computational sciences, physics, materials research, ocean sciences, atmospheric sciences, and earth sciences facilities, Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR), the National High Field Mass Spectrometry Center, the MSU Cyclotron, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL), the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), Science Resources Statistics (SRS), and the National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN).

Not included in Table 4 are over 300 NSF-supported research centers receiving a total of $240 million in NSF support and leveraging additional external support of $390 million (mostly university and industrial matching.)[22] NSF centers have been outstanding catalysts for the acquisition and deployment of major infrastructure investments. For example, many of the Engineering Research Centers and Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers acquire, maintain and update extensive shared facilities and testbeds, often with major equipment donations from industry partners. These facilities often serve as shared campus-wide, statewide or regional facilities.

Table 5 contains data on NSF’s investment in Tools by major activity: the seven NSF directorates, two offices, and the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) Account.

Table 5. NSF Tools Expenditures by Major Activity, FY 1998/2002

(Millions of Dollars)

^a BIO = Biological Sciences; CISE = Computer and Information Science and Engineering;

ENG = Engineering; GEO = Geosciences; MPS = Mathematical and Physical Sciences;

SBE = Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences; OPP = Office of Polar Programs;

IA = Integrative Activities; EHR = Education and Human Resources.

^b Other budget items include Salaries and Office of Inspector General

^c Numbers may not add due to rounding.

BIO invests about 9 percent of its annual budget in the Tools category. Heretofore, the typical infrastructure investments have been in small to medium size instrumentation, such as mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, and genomic sequencers, and in stock centers, natural history collections, and searchable biological databases. The biological sciences are undergoing a profound revolution, based largely on the use of genomics data and IT advances. Hence, there are indications that BIO’s future infrastructure requirements will increase substantially. (The future needs and opportunities of each directorate are discussed in the next section of the report.)

CISE supplies the critical infrastructure needs not only for computer S&E research, but also for other sciences and engineering that require high end computational and communications capabilities. Its infrastructure investment is large – 27 percent of its budget – and growing rapidly. Much of the infrastructure budget is represented by two major projects: the Terascale Computing Systems (TCS) and the Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI). Additionally, CISE currently provides support for small to medium end activities for more than 200 research universities. Resources range over the breadth of the cyberinfrastructure and include computational resources, networking testbeds, software and data repositories, and instruments.

ENG direct investment in Tools is very small – only one percent of its budget - largely comprised of support for the National Nanofabrication Users Network (NNUN). However, this direct investment is augmented by ENG’s equipment investment through research grants and at NSF-supported centers, such as the Engineering Research Centers and the Earthquake Engineering Research Centers. These centers also attract a considerable investment in industry matching funds. ENG also receives support for the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) from the NSF-wide Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) Account.

EHR’s current infrastructure consists of the people, computing equipment and networks, physical facilities, instrumentation, and other components that drive educational excellence and support the integration of research with education. In FY 2002, EHR will invest nearly $25 million in the National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL), a national resource that will aid researchers and educators in the development and dissemination of teaching and learning resources.

GEO spends approximately 39 percent of its total budget on infrastructure and also relies heavily on the MREFC Account. Because of its inherently observational nature, cutting-edge research in the geosciences requires a vast range of capabilities and diverse instrumentation, including ships and aircraft, ground-based observatories, laboratory and experimental analysis instruments, computing capabilities, and real-time data and communication systems.

MPS currently invests about 25 percent of its overall budget annually in the Tools category, most of which goes to the larger facilities. Like GEO, the disciplines represented by MPS require extensive observational facilities and other infrastructure. In addition, MPS relies heavily on the NSF-wide MREFC Account.

SBE invests about 17 percent of its budget in infrastructure, comprised chiefly of distributed facilities that do not require large construction. This includes new data collections that serve a broad range of scholars; digital libraries, including data archives; shared facilities that enable new data to be collected; and centers that promote the development of new approaches in a field.

OPP supports research across all disciplines in the two Polar Regions, ranging from archaeology to astrophysics and biology to space weather. OPP invests over 70% of its budget in Tools and supports large scientific instruments; laboratories; facilities for housing, health and safety, food service, and sanitation; satellite communications; transportation (including fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and research ships); and data and database management, all requiring significant investment in ongoing maintenance and operations in an unforgiving climate. This infrastructure is provided for the benefit of all the research programs supported by NSF’s Directorates, as well as the Federal mission agencies and other institutional partners.

NSF-wide Infrastructure Programs

Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) Account: NSF established the MREFC Account in 1995 to better manage the funding of large facility projects, such as accelerators, telescopes, research vessels and aircraft, all of which require peak funding over a relatively short period of time. Previously, such projects were supported within NSF’s Research and Related (R&RA) Account. The MREFC Account supports facility projects that provide unique research and education capabilities at the cutting edge of S&E, with costs ranging from several tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. It provides funding for acquisition, construction and commissioning in contrast to other activities, such as planning, design and development, and operations and maintenance, which are funded from the R&RA Account.

Table 6 indicates the projects supported by the MREFC Account since its inception. Included are several projects approved by the National Science Board waiting funding.

