ty of pressures similar to those at most research 

 establishments during the late 1960"s and 1970"s. 

 It is easier to discuss the cause of these pressures 

 than to quantify them or their effects. There has 

 been a constantly increasing number of congres- 

 sional acts and executive branch directives man- 

 dating that NBS provide short-term services. The 

 demands of the other agencies for short-term 

 technical assistance in performing their missions 

 has grown markedly. The demand for paperwork 

 in justification has grown. Because of the in- 

 creased sophistication of technology and the se- 

 verity of some of the aftereffects of technology, 

 NBS services have become more complex techni- 

 cally and increasingly require interdisciplinary 

 program management. All of these increased 

 demands on the Bureau have occurred during a 

 time when the personnel ceiling and constant dol- 

 lars were essentially static. Deterioration of the 

 environment for science as seen by the scientist 

 was inevitable. Scientists have been redirected 

 from basic research to short-term projects and/or 

 program management tending to drive out long- 

 term concerns. Although statistics do not tell the 

 whole story, they are informative. 



In 1975, the congressionally mandated Visiting 

 Committee for NBS sponsored a major study of 

 the "state of health of research at NBS," chaired 

 by Professor R. Dicke of Princeton University, 

 who is a member of the NBS Statutory Visiting 

 Committee, and A. McCoubrey, Director the 

 NBS Institute for Basic Standards. As part of this 

 study, middle managers (Division Chiefs) were 

 asked to estimate the amounts of long-term disci- 

 plinary research in their organizations in 1965 and 

 1975. (Long-term disciplinary research is synony- 

 mous with basic research as defined in this arti- 

 cle.) In the predominantly science areas — Insti- 

 tutes for Basic Standards (IBS), and Materials 

 (IMR) — this research decreased from about 35 per- 

 cent of the total work in 1965 to about 17 percent 

 in 1975, averaged over all the Divisions. In the 

 applied areas — Institutes for Applied Technology 

 (lAT), and Computer Sciences and Technology 

 (ICST) — the corresponding reductions were 5 per- 

 cent to 2 percent. The middle managers thought 

 that the optimum levels for such research at NBS 

 were about 25 percent and 30 percent in the sci- 

 ence areas and 10 percent in the applied areas. 

 These estimates by the middle managers are 

 about as accurate an assessment of trends and the 

 desired level of aggregated basic science at NBS 

 as can be obtained. 



At NBS and elsewhere in the Nation the cli- 

 mate surrounding the conduct of basic research 

 has inevitably suffered in recent years from the 

 external pressures on research. While the closer 

 coupling of science to technology has been bene- 



46 COMMERCE 



ficial in many cases, the climate for long-term re- 

 search has suflFered. If this climate is to be im- 

 proved, a more explicit recognition is needed 

 throughout the Federal S&T governmental struc- 

 ture of the value of basic research to the institu- 

 tional health and vigor of a mission-oriented labo- 

 ratory. This climate could also be improved by a 

 more explicit recognition of the fact that the vital 

 core of a basic research program is its scientific 

 merit and creativity. A better climate would prob- 

 ably exist if the evaluations of programs in the 

 budgetary process considered the intrinsic scien- 

 tific and technical merit of the research involved, 

 and relevance was measured against the long-term 

 mission of the laboratory as well as the short-term 

 effectiveness. 



A scientific group of high vitality and creativity 

 is characterized by a free-flowing atmosphere of 

 ideas and people. A greater flow of people into and 

 out of NBS would improve the research climate. 

 In addition to improving the quality of in-house 

 research, this flow provides the staff with a win- 

 dow on developments in basic science. That is, 

 this flow helps the NBS staff keep aware of new 

 developments in science elsewhere which have the 

 possibility of having future impact on the NBS 

 mission. Both kinds of people movement are desir- 

 able — sabbatical-like leaves for the permanent 

 staff, and expanded opportunities for selected sci- 

 entists to visit NBS for extended periods. Indeed, 

 the general level of people-exchange among the 

 research organizations of the Nation is probably 

 not at an optimum level for the most creative ex- 

 change of ideas. The NBS postdoctoral program 

 addresses this issue and is highly valued. The mat- 

 ter of travel, which is a perennial issue in the Fed- 

 eral Government, also contributes to this flow of 

 ideas by staff attendance at conferences, etc., and 

 is crucial for the research staff. 



Finally, there is the matter of equipment. NBS 

 has been engaged since 1974 in a program of capi- 

 tal equipment modernization. While this program 

 is in effect, a reasonable rate of modernization 

 can be accomplished, and the most serious defi- 

 ciencies will be ameliorated. 



A more fundamental question regarding equip- 

 ment which transcends NBS is the proper use of a 

 wide-spectrum Federal research installation like 

 NBS as a site for placing major facilities that are 

 available to other scientists on a regional or even 

 a national basis. NBS presently operates a num- 

 ber of facilities in this way (e.g., an excellent nu- 

 clear reactor, an electron accelerator (LINAC), a 

 synchrotron light source, mechanical testing 

 machine, etc.). However, this general principle 

 has a deeper basis. In the sciences generally there 

 is a pervasive increase in the cost of the tools for 

 doing research, which escalates faster than the 



