26 THE FIVE-YEAR OUTLOOK 



needed for research and development have been increas- 

 ing, as has been the importance of science- and technol- 

 ogy-based innovation to our national well-being. Hence, 

 better scientific information and better knowledge about 

 its potential application will be needed to make informed 

 decisions about the allocation of resources for research 

 and development activities in both the public and the 

 private sectors (NRC-Obs.). Some general issues associ- 

 ated with the allocation of resources for research and 

 development have been treated in Sections B and C of this 

 chapter, and others are highlighted on a case-by-case basis 

 in Chapter II. 



More broadly, scientific data, constructs, and meth- 

 odologies have become essential tools for making policy 

 decisions in areas not so directly related to scientific and 

 technological activities and developments. Such concepts 

 as externalities, identity crisis. Gross National Product, 

 assimilation, the hidden economy, and unanticipated con- 

 sequences have provided the basis for organizing the 

 empirical data needed for assessing the social and eco- 

 nomic condition of the country and for forecasting proba- 

 ble consequences of various policy alternatives (SSRC-I ). 



The second notable trend is the phenomenal expansion 

 in both the amount of available information and the elec- 

 tronic capabilities for handling and providing access to it. 

 As the infonnation revolution penetrates more deeply into 

 the U.S. social and economic fabric, issues related to the 

 production, transmission, and use of the expanded and 

 more accessible pool of information, including scientific 

 and technological information, will become increasingly 

 important (AAAS-1: AAAS-3; AAAS-6). 



Finally, there appears to be a growing perception that 

 the regulatory mechanisms adopted during the 1970s to 

 manage the risks that are inevitable outgrowths of our 

 science- and technology-based industrial society may in 

 some cases be inadequate and in others even coun- 

 terproductive to achieving desired social goals. The role 

 of the Federal Government in the regulatory sphere has in 

 itself become an important policy issue. Thus, the need 

 for better infonnation and for improved analytical tools to 

 assess, compare, and manage risks as a basis for develop- 

 ing regulations and to evaluate the costs and benefits of 

 alternative regulatory strategies is likely to become in- 

 creasingly pressing (AAAS-I). 



The rest of this section focuses on those two latter 

 trends and associated sets of issues: the availability of 

 information, and the use of scientific and technological 

 infonnation in the regulatory sphere. 



society, were treated extensively in the first Five-Year 

 Outlook on science and technology and in its Source 

 Volume.' Both the rapidity and the flexibility with which 

 infonnation of all sorts can be produced, processed, trans- 

 mitted, stored, and retrieved have continued to grow dur- 

 ing the past 2 years. That is particularly true of scientific 

 and technological information. Examples of new oppor- 

 tunities afforded by the expanding information ca- 

 pabilities appear throughout this report. 



CONSTRAINTS ON THE AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION 



While the total amount of available scientific infonnation 

 will continue to grow rapidly, specific types of informa- 

 tion needed by decisionmakers may not be readily avail- 

 able. Scientific information is the result of scientific 

 research, be it laboratory research, or survey or field 

 research. Therefore, the availability of scientific informa- 

 tion is constrained by the same internal factors ( such as the 

 state of knowledge in particular critical fields) and exter- 

 nal factors (such as available financial, personnel, and 

 equipment resources) that constrain scientific research 

 itself. 



Regulations on scientific activity are. in some cases, 

 another important constraint on the availability of infor- 

 mation that could be particularly useful for decisionmak- 

 ing. Overly stringent informed consent protocols may, for 

 example, limit the availability of cntical survey or field 

 research data (see below). Likewise, regulations designed 

 to protect the confidentiality of individual medical records 

 may limit the availability of data needed for epidemiologi- 

 cal studies. 



The availability of information for decisionmaking and 

 policymaking is also constrained by data management 

 problems. The rate at which both the production of scien- 

 tific information and the information-handling ca- 

 pabilities have been growing qualifies as an information 

 explosion. That situation has, in turn, increased the diffi- 

 culties of aggregating needed information in a form useful 

 for decisionmaking and policymaking. The sheer bulk of 

 available information poses problems in sorting out the 

 more usable, better quality materials from those of lesser 

 quality. Current information-handling technologies do not 

 have that capability and may even exacerbate the problem 

 since they frequently "'dilute'" information for easy use. 

 Some observers have characterized the whole set of prob- 

 lems, which can make the effective use of scientific and 

 technological information difficult, as "information pol- 

 lution" (AAAS-3). 



MAXIMIZING THE AVAILABILITY AND UTILITY 

 OF INFORMATION FOR DECISIONMAKING AND 

 POLICYMAKING 



The rapid convergence of computer and communications 

 technologies that constitutes the electronics revolution. 

 and the effects of that revolution on several sectors of 



CONCEPTUAL ISSUES 



In some important respects, the problem of maximizing 

 the availability of scientific information for policymaking 

 and decisionmaking begins with the problem of maintain- 

 ing and strengthening the science and technology base. 