While the MREFC model has served NSF well, there are a number of issues that NSF is currently examining in its effort to provide the best support for large facility projects, such as:

· How large should a project be before it can be considered for MREFC funding?

· When should large infrastructure projects be supported within directorate budgets versus the MREFC Account?

· What costs should be charged to the MREFC Account versus the R&RA Account?

· How should budget priorities be established across different fields and disciplines?

· How should these large projects be managed?

Major Research Instrumentation (MRI): The MRI program supports instrumentation having a total cost ranging from $100,000 to $2 million. It seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of research and foster the integration of research and education by providing instrumentation for research-intensive learning environments. In FY 2003 NSF has requested $54 million for this program to support the acquisition and development of research instrumentation for academic institutions. This amount falls far short of meeting the real needs and opportunities, based on the survey of directorate needs and the amount of MRI proposals received in FY 2002.

D. Future Needs and Opportunities

Table 7 is a 10-year projection of future S&E infrastructure requirements identified in reports provided by each of the NSF directorates and OPP. The degree of specificity employed in identifying the requirements ranged from listing specific facilities and instrumentation to providing rough estimates for broad categories of infrastructure needs. Hence, the $18.9 billion estimate of funding needed over the next ten years must be viewed as a rough indication of need, and not one that has been assessed and formally endorsed by the NSB. In order to view the commonalities and differences between scientific fields, a summary of the infrastructure needs of each directorate and office is presented below.

		Table 7	NSF Future Infrastructure Needs, FY 2002-2012
NSF Directorates/Office			BIO	CISE	EHR	ENG	GEO	MPS	OPP	SBE	TOTAL	%
Range of Project Cost
	$1M - $10M		1,600	600	650	500	100	100	100	300	3,950	20
	$10M - $50M		1,600	800	400	700	900	500	300	200	5,400	29
	$50M - $250M		600	1,000	0	1,000	1,800	2,000	400	0	6,800	37
	$250M - $500M		0	500	0	0	0	900	300	0	1,700	9
	> $500M		0	0	0	0	0	1,000	0	0	1,000	5
	Total (Millions of Dollars)		3,800	2,900	1,050	2,200	2,800	4,500	1,100	500	18,850	100

BIO: The use of information technology and the development of numerous new techniques have catalyzed explosive research growth and productivity. However, infrastructure investments have not kept up with the expanding needs and opportunities. For example, there is an increasing need to develop, maintain and explore huge interoperable databases that result from the determination of complete genomes. In order to thrive in the future, biological researchers will need new large concentrated laboratories where a variety of experts meet and work on a daily basis. They will also need major distributed research platforms, such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), that link together ecological sites, observational platforms, laboratories, databases, researchers and students from around the globe. An essential and neglected aspect of support for biological research is the provision of resources to make automated data analysis and interpretation procedures publicly accessible and easily usable by other investigators. Increasingly, published results are derived from intensive automated data analysis and modeling, and cannot be reproduced or checked by other researchers without access to software often developed for a specific research project.

CISE: In the future, substantial investments must be made in providing increasingly powerful computational infrastructure necessary to support the increasing demands of modeling, data analysis and interpretation, management, and research. CISE researchers will require testbeds to develop and prove experimental technologies. CISE must also expand the availability of high performance computing and networking resources to the broader research and education community. Effective utilization of advanced computational resources will require more user-friendly software and better software integration. Funding for highly skilled technical support staff is essential to encouraging broader participation by the community in the evolving cyberinfrastructure.

EHR: The directorate’s future needs include: electronic collaboratory spaces in support of research and instruction; centers for disseminating and validating successful educational materials and practices at all levels; increased computational capacity for needs in modeling and simulation in systems research and in learning settings; and databases of international and domestic student learning indicators.

ENG: The rapid pace of technological change will require ENG to invest significantly more funds for research instrumentation and instrumentation development, multi-user equipment centers, and major networked experimental facilities, such as the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network, and the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. Needs for research tools are diverse, ranging from high-speed high-resolution imaging technology to study gene development and expression to a suite of complex instruments that enables the simulation, design, and fabrication of novel nano-and micro-scale structures and systems. In addition, substantial investment is needed to enable engineering participation in grid activities, to facilitate collaborations between engineering and computer science researchers, and to develop tools (including improved tele-operation and visualization tools, integrated analytical tools to support real-time analysis of processes, multi-scale modeling and protocols for shared analytical codes and data sets).

GEO: In the future, the geosciences research community will require new state-of-the-art observing facilities and research platforms. Many of these facilities must be mobile and/or distributed over wide geographic locations. The increased need for distributed observing systems will require better networking technologies and increased capabilities for data capture, storage, access, analysis, and exchange. The increased demands for climate and environmental modeling will require high-end computational capabilities (petaflop) and new visualization tools. An essential element in future advances is the ability to integrate data from multiple observatories into models and data sets. The necessity of support, noted above for biology, for publicly accessible and useable data analysis and interpretation software applies equally here.

