(Reproduced with permission of AT&T)Throughout its history, the National Science Foundation has fostered and strengthened America's capacity to excel in science, mathematics, and engineering. NSF has done this by promoting the pursuit of excellence in research and education in all fields of science and engineering, and by providing leadership and stewardship for institutions engaged in learning and discovery.
Today, the importance of NSF as a critical investment in the Nation's future is increasingly evident. As America looks beyond a world view shaped by the ColdWar, countless other challenges move to the forefront - securing long-term economic growth, protecting the quality of the environment, raising the scientific and technical skills of the workforce, building an information infrastructure, rebuilding the physical infrastructure, and generally improving the quality of life for all people. All of these challenges test the Nation's science and engineering capabilities, and meeting them requires sustained investments in fundamental research and education. The recent report on science policy issued by President Clinton and Vice President Gore - Science In the National Interest - underscores this very point. The report opens by saying, "America's future demands investment in our people, institutions, and ideas. Science is an essential part of this investment, an endless and sustainable resource with extraordinary dividends."
In providing leadership for research and education activities, NSF takes advantage of its unique position in the government's portfolio of R&D programs. NSF's budget accounts for only four percent of Federal research and development spending. Its investments must be catalytic, if they are to be influential. NSF focuses on academic institutions, supporting over twenty-five percent of the basic research they conduct. This focus has led to a longstanding, synergistic partnership between NSF and the academic enterprise, one that provides the Nation with a continuous supply of both new knowledge and future generations of scientists, engineers, educators, and other technically-trained professionals. The partners share both the opportunities and responsibilities of recognizing and responding to the challenges of the present and the future, be they readying the industrial base for competition in the global marketplace, updating school math and science curricula to meet the needs of all students, or observing and studying a rare, awe-inspiring event like this summer's collision between Comet Shoemaker/Levy 9 and the planet Jupiter.
First and foremost, even though science and technology remain priority areas for Federal investments, the overwhelming need to reduce the Federal budget deficit makes clear that NSF must set rigorous priorities based on realistic budgetary expectations, develop effective mechanisms for evaluation and assessment, and promote partnerships with other agencies and institutions. NSF must develop the mechanisms to determine where activities must be started, sustained, or phased down and the strength to act on these determinations.
Second, NSF's longest-standing partners - the Nation's colleges and universities- are facing an era of reduced growth in resources and major changes in the demographics of their enrollments. These shifts and their impact on the continued health and vitality of the academic enterprise will lead to modifications in the character of its partnership with NSF. This evolution deserves careful consideration in NSF's planning.
Third, the emerging challenges and opportunities of an evolving American workforce require that NSF devote increased attention to addressing the scientific and technological skills necessary for the workplace and to ensuring that all members of our society have a real opportunity to succeed in attaining them.
Fourth and finally, numerous other changes - such as restructurings of industrial research, efforts by states to understand and coordinate their science and technology bases, the increasingly global nature of research, new appreciation for the interdependence of basic research and its potential uses, and the growing importance of science and technology in daily life - impel the Foundation to reexamine how it structures its programs, develops priorities, and communicates the importance of the activities it supports.
The purpose of this strategic plan is to strengthen NSF's position to address and respond to these and other changes and challenges that are reshaping society's rationale for investments in science, mathematics, and engineering. In its development, NSF has drawn upon the same wealth of ideas emerging from the science and engineering community that shaped Science in the National Interest. The plan contains many of the same themes and describes the Foundation's view of its role in fulfilling the Administration's objectives for investments in research and education.
(Reproduced with permission of AT&T)
Caption: Advanced materials research provides new insight into the
structureof matter.
In summary, this plan provides a starting point and directional guide for choosing among the many possible future paths that lie before NSF. It begins with three essential points of reference for the Foundation: a bold vision for the agency's future, a contemporary interpretation of its statutory mission, and a new formulation of its goals.