August 5, 1971
Page 30002
THE CRISIS IN ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a growing but little noted crisis is at the heart of American higher education. The crisis was created in Washington and it can only be ended in Washington. Its resolution requires a hard look at Federal policy toward the funding of academic science. Such a policy has never before been clearly formulated. The national defense, Sputnik, the burgeoning student population, and mounting social ills spurred the growth of federally sponsored science research in our colleges and universities. What ultimately emerged was the product of a hodgepodge of responses to short term pressures. But as long as the total input of Federal funds increased annually at a healthy rate, the policies under which the money was disbursed were seldom re-examined.
Of course, there were a few doubters even in the early stages. Years ago, some questioned whether it was wise to use the then sacrosanct umbrella of the Department of Defense budget as a cover for research vital to the national interest, but not to the national defense. The reply was that it was easier to use the defense budget than to try to educate the public about the crucial role of scientific research. Hence, much research in the sciences – physical, social, and biological – research which was germane and vital to the longrun interests of society apart from the matter of national security – came to be hidden behind the defense shield. The public in turn remained ignorant of the real substantive value of such research.
At the same time, a few voices questioned whether it was wise to subsidize higher education covertly through Federal research grants and contracts. Again, we were told that the indirect route was easier than persuading the public to favor direct public support for colleges and universities. And again the warning voices were drowned in a flood of Federal research dollars.
From 1960 through 1967, Federal funds for research and development at universities and colleges grew from $458.6 million to $1.46 billion, an average growth rate of $140 million per year. This substantial, sustained, and fairly constant rate of growth had three basic effects. First, it produced a set of expectations on the basis of which longterm plans and capital investments were made. Careers were committed to programs and millions of dollars were put into expensive research equipment like cyclotrons and linear accelerators. Second, the growth in Federal research funds made it possible for a burgeoning student population to be accommodated by a comparable growth in faculty and space in higher education. Finally, the growth in research support produced an enormous increase in our body of scientific knowledge and technology.
Whole fields of inquiry, such as plasma physics, came to maturity and the interactions between theoreticians and experimenters led to a dynamic, vibrant, and productive scientific community.
But as the economy plunged into recession, Federal support for academic research was hard hit.
In 1969, Federal support grew by only $36 million, as against the average of $140 million per year from 1960-68. The most severe shock occurred in 1970, when there was not only inadequate growth, but an actual reduction of support to the tune of $62 million. While 1971 saw an increase of $107 million, the average increase across 1970 and 1971 was only one-fifth as much. These crippling reductions in the growth of Federal aid for academic research, taken in conjunction with the impact of inflation, have generated a substantial gap between where we are and where we were going, according to even the conservative estimate of Lee DuBridge, the President's former science adviser. Dr. DuBridge has proposed that the funding level of 1968 – $1.5 billion – be taken as a base and that growth should be at a current dollar rate of 6 percent per year, yielding a growth rate in real dollars of 1 percent per year. Others have suggested that the minimum rate should be twice that. However, even by DuBridge's criteria, we now have a $250 million funding gap.
There is little question that the changing state of the economy had to have some impact on Federal support for academic science. That is not the issue. What is at issue is the extent of the reduction and the way in which it was managed. In the pattern of management alone, there is a stunning indictment of the basic flaws in Federal policy toward academic research.
MANAGEMENT WITHOUT POLICY
The number of total cutbacks in support do not tell the whole story. The manner in which the cutbacks were imposed has compounded the damage beyond the capacity of aggregate figures to describe. An examination of some actual cases reveals the full extent of the disaster. Examine just three: first, the very specific case, the termination of a pilot project in arthritis control; second, the pattern of practices in a particular agency, the National Institutes of Health.
THE ARTHRITIS CONTROL PROJECT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
In 1969, the Public Health Service awarded a major contract to the University of Michigan for a project in arthritis control. The contract was for $100,000 per year, and although the contract was in keeping with the Federal practice of contracting on a year by year basis, there was a clear understanding that the grant would run for 5 years if performance was satisfactory. This award had been made after a very hard competition among some of the finest schools in the country. It was generally agreed by those judging the competition that the Michigan proposal was of truly extraordinary quality.
Indeed, even the prior planning had been very thorough. As a result, the money, which became available on July 1, 1969, was already working to treat patients by September 1. But that fall, the director of the program, Dr. Ivan Duff, read one morning in the newspaper that 8 out of 11 chronic disease programs in the Public Health Service were to be eliminated. Listed among those to be discontinued was arthritis control. This was the very first word that he had that there was any problem with the future of the Michigan program. What followed was a long and frustrating series of attempts to reverse the Government's decision. Senator HART and Senator Yarborough and Senator MAGNUSON were very active in the fight to keep the program alive.
Various rationales were offered for its termination. At first, it was argued that the anti-arthritis effort had to be discontinued due to an administrative reorganization. In that reorganization, the program had been assigned to the Regional Health Service, and unfortunately there was no budget for it in that department. The argument that funding should also have been reassigned was to no avail. Other rationales were offered as well, the final one being that the legislative language did not authorize the specific Michigan program. The arguments that proponents of the program had twice testified before Congressional committees and that on the basis of Congressional legislation the Public Health Service had in fact awarded the contract also proved futile. The program was discontinued.