MPS: Mathematical and physical sciences researchers seek answers to fundamental science questions that have the potential to revolutionize how we think about nature (e.g. the origin of mass, the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, the nature of the accelerating universe, and the structure of new materials). Such research increasingly requires more expensive and sophisticated instruments that range from the relatively small to the very large, such as radio observatories, neutron scattering, x-ray synchrotron radiation, high magnetic fields, neutrino detectors, and linear colliders. In addition, increased investments are needed in cyberinfrastructure to facilitate the conduct of science in the rapidly changing environment surrounding the massive petabyte data sets from astronomy and physics facilities.[23] Investments include high-speed communication links, access to teraflop computing resources, and electronic communications and publishing.

OPP: With the growing realization that the Polar Regions offer unique opportunities for research - in fields as disparate as neutrino-based astrophysics and evolutionary biology at the genetic level- comes the need for increasingly sophisticated and diverse new instrumentation. Progress in areas such as climate change research will hinge on the development of distributed observing systems adapted to function in the harsh polar environment with minimum on-site maintenance and power requirements. Automated, intelligent underwater and airborne robotic systems will be essential in providing safe and effective access to sub-ice and atmospheric environments. High-speed connectivity to the South Pole Station must be improved to enable scientists to control instruments from stateside laboratories and to analyze incoming data in real time. Finally, the basic infrastructure that enables scientists to survive in Polar Regions, especially in Antarctica, must be maintained and improved.

SBE: Research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences is increasingly a capital-intensive activity. Social science research, for example, is increasingly dependent on the accumulation and processing of large data sets, requiring larger computer facilities, access to state-of-the art information technologies, and employment of trained, permanent staffs. Advances in computational techniques are radically altering the research landscape in many of our communities. Examples include automated model search aids, sophisticated statistical methods, modeling, access to shared databases of enormous size, new statistical approaches to the analysis of large databases (data mining), web-based collaboratories, virtual reality techniques for studying social behavior and interaction, and the use of computers for on-line experimentation.

The demand for new S&E infrastructure is driven by scientific opportunity and the needs of researchers; hence, it is field dependent. However, it is not the purpose of this report to provide a detailed examination of the opportunities and needs for each scientific discipline and field. There are many discipline-specific surveys, studies and reports that do this quite well. Rather, in examining the range of need and opportunities identified in the NSF directorate reports, it is useful to consider the needs and issues they have in common. For example, the directorates identified the following areas as having particular priority:

Cyberinfrastructure: Advances in computational and communications technology are radically altering the research landscape for S&E communities. In the future, these communities must be prepared to manage and exploit an even more rapid evolution in the tools and infrastructure that empower them. Virtually all of the directorates and offices cited cyberinfrastructure as a top investment priority. The following were noted as priority needs:

§ Accessing the next generation of information systems including grid computing, digital libraries and other knowledge repositories, virtual reality/telepresence, and high performance computing and networking and middleware applications.

§ Expanding the availability of high performance computing and networking resources to the broader research and education community. As more extensive connection across the S&E community is supported, the utility of the resources to current users must also be sustained. Collaboration and coordination with state and local infrastructure efforts will also be essential. The overall goal is to provide resources and build capacity for smaller institutions while continuously enabling new research directions at the high end of computing performance.

§ Providing computational infrastructure necessary to support the increasing demands of modeling, data analysis and management, and research. Computational resources at all levels, from desktop systems to supercomputing, are needed to sustain progress in S&E. The challenge is to provide scalable access to a pyramid of computing resources from the high-performance workstations needed by most scientists to the teraflop-and-beyond capability critically needed for solving the grand-challenge problems.

§ Increasing the ability to integrate data sets from multiple observatories into models and physically consistent data sets. Development of techniques and systems to assimilate information from diverse sources into rational, accessible, and digital formats is needed. Envisioned is a web-accessible hierarchical network of data/information and knowledge nodes that will allow the close coupling of data acquisition and analysis to improve understanding of the uncertainties associated with observations. The system must include analysis, visualization and modeling tools.

§ Improved modeling and prediction techniques adequate for data analysis under modern conditions, which include enormous data sets in large numbers of variables, intricate feedback systems, distributed databases with related but non-identical variable sets, and hierarchically related variables. Many of the most advanced techniques are now implemented as freeware by academic groups, with inadequate interfaces and support.

§ Maintaining the longevity and interoperability of a growing multitude of databases and data collections.

Large Facility Projects: Over half of the needs identified by the directorates fell in the category of “large” infrastructure; i.e., projects with a total cost of $75 million or more. The reality is that many important needs identified five to ten years ago have not been funded and the scientific justifications for those facilities have grown. In the past couple of years, the number of large projects approved for funding by the National Science Board, but not yet funded, has grown. The FY 2003 request for the MREFC Account is about $126 million. It will require an annual investment of at least $350 million for several years to address the backlog of research facilities construction projects.

Mid-Sized Infrastructure: Many of the NSF directorates identified a “mid-size infrastructure” funding gap. While there is no precise definition of mid-size infrastructure, for the purposes of this report it is assumed to have a total construction/installation cost of ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars. Examples of infrastructure needs that have long been identified as very high priorities but that have not been realized include acquisition of an incoherent scatter radar to fill critical atmospheric science observational gaps; replacement of an Arctic regional research vessel; replacement or upgrade of submersibles; beam line instrumentation for neutron science, and major upgrades of computational capability. In many cases the mid-size instruments that are needed to advance an important scientific project are research projects in their own right, projects that advance the state-of-the-art or that invent completely new instruments. These are not suitable for funding with the MREFC account owing to their mix of research and of instrument construction, but are essential if NSF is to continue to be the agency whose work leads to developments like MRI and LASIK surgery - developments that had their roots in research on advanced instrumentation.

