of representatives from several universities, for 

 the substantive program guidance of the laborato- 

 ry. There has been some criticism of this mechan- 

 ism, which limits council activities to program 

 guidance, with the managers from the contracting 

 university generally dominating the operation. 



Since World War II, many such arrangements 

 have been made, including those with the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago for the Argonne National Labo- 

 ratory, the University of California at Berkeley 

 for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the 

 E. O. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Cor- 

 nell University for the National Astronomy and 

 Ionosphere Center at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. 



At the close of the war, recognizing the need 

 for large, expensive, specialized facilities to be 

 available to scientists from many universities and 

 laboratories, a group of five scientists led by I. I. 

 Rabi proposed the formation of a corporation to 

 manage the Manhattan District Engineers' pro- 

 posed facility at Brookhaven, Long Island. These 

 scientists, with the consent of the command of 

 the Manhattan District Engineers, chartered the 

 Associated Universities, Incorporated (AUI), 

 under the Board of Regents of the State of New 

 York. Under this charter, 18 trustees were to be 

 elected by the board from a slate made up of one 

 scientist and one administrator proposed by each 

 of nine sponsoring universities. Originally three 

 but now six trustees-at-large also are elected to 

 the board by its membership. The trustees elect 

 the officers of the corporation, the president be- 

 coming a trustee ex-officio. The trustees, as the 

 governing body of the corporation, are responsi- 

 ble for the overall management and direction of 

 activities. They serve in their own right but have 

 access to the sponsoring universities for advice in 

 carrying out their responsibilities. This arrange- 

 ment was so successful that it has been copied 

 (with appropriate modification) in the management 

 of similar activities. 



In other consortia the membership generally 

 consists of a group of universities, each an institu- 

 tional member of the corporation with selected 

 representatives on a governing board. The consor- 

 tium assumes the responsibility for management 

 with the individual university generally supplying 

 guidance through its board representation. The 

 board hires a president to look after consortium 

 management responsibilities, selects the directors 

 of the laboratories, and oversees the program 

 management in accordance with their contract 

 with the responsible Government agency. 



Because newly formed consortia generally have 

 few fiscal assets, agencies allow for direct charges 

 in the contract and, in addition, negotiate a man- 

 agement fee or allowance, which covers the costs 



274 AGENCY SUPPORT OF BASIC RESEARCH BY FIELD OF SCIENCE 



of the consortium's own management expenses 

 plus some additional funds to permit the accumu- 

 lation of a modest fiscal reserve for emergency 

 expenses. Most consortia have established com- 

 mittees and user panels to obtain special program 

 advice and to insure that staff and nonstaif scien- 

 tific research personnel using the laboratory have 

 fair access. 



At first there was a tendency to create a new 

 consortium for each new laboratory, but after a 

 certain number had been created, it was found 

 more practical to ask one already established to 

 undertake additional management responsibility. 

 AUI, for instance, undertook construction of the 

 National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) 

 at Greenbank, W. Va., and later lent its manage- 

 ment capabilities to the center. It has since under- 

 taken the construction of the Very Large Array 

 (VLA) for radio astronomy in New Mexico with 

 the NRAO staff undertaking essentially the day- 

 to-day management of the construction. 



Almost every combination of advisory arrange- 

 ment has been used in the organization of these 

 consortia, all with some success. Such arrange- 

 ments help guarantee governing bodies that under- 

 stand basic research and can call upon the most 

 capable scientists to help plan and direct the pro- 

 grams in the laboratories; this is considered to be 

 a valuable national asset. 



Oceanographic Ship Operations 



With the establishment of the Directorate for 

 National and International Programs in the fall of 

 1969, NSF recognized the need to focus special 

 attention on management problems arising from 

 the support of costly research facilities. Manage- 

 ment problems with the national laboratories had 

 been dealt with through the assignment of man- 

 agement, program review, and evaluation to con- 

 tractor organizations. In 1969, oceanographic ship 

 operations and construction support were identi- 

 fied as prime candidates for improved manage- 

 ment. The first step was to consolidate operation- 

 al support, upkeep, and construction responsibili- 

 ties into a single office in the directorate. This ac- 

 tion could be considered responsive to the recom- 

 mendations of the Commission on Marine Sci- 

 ence, Engineering and Resources, published in 

 Our Nation and the Sea.^ During the same year, 

 NSF was assigned responsibility for the major 

 new effort in ocean sciences, termed the Interna- 



''Report of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering 

 and Resources, Our Nation and the Sea. A Plan for National 

 Action (CPO: Washington. January 1969). 