Interestingly, at no point was any argument offered to the effect that the program was not properly run or that it was less deserving of support than others funded by the Federal Government at that time. Such behavior on the part of the Government deters the best research people from participating in federally sponsored programs.
CUTBACKS IN THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION DIVISION OF RESEARCH
At last report, the Atomic Energy Commission was completely terminating 136 research contracts totaling $7.5 million. It is interesting to note the two main rationales offered to support these terminations. First, the AEC argued that it was reexamining projects to see if they were truly within its mission. That such examinations should have been made before the contracts were awarded and huge investments of time, professional effort, and money were made seems not to have been a consideration.
The other basic rationale offered was that some projects were terminated because it was felt that other agencies should pick them up. The National Science Foundation, in particular, was an often mentioned source of funds for projects discontinued by the AEC. However, even if the full Presidential request for NSF projects is authorized and appropriated, that foundation will not be able to pick up more than half of the funding of projects dropped by the AEC. These projects must compete not only with each other, but with programs and grant proposals formerly under the defense budget, as well as with the normal set of applications to NSF. Here again, the personnel involved can make little or no inference about the likelihood of their project being picked up by another agency simply on the basis of its quality. The quality and likely success of a project are no longer the relevant criteria. Instead, the criteria seems to be whether some agency somewhere can squeeze the project into both its mission and its budget. Mission and budget are obviously appropriate standards – at the point of soliciting proposals and awarding initial contracts. However, to apply them after projects are underway is to demoralize the personnel involved and to throw away the gains their research could have attained.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE REDUCTION IN THE BUDGET OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Perhaps the clearest picture of the havoc wrought by current practices in the management of research fund reductions is to be found in a study of that process in the National Institutes of Health. In 1970, the NIH had its funding reduced by an average of 20 percent. While that is in itself a disturbingly large reduction, the way it was distributed multiplied the damage.
The National Institute of General and Medical Sciences – the major source of funding for basic research in this area – had its money for new research and renewals cut in half. It is difficult to conceive of a sound management procedure which would warrant a cut of such magnitude. In basic research, this is particularly unwise. Basic research is like capital growth – any short-term reduction has very high costs over the long run. The effect of the decision to cut general and medical services 50 percent has been to traumatize the research community – and to deny the country, for some time to come, knowledge and competence to protect health which were well within scientific grasp.
While basic research funding by NIH was traumatically reduced, funding for new research virtually disappeared in certain areas. In 1964, NIH funded more than 90 percent of the proposals which had been approved by its study sections. In 1970, the comparable funding rate for new research dropped to 50 percent – a startling reduction in terms of size and the area in which it was made. New projects are the lifeblood of a vibrant scientific community. Old ideas are challenged, and new breakthroughs guide even ongoing research. Again, the problem was further compounded by the way this disproportionate share of the reduction was distributed. Again, general and medical sciences absorbed a major portion of the reduction in support for new projects. In this area only 19 percent of the proposals approved by the study committees could be funded. Thus, the Nation is virtually guaranteed a major gap in this field of basic research 7 to 10 years hence.
THE NEED FOR CANDOR IN RESEARCH SUPPORT POLICY
There has been more than simply mismanagement in the reduction of funds for research. There has been a continuation of the misdirection of attention and the dissimulation to which the public has already been subjected for too long. A standard practice for obscuring the reduction in funding for basic research has been to relabel what was previously applied research and call it basic research. As a result, Senator Mansfield's attempt to confine defense budget support to militarily relevant research is being undercut. It is none other than the Secretary of Defense who decides military relevance, and he need only decide that on the basis of "potential" relevance.
The games this permits the Government to play are both dangerous and self-defeating. The sensible alternative is to educate the public to the society's need for research support independent of our defense needs – and to support such research at the Federal level. The present tactic is a reversion to "faking" out the public for its own good. We have had far too much of that.
In 1971, the public is being misled into believing that there is significant real growth in funding for research. The case is too frequently made by pointing to the recent growth in the budget of the National Science Foundation. However, that is more illusory than real. The growth in that budget has not been sufficient even to offset the reduction in the research efforts of the Defense Department, the National Institutes of Health, and the Atomic Energy Commission. The fact is that the growth in research is practically zero, as present growth rates in funding barely keep abreast of inflation. The public deserves to know this and to know that such a growth rate is a disservice to themselves and to their children.
CONCLUSION
The picture which emerges from a study of Federal funding practices for academic research is not a happy one. Drastic, arbitrary, and apparently panicked decisions have been made, for example, in the general funding level for 1970. The distribution of reductions has borne little relationship to the quality, essentiality, or long-term promise of the projects in question. Indeed no such criteria have been applied.
The past few years have seen scientific research in colleges and universities treated in a manner truly unworthy of the contribution which research has made to our society. The next few years must see a complete change – to a policy of sufficient Federal support – growing at a sufficient and predictable annual rate – with enough funds for basic as well as applied research – and with management criteria that will assure continuity, rational allocation, and a better chance for progress in science and the progress science can give the Nation.