Maintaining and Upgrading Existing Infrastructure: Obtaining the money to maintain and upgrade existing research facilities, platforms, databases, and specimen collections is a difficult challenge for universities. IT adds a new layer of complexity to already complex science and engineering instruments. The design and build time for large instruments can be 2 to 4 generations of IT; while IT must be “planned in” - it cannot be designed in afterwards. Instruments with long lifetimes must consider upgrade paths for IT systems that will enable enhanced sensors, data rates or other improved capabilities. The challenge to NSF is how to maintain and upgrade existing infrastructure while simultaneously advancing the state-of-the-art.

Instrumentation Research: Increased support for research in areas that can lead to advances in instruments, in terms of cost and function, is critically important. Such an investment will be cost-effective because skipping even one generation of a big instrument may save hundreds of millions of dollars. Also, totally new instruments can open doors to new research vistas. In addition, industry is rapidly transforming the tools developed in support of basic research into the tools and technologies of industry. At the same time, industry is increasingly relying on NSF-sponsored fundamental research programs in universities for the initial development of such tools.

Multi-Disciplinary Infrastructure Platforms: As the academic disciplines become intertwined, there is an increasing need for sites where multidisciplinary teams can interact and have access to cutting edge tools. Such facilities must be shared among a number of researchers much as a telescope is shared among a number of astronomers. The sharing of such facilities, in turn, requires investigators to become more collaborative and work in new ways. This will require increased attention to multidisciplinary training. Open technological platforms offer high-quality instrumentation and technological services to researchers and institutions that could not otherwise afford them. Networks can help guide users, provide services, and encourage interaction between different communities.

Polar Regions Research: NSF infrastructure in the Polar Regions enables research supported not only by OPP and most other NSF Directorates, but also by the Nation’s mission agencies, notably NASA, DoI, DoE, and DoC. The new South Pole Station will fully exploit this capability; however, improved transportation to the Station will be needed as will continuous high-bandwidth capability for data transfer and connectivity to the cyberinfrastructure. In addition, NSF infrastructure at McMurdo Station, the base for South Pole and remote field applications, needs to be maintained at a faster pace than has occurred in recent years. Finally, many fields of science require access to Polar Regions during the winter months, a capability that currently can be supported only to a very limited extent.

Education and Training: Investments that expand the educational opportunities at research facilities have already had an enormous impact on students. Many of these investments can be further leveraged by new activities that reach out to K-12 students and influence the teaching of science and mathematics. Similarly, the public’s direct participation in advanced visualization access to national research facilities can open a much-needed avenue for public involvement in the excitement of scientific discovery and the creative process of engineering.

Infrastructure Security: The events of September 11, 2001 increased awareness of important security issues with respect to protecting the Nation’s S&E infrastructure. Examples include:

§ Attacks on S&E infrastructure to destroy valuable national resources and disrupt U.S. science and technology.

§ Use of S&E infrastructure, such as shared research websites, for destructive purposes.

§ Security, confidence and trust in S&E databases.

The increasingly distributed and networked nature of S&E infrastructure means that problems can propagate widely and rapidly, and researchers depend on capabilities at many sites. Infrastructure security requires innovations in IT to monitor and analyze threats in new settings of global communications and commerce, asymmetric threats, and threats emanating from groups with unfamiliar cultures and languages. The U.S. and its international partners face unprecedented challenges for the security, reliability and dependability of IT-based infrastructure systems. For example, the major barriers to realizing the promise of the Internet are security and privacy issues - research issues requiring further study - and the need for ubiquitous access to broadband service. Current middleware and strategic technology efforts are attempting to address these problems, but a significantly greater investment is needed to address these problems successfully.

IV. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A number of themes emerged from the diverse input received. Foremost among them was that, over the past decade, the funding for academic research infrastructure has not kept pace with rapidly changing technology, expanding research opportunities, and increasing numbers of users.

Information technology has made many S&E tools more powerful, remotely usable, and connectable. The new tools being developed make researchers more effective – both more productive and able to do things they could not do in the past. An increasing number of researchers and educators, working as individuals and in groups, need to be connected to a sophisticated array of facilities, instruments, and databases. Hence, there is an urgent need to increase Federal investments aimed at providing access for scientists to the latest and best scientific- infrastructure as well as updating infrastructure currently in place. While a number of Federal Research and Development (R&D) agencies are addressing some of their most critical needs, the Federal government is not addressing the needs of the Nation’s science and engineering enterprise with the required scope and breadth.

To expand and strengthen the Foundation's infrastructure portfolio, the Board developed four recommendations. The Board will periodically assess NSF’s implementation of these recommendations,

Recommendation 1: Increase the share of the budget devoted to S&E infrastructure.

