can be given a quick review at the faculty member 

 level and then, after that evaluation, used as the 

 basis for seeking larger amounts of support from 

 external sources. Support of a new imaginative 

 young faculty member at this stage of his career 

 can be extremely important and, of course, very 

 productive in the practical sense. 



A. R. Chamberlain, President of Colorado 

 State University, considered institutional sup- 

 port the answer to what he sees as the 

 fragmentation of university funding and of 

 university efforts. 



The universities need financial support on an 

 institutional basis, supplementing the project 

 approach now so dominant, that permits a 

 university administration to have a leadership 

 role in resource allocation for program priorities 

 that are institutionally determined by the joint 

 involvement of campus administration and facul- 

 ty. To do less will leave research and graduate 

 education to be pressed by project grants into a 

 further hodge-podge of isolated projects with no 

 coherent institutional programmatic theme. Such 

 a consequence leads to inefficient use of 

 funds . . . 



Randal M. Robertson, Dean, Research Divi- 

 sion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, shared 

 these sentiments and applied them to Research 

 Universities II: 



The need for continuity could be met by providing 

 more support through a formula system such as 

 the Hatch Act provides for agricultural research. 

 Such support should give funds to an institution 

 for a continuously renegotiated set of projects. 

 The competitive proposal system, with its all or 

 nothing feature, destroys continuity at the 

 departmental level at institutions where the 

 resulting statistical fluctuations are significant in 

 comparison to the research activity level. This is 

 especially true at the "second fifty" institutions. 

 Some combination of continuing formula support 

 and competitive grants and contracts would seem 

 the best combination for the basic research 

 enterprise. Formula funds should be provided 

 directly from a Federal agency to a responsible 

 institution, not through a state agency or through 

 revenue sharing. 



INDEPENDENT 

 RESEARCH INSTITUTES 



Among the presidents and the directors of 

 independent research institutes, the need for 

 long-term continuity in funding ranked first. 

 The need for a coherent national science policy 

 for IRI's was second, and the need for additional 

 research funding ranked fourth. These three 

 issues are the major components of depend- 

 ability in funding for research as seen at 

 independent research institutes. 



Bowen C. Dees, President, The Franklin 

 Institute, provides a background for ap- 

 preciating the issues involving dependability in 

 funding for research at the independent 

 research institutes. After pointing out that the 

 IRI's are quite varied as to age, size, field of 

 interest, type of facilities, and equipment used, 

 Dr. Dees notes: 



Unlike the other principal organizational units 

 concerned with R&D (the universities, industrial 

 research units and government laboratories) the 

 typical independent research institute has littleor 

 no endowment or the equivalent: that is, it rarely 

 has a "parent company" to look to for base 

 support, or to take over full support of at least 

 some of its senior research personnel (as is 

 possible in most universities) when grants or 

 contracts expire. Virtually all of the major IRIs rely 

 almost totally on the grants or contracts they 

 receive to maintain their fiscal integrity; as a 

 consequence, one finds that: 



1. Substantial fluctuations in support can be 

 disastrous to major programs. 



2. Untoward amounts of time, energy and 

 effort (and hence precious dollars) must be 

 expended in the attempt to bring in new 

 grant or contract support. 



3. In those cases where contracts may ap- 

 propriately carry a "fee", the fee proceeds 

 become extremely important as a way of 

 maintaining a quality program (a fact which 

 is not only not appreciated but is in effect 

 denied by many agencies and contracting 

 officers who insist on keeping fee percen- 

 tages far below realistic levels) . . . 



40 



DEPENDABILITY IN FUNDING FOR RESEARCH 



