his career progresses, he tends to adapt his 

 investigations to the sources of funding, rather 

 than to the imaginative and creative research of 

 his own choosing, on which the important 

 scientific advances ultimately depend. 



SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL 

 PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 



A few Federal laboratory respondents noted 

 problems not only in bringing on new young 

 talent, but also higher-level talent. The ceiling 

 on Civil Service salaries was cited as precluding 

 the recruitment of the best scientists for 

 positions of leadership in Federal laboratories. 

 This problem appeared particulai I- acute in the 

 biomedical fields, where academic and in- 

 dustrial salaries are high. 



The ceiling on Civil Service salaries is one 

 element of a much larger problem described by a 

 number of Federal laboratory respondents — 

 what they see as incompatibilities between 

 Civil Service regulations and procedures and 

 the needs of R&D management. Attempts to 

 control expenditures over the past several years 

 are seen as having given rise to a number of 

 practices severely limiting personnel manage- 

 ment flexibility at the laboratory level. Direc- 

 tors of laboratories of the armed services, citing 

 particulars of retrenchment actions, attributed 

 these actions to overall DOD policy to reduce 

 the share of basic research conducted by 

 intramural DOD laboratories and to increase 

 the share done by extramural performers. In a 

 lengthy, detailed critique of new Navy 

 regulations aimed at reducing the Navy's 

 intramural science and technology base, J. T. 

 Geary, Director of the Naval Research 

 Laboratory, described how those regulations 

 have created, in his view, "an environment 

 which tends to frustrate rather than enhance 

 productive R&D": 



Specifically, these policies impose ceiling 

 limitations irrespective of the work requirements, 

 the responsibilities, and the competence of a 

 laboratory. . . 



Although average grade, high grade and 

 supergrade limitations are designed to prevent 

 so-called grade "creep" prevalent in the civil 

 service, this policy when applied to Navy 

 laboratories fails to recognize that quality, 

 innovative R&D is dependent on the highest 

 individual competence. In order to foster this 

 competence, managers must have the capability 

 and freedom to create a career pattern com- 

 petitive with other institutions and commensurate 

 with the quality and stature of the individual. This 

 is in direct contrast to the typical bureaucratic 

 institution with fixed organizational positions, 

 which rely much less on individual creativity. 



Personnel ceilings, grade restrictions, and 

 Civil Service regulations are all elements of the 

 larger problem of maintaining a creative 

 research environment in Federal laboratories 

 and hence insuring vitality. As I. A. Wolff, 

 Director of the Eastern Regional Research 

 Center, Agricultural Research Service, de- 

 scribed it: 



Older standards of excellence have in many 

 places given way to an 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 

 syndrome. Standards are lowered, a 

 phenomenon that can begin in educational 

 institutions. As a response to the anti-science 

 attitude of the last several years some scientists 

 themselves are becoming more inflexible in their 

 thinking. We must try again to recreate the 

 excitement of personal discovery, the satisfac- 

 tions of basic achievements, and the kind of 

 research groups that reinforce accomplishments 

 possibly understandable only within the scientific 

 community. The public image of scientists must 

 be elevated to keep topnotch individuals in basic 

 research yet permit them adequate ego- 

 satisfaction and monetary returns. 



The personnel management problems of 

 Federal laboratories have their parallels in 

 other sectors of the R&D community, although 

 they are manifested elsewhere in somewhat 

 different forms. 



On the environments for creative scientists 

 and engineers, Mark Shepherd, Jr., President, 

 Texas Instruments, Inc.. wrote: 



In my judgment, the most productive mode of 



VITALITY OF THE RESEARCH SYSTEM 



53 