NSF’s future investment in S&E infrastructure should be increased in order to respond to the needs and opportunities identified in this report. It is hoped that the majority of these additional resources can be provided through future growth of the NSF budget. The more immediate needs must be at least partially addressed through increasing the share of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure. The current 22 percent of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure is too low and should be increased. In increasing the infrastructure share, the focus should be on providing individual investigators and groups of investigators with the resources they need to work at the frontiers of S&E.

Recommendation 2: Give special emphasis to the following activities, listed in order of priority:

§ Develop and deploy an advanced cyberinfrastructure to enable new S&E in the 21^st century.

This investment should address leading-edge computation as well as visualization facilities, data archives and libraries, and networks of much greater power and in substantially greater quantity. Providing access to moderate-cost computation, storage, visualization and communication infrastructure for every researcher will lead to an even more productive national research enterprise. Developing the new cyberinfrastructure, including the informatics and databases; high-end computing; and high-speed networks that can enable a broader range of institutions and people will require a large and sustained investment over many years. Funding of implementations and maintenance of statistical, machine learning, data mining, and related workbenches of many kinds, both general and adapted to special requirements of particular disciplines, is essential. This is an important undertaking for NSF because this new infrastructure will play a critical role in creating the research vistas of tomorrow. [24]

It is critical that any Federal cyberinfrastructure initiative reflect the joint vision and commitment of NSF, the other R&D agencies, and the S&E community. For example, several other agencies, such as DoE, NASA, NIH and DoD have very large scientific computing activities. While one agency may choose to invest in the highest performance computers, another may choose to invest just below that capability. Hence, there must be a strong interagency coordinated effort to ensure that a broad range of needs is addressed.

§ Increase support for large facility projects.

In recent years, NSF has received an increased number of requests for major research facilities and equipment from the S&E community. Many of these requests have been rated outstanding by research peers, program staff, management and policy officials, and the National Science Board. Several large facility projects have been approved for funding by the NSB, but have not been funded. At present, an annual investment of at least $350 million is needed over several years just to address the backlog of facility projects construction. Postponing this investment now will not only increase the future cost of these projects but also result in the loss of U.S. leadership in key research fields.

§ Address the mid-size infrastructure funding gap.

A "mid-size infrastructure" funding gap exists. While there are programs for addressing "small" and "large" infrastructure needs, none exists for infrastructure projects costing between millions and tens of millions of dollars. NSF should increase the level of funding for mid-size infrastructure and develop new funding mechanisms, as appropriate, to support these projects.

§ Increase research to advance instrument technology and build next-generation observational, communications, data analysis and interpretation, and other computational tools.

Instrumentation research is often difficult and risky, requiring the successful integration of theoretical knowledge, engineering and software design, and information technology. In contrast to most other infrastructure technologies, commercially available data analysis and data interpretation software typically lags well behind university developed software, which is often unfunded or under-funded, limiting its use and accessibility. This research will accelerate the development of instrument technology to ensure that future research instruments and tools are as efficient and effective as possible. NSF should systematically assess technologies that can directly affect instrument function and cost to ensure that the precursor research is performed.

Recommendation 3: Expand education and training opportunities at new and existing research facilities.

Investment in S&E infrastructure is critical to developing a 21^st century S&E workforce. Educating people to understand how S&E instruments and facilities work and how they uniquely contribute to knowledge in the targeted discipline is critical. Training and outreach activities should be a vital element of all major research facility programs. This outreach should span communities from existing researchers who may become new users, to undergraduate and graduate students who may design and use future instruments, to kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) children, who may become motivated to become scientists and engineers. There are also opportunities to expand public access to National S&E facilities though high-speed networks and special outreach activities.

Recommendation 4: Strengthen the infrastructure planning and budgeting process through the following actions:

§ Foster systematic assessments of U.S. academic research infrastructure needs for both disciplinary and cross-disciplinary fields of research. Re-assess current surveys of infrastructure needs to determine if they fully measure and are responsive to current requirements.

§ Develop specific criteria and indicators to assist in balancing infrastructure investments across S&E disciplines and fields and in establishing priorities. (As a starting principle, infrastructure priorities should be determined by the priority of the research problems they are designed to address.)

§ Conduct an assessment to determine the most effective budget structure for supporting S&E infrastructure.

§ Develop budgets for infrastructure projects that include the total costs to be incurred over the entire life-cycles of projects, including research, planning, design, construction, commissioning, maintenance, operations, and, to the extent possible, research funding. Included in this planning must be sufficient human resources, such as the highly trained experts who maintain the instruments and facilities and assist researchers in their operation.

Many studies and surveys[25] indicate that the funding for academic research infrastructure has not kept pace, over the past decade, with rapidly changing technology, expanding research opportunities, and increasing numbers of users. There is an urgent need to arrest this erosion by increasing Federal investments aimed at creating new cutting-edge infrastructure and updating infrastructure currently in place. Because of the need for the Federal government to act holistically in addressing the requirements of the Nation’s S&E enterprise, the Board developed a fifth recommendation, aimed principally at OMB, OSTP and the NSTC.

