stitutions have been established in this country 

 on the FFRDC model, and that for these 

 institutions to operate in a rational and effective 

 manner, they require some assurance of pre- 

 dictable funding over a period of years so that 

 they may amortize the vast investments they 

 must make in facilities and equipment. 

 Respondents also noted that there is no 

 "market" on which big science institutions can 

 base their future resource calculations; support 

 is a matter of government budgetary decision. 

 The comments of Edwin L. Goldwasser, Deputy 

 Director of the Fermi National Accelerator 

 Laboratory, which houses the world's most 

 powerful nuclear particle accelerator, reflect 

 this concern: 



In order to plan effectively the activities of a basic 

 research laboratory, it is desirable to have a 

 substantial degree of stability in the support of 

 the laboratory or, if not in the support itself, at 

 least in the knowledge of what the support will be. 

 Thus, if construction of a major research facility is 

 undertaken, that commitment should be made 

 only hand in hand with a concomitant commit- 

 ment to support the use of that facility at some 

 pre-established level for a reasonable number of 

 years after construction is complete. 



Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Director of the 

 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), 

 another FFRDC, described the situation he faces 

 in even more specific terms: 



There are innumerable decisions which have to 

 be made in themanagementof SLAC which imply 

 commitments over many years. The simple 

 approval of an experiment to be run in one of 

 SLAC's beams initiates a chain of events from 

 experimental design to final publication, which 

 might take three to four years. Design and 

 construction of a major experimental piece of 

 equipment to be used at SLAC might span a 

 three-year period. 



The total time over which effective exploitation of 

 a key high energy physics facility comes to 

 diminishing returns might be a decade or more, 

 so that before then, either a major improvement 

 program or a replacement program should be 

 initiated. . . . 



The present funding cycle of the Federal Govern- 

 ment is difficult to reconcile with the above time- 

 scale, unless it is accompanied with some type of 

 "best-efforts" commitment, at least within the 

 Executive Branch, that certain longer-range 

 plans or guidelines are to be followed. 



Government sector letters bring home the 

 point that, at one time, Federal laboratories 

 were regarded as stable institutions. These 

 laboratories could depend upon a base level of 

 funding from year to year, and were, at least in 

 this respect, ideal for long-term efforts. What is 

 of deep concern to the respondents is the 

 unstable atmosphere allegedly created during 

 the past several years by impoundments of 

 funds, delays in the passage of appropriations, 

 numerous reorganizations, and a variety of 

 short-term policy shifts. 



Respondents in this sector felt that in some 

 ways Federal laboratories still provide a more 

 sheltered environment for research than do 

 extramural performers. Nevertheless, a con- 

 scious policy of limiting the size of the Federal 

 payroll (as well as that of the FFRDC's), the 

 Defense Department's decision to shift more of 

 its basic research from in-house laboratories to 

 extramural performers, and the overall 

 pressures toward relevance and short-term 

 payoffs in research policy have tended, in the 

 opinion of the respondents, to place the basic 

 research components of Federal laboratories 

 and FFRDC's in a precarious position. 



SUMMARY 



By means of quotations, this chapter has 

 illustrated respondents' concerns related to 

 dependability in the funding for research in 

 each of the major sectors of the U.S. research 

 system. Respondents maintained that research, 

 and especially basic research, whether con- 

 ducted as an individual project or through the 

 deployment of expensive resources in a large 

 facility, requires dependability, stability, and 

 continuity in funding in order to achieve 

 maximum productivity. 



DEPENDABILITY IN FUNDING FOR RESEARCH 



43 



