VI. FEDERAL AND NON-FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH
IN ACADEMIC MATHEMATICAL SCIENCE

Federal support

The U.S. mathematical sciences rest on a narrow base of support. The NSF provides the majority of support for mathematical research in U.S. universities and institutions.

Source(see Endnote 21)

The percentage of support supplied by NSF has grown in recent years -- not because of significant growth in the NSF/DMS budget, but because of significant cutbacks by other agencies, especially DoD. Traditionally, these agencies have used a larger percentage of their budget for the support of graduate and postdoctoral students than has DMS; hence, these cutbacks have a significant negative impact on student opportunities. Because NSF now provides such a large fraction of the support for research in the mathematical sciences, it has both a high level of responsibility for the stewardship of the mathematical sciences and high leverage in enforcing change.

As the David I (op. cit.) and David II(see Endnote 22) reports made clear, federal funding for the mathematical sciences is disproportionately low compared to funding for the other sciences and engineering. The discrepancy in funding carries over to support for graduate students and postdoctorates.

Source of Support for Graduate Students (see Endnote 23)

Science Postdoctoral Appointees in
Doctorate Grantship Institutions(see Endnote 24)

The NSF, because of its dominant role in funding mathematics, provides a much larger share of federal funding for the mathematical sciences than it does for the physical and biological sciences and engineering. The lack of broader support for the mathematical sciences among the federal agencies significantly contributes to instability within this field and to the danger of losing the U.S. position of leadership.

This difference in support greatly undermines the mathematical sciences within the universities, especially when the mathematical sciences department sits in a college of science or engineering. Too many universities judge the quality of a department by the indirect costs it generates rather than by its standing relative to other departments in same discipline. Because federal funding for the mathematical sciences is so much lower than for the other sciences and engineering (see Table below), the mathematical sciences are judged within universities not as research departments but as service teaching units and are funded accordingly. One consequence is that the mathematical science faculty teach twice the number of courses as do other scientists and hence have less time for research.

Source(see Endnote 26)

Unfortunately, many U.S. universities use generation of external funding as a significant measure in making tenure decisions. Given the underfunding of the mathematical sciences, many worthy young researchers do not obtain funding and so fail to obtain tenure. This situation reduces the appeal of the mathematical sciences as a career. Given the essential role of the mathematical sciences in future scientific endeavors, the United States cannot expect to remain in the forefront of science without adequately funding the mathematical sciences.

The current funding imbalance of support of graduate students and postdoctorates between that for the mathematical sciences and that for the other sciences follows several decades of policy changes. Throughout the sixties, Federal support for graduate students in the mathematical sciences was on a par with the other sciences, with most of the funding coming via the Department of Education as authorized by the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). At the end of that decade, there was a surplus of new science doctorates and funding for NDEA ceased. At that time, NSF placed its emphasis on research and the charge to develop the next generation of scientists was not a priority. Between 1969 and 1972, the number of federally funded Predoctoral Fellowships and Traineeships in the mathematical sciences dropped from 1,179 to fewer than 150, and the number of full-time fellowships and research assistantships is not much larger today. When NDEA funding ended, the lab sciences successfully argued that they needed graduate assistants and postdoctorates to carry on their research, and funding for such was included in NSF grants to principal investigators in the lab sciences, but not for those in the mathematical sciences. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Foundation was funding 1,200 postdoctorates in physics and twice that number in chemistry, but only 56 in the mathematical sciences. The David I report of 1984 made a strong case for correcting this imbalance of support. However, this has not occurred, even at a time when the Foundation has again begun to emphasize both research and education and the integration of both.

Non-Federal support

The major source of non-federal support for the mathematical sciences is the major research universities. They have provided a limited number of research professorships and a limited number of research instructorships for recent doctorates. In addition, some portion of academic appointments are for research. Currently, via teaching assistantships, universities are providing the bulk of support for doctoral students.

Academic mathematics receives relatively little direct support from the private sector. Industry provides substantial industrial support for areas that use mathematics (computer science, communications, bioinformatics, engineering, earth sciences), but this support favors scientists and engineers in allied disciplines rather than trained mathematicians. The U.S. insurance and finance companies, whose employees receive their basic education in the mathematical sciences and who continue to collaborate and consult with academic mathematical sciences faculty, also provide little direct support. This is not the case in England, where similar businesses have a tradition of investing in mathematics departments.

Direct industrial investment in the mathematical sciences is largely restricted to areas of applications. Although there are rare exceptions (e.g., limited unrestricted funding for internal mathematics by Lucent, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, NSA, and NEC), most industrial mathematics focuses on short-term product applications. Targeted funding also predominates in other arenas where mathematics is used heavily--finance, government, and corporate laboratories.

The flux of foreign-trained professional mathematicians into U.S. universities and businesses brings both a high level of skill and a hidden form of support: These individuals represent substantial educational investments by their native countries. However, foreign professionals may not have long-term commitments to U.S. interests. Further, changes in emigration policies or economic opportunities could restrict this flow quickly and even reverse it. Rapid changes of this nature could undermine the health of certain U.S. universities and industries.

Because of the academic orientation of U.S. mathematical scientists, there is scant evidence of the entrepreneurism that prevails in the other sciences, particularly in chemistry, materials science, molecular biology, computer science, and engineering. For examples, few of the NSF Science and Technology centers have a strong mathematical orientation. The lack of an entrepreneurial environment in the mathematical sciences restricts potential sources of external funding and reduces the earning power of students who aim primarily for academic employment.