Recommendation 5: Develop interagency plans and strategies to do the following:

§ Establish interagency infrastructure priorities that meet the needs of the S&E community and reflect competitive merit review as the best way to select S&E infrastructure projects.

§ Improve the recurrent funding of academic research so that, over time, institutions become capable of covering the full cost of the research work they do, including sustaining their research infrastructure.

§ Stimulate the development and deployment of new infrastructure technologies to foster a new decade of infrastructure innovation.

§ Develop the next generation of the high-end high performance computing and networking infrastructure needed to enable a broadly based S&E community to work at the research frontier.

§ Facilitate international partnerships to enable the mutual support and use of research facilities across national boundaries

§ Protect the Nation’s massive investment in S&E infrastructure against accidental or malicious attacks and misuse.

V. CONCLUSION

Rapidly changing infrastructure technology has simultaneously created a challenge and an opportunity for the U.S. S&E enterprise. The challenge is how to maintain and revitalize an academic research infrastructure that has eroded over many years due to obsolescence and chronic under-investment. The opportunity is to build a new infrastructure that will create future research frontiers and enable a much broader segment of the S&E community. The challenge and opportunity must be combined into a single strategy. As current infrastructure is replaced and upgraded, the next-generation infrastructure must be created. The young people who are trained using state-of-the-art instruments and facilities are the ones who will demand and create the new tools, and make the breakthroughs that will extend the science and technology envelope. Training these young people will ensure that the U.S. maintains international leadership in the key scientific and engineering fields that are vital for a strong economy, social order and national security.
APPENDIX A

The Charge to the Task Force on Science and Engineering Infrastructure (INF)

The quality and adequacy of the infrastructure for science and engineering are critical to maintaining the leadership of the United States on the frontiers of discovery and for insuring their continuous contribution to the strength of the national economy and to quality of life. Since the last major assessments were conducted over a decade ago, that infrastructure has grown and changed, and the needs of science and engineering communities have evolved. The National Science Board, which has a responsibility for monitoring the health of the national research and education enterprise, has determined that there is a need for an assessment of the current status of the national infrastructure for fundamental science and engineering, to ensure its quality and availability to the broad S&E community in the future.

Several trends contribute to the need for a new assessment:

· The impact of new technologies on research facilities and equipment;

· The changing infrastructure needs in the context of new discoveries, intellectual challenges, and opportunities;

· The impact of new tools and capabilities, such as IT and large data bases;

· Rapidly escalating cost of research facilities;

· Changes in the university environment affecting support for S&E infrastructure development and operation; and

· The need for new strategies for partnering and collaboration.

The Task Force on Science and Engineering Infrastructure (INF), reporting to the Committee on Programs and Plans (CPP) is established to undertake and guide an assessment of the fundamental science and engineering infrastructure in the United States. The task force will develop terms of reference and a workplan with the aim of informing the national dialogue on S&E infrastructure and highlighting the role of NSF as well as the larger resource and management strategies of interest to Federal policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches.

The workplan should enable an assessment of the current status of the national S&E infrastructure, the changing needs of science and engineering, and the requirements for a capability of appropriate quality and size to ensure continuing U.S. leadership. It should describe the scope and character of the assessment and a process for including appropriate stakeholders, such as other Federal agencies, and representatives of the private sector and the science and engineering communities. The workplan should include consideration of the following issues:

· Appropriate strategies for sharing the costs of the infrastructure with respect to both development and operations among different sectors, communities, and nations;

· Partnering and use arrangements conducive to insuring the most effective use of limited resources and the advancement of discovery;

· The balance between maintaining the quality of existing facilities and creation of new ones; and

· The process for establishing priorities for investment in infrastructure across fields, sectors, and Federal agencies.

APPENDIX B

Bibliography

NSF/NSB PUBLICATIONS

1. Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, Report of the Blue Ribbon NSF Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, Dan Atkins (Chair), 2002.

2. The Scientific Allocation of Scientific Resources, NSB-01-39, March 2002.

3. Facilities Funded Through the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Account (A report to the U.S. Congress), National Science Foundation, February 2002.

4. Science and Engineering Indicators- 2002, NSB-02-01, National Science Board, January 2002.

5. Statement on Guidelines for Setting Priority for Major Research Facilities (NSB 01-204) January 17, 2002.

6. Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities, 2001, Detailed Statistical Tables, NSF Division of Science Resources Statistics, NSF 02-307, January 2002.

7. Federal Research Resources: A Process for Setting Priorities, NSB Final Report, October 2001, NSB-01-156.

8. Large Facility Projects Management and Oversight Plan, NSF, September 2001.

9. Toward a More Effective U.S. Role in International Science and Engineering, NSB, November 15, 2001, NSB-01-187.

10. Science and Engineering Research Facilities at Colleges and Universities: 1998, NSF Division of Science Resources Statistics, NSF-01-301, October 2000.

11. EU Conference on Research Infrastructures, Strasbourg, 18-20 September 2000, NSF Europe Office Update 00-03.

12. Bordogna, Joseph, "Visions for Engineering Education," Address to the IEEE Interdisciplinary Conference EE & CE Education in the Third Millennium, September 11, 2000.

13. Reinvestment Initiative in Science and Engineering (RISE), Advisory Committee for the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, May 2000.

14. Environmental Science and Engineering for the 21^st Century: The Role of the National Science Foundation, February 2000, NSB-00-22.

15. National Science Foundation, Celebrating 50 Years: Resource Guide 2000, NSF 00-87.

16. SRS Data Brief: “Total Stock of Academic Research Instruments Tops $6 Billion in 1993,” NSF Division of Science Resources Studies, June 6, 1997, Vol. 1997, No. 6.

17. Academic Research Instruments: Expenditures 1993, Needs 1994, NSF Division of Science Resources Studies, 1994, NSF-96-324.

18. Infrastructure: The Capital Requirements for Academic Research, NSF Division of Policy Research and Analysis, May 1987, PRA Report 87-3.

19. The Scientific Instrumentation Needs of Research Universities, a Report to the National Science Foundation, Association of American Universities, June 1980.

OTHER AGENCIES REPORTS

20. OMB Circular No. A-11, Part 3: Planning, Budgeting and Acquisition of Capital Assets.

21. A Report to the Advisory Committee of the Director, National Institutes of Health, NIH Working Group on Construction of Research Facilities, July 6, 2001.

22. Infrastructure Frontier: A Quick Look Survey of the Office of Science Laboratory Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy, April 2001. This report can be read on-line at http://www.er.doe.gov/production/er-80/er-82/labs21/.

23. Workshop on a Future Information Infrastructure for the Physical Sciences, Department of Energy, NAS, May 30-31, 2000.

24. Best Practices: Elements Critical to Successfully Reducing Unneeded RDT&E Infrastructure, GAO/NSIAD/RCED-98-23. General Accounting Office (GAO), January 1998.

REPORTS OF THE NSTC/NRC AND SPECIAL COMMISSIONS

25. Road Map for National Security: Addendum on Structure and Process Analyses (Hart-Rudman report), U.S. Commission on National Security, January 31, 2001.

26. US Astronomy and Astrophysics: Managing an Integrated Program, Committee on the Organization and Management of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, National Research Council, August 2001.

27. Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium (2001), Survey Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Space Studies Board, National Research Council. http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9839.html.

28. Finding the Path: Issues of Access to Research Resources (1999), Commission of Life Sciences, National Research Council. http://books.nap.edu/catalog/0309066255.html/.

29. Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research (1999), National Academy Press. http://bob.nap.edu/reaing room/books/far/ch3.html/.

30. Information Technology Research: Investing in Our Future, President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), February 1999.

31. Investing in Research Infrastructure in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (1998), Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences Commission, NRC. http://bob.nap.edu/html/infrastructure.

32. Interim Assessment of Research and Data Analysis in NASA’s Office of Space Science, Appendix D: NASA/OSS Response, NRC Space Studies Board, 1998. http://www.nationalacademies.org/ssb/rda2000appendd.htm

33. The Unpredictable Certainty: White Papers, National Information Infrastructure (NII) Steering Committee, NRC, 1998. http://bob.nap.edu/html/whitepapers/ch-39.html.

34. Biotechnology for the 21^st Century, Chapter 6: Infrastructure Needs, Biotechnology Research Subcommittee, National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), July 1995. http://www.nal.usda.gov/bic/bio21/infrastr.html/.

35. Final Report on Academic Research Infrastructure: A Federal Plan for Renewal. National Science and Technology Council, March 17, 1995 (Nathaniel Pitts, Chair).

36. Infrastructure for the 21^st Century: Framework for a Research Agenda (1987) Committee on Infrastructure Innovation, NRC. http://books.nap.edu/catalog/798.html/.

37. Science – The Endless Frontier, A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, Vannevar Bush, Director OSRD, July 1945 (NSF 90-8).

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

38. Solow, Robert, “Let’s Quantify the Humanities,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B20, April 19, 2002.

39. Feller, Irwin , The NSF Budget: How Should We Determine Future Levels?, Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, House Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Research, March 13, 2002, Washington, DC.

40. Georghiou, Luke, et al. “Benchmarking the Provision of Scientific Equipment,” Science and Public Policy, August 2001.

41. Rippen, Helga, A Framework for the Information Technology Infrastructure for Bio-terrorism (Draft), RAND, December 7, 2001.

42. Morris, Jefferson, “NASA Considering Closing, Consolidating Centers As Part of Restructuring Effort”, Aerospace Daily, October 17, 2001.

43. “Europe Urged to Set Up Advisory Body on Research Infrastructure,” Nature, Vol. 407, September 28, 2000, pp. 433-434.

44. Aberersold, Reudi, Hood, Leroy, and Watts, Julian, “Equipping Scientists for the New Biology,” Nature Biology, Vol. 18, April 2000.

45. Goldman, Charles A., Williams, T., Paying for University Research Facilities and Administration, RAND, (MR-1135-1-OSTP), 2000.

46. Langford, Cooper H., “Evaluation of Rules for Access to Megascience Research Environments Viewed From Canadian Experience,” Elsevier (University of Calgary), Research Policy 29 (2000) 169-179.

47. Information Technology and Research Overview, UCLA Information Technology Retreat, December 9-10. 1999.

48. Kondro, Wayne, “Making Social Science Data More Useful,” Science, Vol. 286, October 29, 1999.

49. “Drowning in Data,” Scientific American Explore!: Databases, October 4, 1999. http://www.sciam.com/explorations/1999/100499data.

50. Rich, R.H., The Role of the National Science Foundation in Supporting Advanced Network Infrastructure: Views of the Research Community, American Association for the Advancement of Science, July 26, 1999.

51. Schmidt, P., "A Building Boom for Public Colleges," Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, A29-A30. (1998)

52. Narum, Jeanne L., “A Better Home for Undergraduate Science,” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1996.

53. Davey, Ken, “The Infrastructure of Academic Research,” Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) Research File, August 1996, Vol. 1, No. 4.

54. US National Innovation System, David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg in “National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis” ed. Richard R. Nelson, Oxford University Press, 1993.

INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

55. UK Office of Science and Technology, Large Facilities Strategic Road Map, 2002.

56. Study of Science Research Infrastructure, A Report to the UK Office of Science and Technology, JM Consulting LTD, December 2001.

57. Annual Summary Report on the Coordination of Activities in Support of Research Infrastructures, European Commission, Brussels, January 2000.

58. European Commission Conference on "Research Infrastructures." Strasbourg, September 19-20, 2000, Commissioned Panel Reports:

· The Role of Infrastructures in Research

· Infrastructure Networking

· International Dimension

· Role of Human Resources

· Evaluation and Monitoring of Access to Research Infrastructures

· How to Develop a European Research Infrastructure

· Technological Innovation, Industrial and Socio-Economic Aspects of Research Infrastructures

WEBSITES

59. Laboratories of the 21st Century: http://www.er.doe.gov/production/er-80/er-82/labs21.

60. NSB Reports: http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/reports.htm.

61. The Space and Aeronomy Collaboratory (SPARC): http://www.windows.umich.edu/sparc.

62. AAS Decadal Study: http://www.aas.org/decadal.

63. Harvard Information Infrastructure Project: http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip.

64. Large Facility Projects Best Practices Workshop (copies of presentations): http://www.inside.nsf.gov/bfa/lfp/start.html.

---

[1] As used in this report, research infrastructure does not include the academic scientists and engineers, and their students, i.e. what is commonly referred to as the “human infrastructure.”

[2] Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, Report of the Blue Ribbon NSF Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, Dan Atkins (Chair), October 2002.

[3] The seven directorates are: Biological Sciences (BIO); Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE); Education and Human Resources (EHR.); Engineering (ENG); Geosciences (GEO); Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS); and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).

[4] This history is based heavily on two sources: (1) “U.S. National Innovation System” by David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg in National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis, ed. Richard R. Nelson, Oxford University Press, 1993; and (2) Science – The Endless Frontier, A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, Vannevar Bush, Director Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), July 1945 (NSF 90-8).

[5] More recent data on the sources of academic instrumentation funding are not available.

[6] Goldman, Charles A. and T. Williams, Paying for University Research Facilities and Administration, RAND, (MR-1135-1-OSTP), 2000.

[7] Science and Engineering Indicator-, 2002, National Science Board, January 2002.

[8] Final Report on Academic Research Infrastructure: A Federal Plan for Renewal. National Science and Technology Council, March 17, 1995.

[9] Science and Engineering Research Facilities at Colleges and Universities, 1998, NSF Division of Science Resources Statistics, NSF-01-301, October 2000.

[10] A Report to the Advisory Committee of the Director, National Institutes of Health, NIH Working Group on Construction of Research Facilities, July 6, 2001.

[11] Dan Goldin, Aerospace Daily, October 17, 2001.

[12] Infrastructure Frontier: A Quick Look Survey of the Office of Science Laboratory Infrastructure, U.S. Department of Energy, April 2001.

[13] Unpublished internal survey.

[14] Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, Report of the Blue Ribbon NSF Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, Dan Atkins (Chair), December 2002.

[15] Toward a More Effective U.S. Role in International Science and Engineering, NSB, November 2000, NSB-00-206.

[16] U.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics: Managing an Integrated Program, Committee on the Organization and Management of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, National Research Council, August 2001.

[17] A teraflop is a measure of a computer's speed and can be expressed as a trillion floating-point operations per second.

[18] UK Office of Science and Technology, Large Facilities Strategic Road Map, 2002.

[19] Examples of large data sets include large genomic databases, data gathered from global observations systems, seismic networks, automated physical science instruments, and social science databases.

[20] R.H Rich, The Role of the National Science Foundation in Supporting Advanced Network Infrastructure: Views of the Research Community, American Association for the Advancement of Science, July 26, 1999.

[21] NSF Act of 1950 (Public Law 81-0507)

[22] Although NSF research centers are part People, part Ideas and part Tools, for budget convenience they are classified in the IDEAS category.

[23] For example, the amount of data that will be produced by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will be colossal and require major advances in GRID network technology to handle it.

[24] Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, Report of the Blue Ribbon NSF Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure, Dan Atkins (Chair), October 2002. The report estimates that an increase of about $1 billion per year is required by FY 2008.

[25] A number of these studies are listed and referenced on page 18 of this report.