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rationale for a competitive research grants program and how that 

 supports the attainment of national priorities. 



Specifically, the board has argued that the full implementation 

 of this research grant program would ensure the continued benefits 

 of a high return to investment in agricultural research. It would 

 also encourage the participation of the entire science community in 

 agricultural work. At the same time, it provides flexibility in re- 

 sponse to utilizing new scientific discoveries and dealing with new 

 problems. Finally, it allows agricultural science to make contribu- 

 tions to other fields of endeavor. This happens fi-equently, and we 

 want to encourage that kind of cross-fertilization whenever we can. 



The board was also quite specific about the way in which the 

 grants program should be run and the mechanisms by which the 

 research should be carried out. It identified four kinds of grants 

 which were important to working across fields in science as well as 

 within them. It sought — and these have subsequently been imple- 

 mented in the Department's program — grants that would be given 

 to individual principal investigators, which is the traditional way 

 of awarding competitive research money, but also — and this recog- 

 nizes the nature of agricultural problems — that multidisciplinary 

 teams ought to be awarded funding, and that there should be mul- 

 tidisciplinary teams that address not just basic research, but mis- 

 sion-oriented research, which is one of the important aspects of ag- 

 ricultural research which can often distinguish it from other fields 

 of science, at least in the Federal arena. Finally, it recognized that 

 the importance of the science infi-astructure, if you will, meant that 

 there would be cases in which we'd want to make strengthening 

 grants to individual institutions or scientists in recognition of the 

 need to increase their contribution to the national effort. 



Now, the board is quite pleased that in spite of the difficulty of 

 finding Federal funds these days that the funding for the research 

 initiative is now at $97.5 million. But we recognize that it's not 

 where we would like it to be, since that's some distance from $500 

 million. While we don't want to be strictly bean counters about it, 

 we think that it represents a significant opportunity cost for the 

 Nation if we can't make the fiill investment in this program. We 

 are hopeful, however, that with the fiscal year 1994 budget, in 

 which agricultural research is recognized as an investment in 

 America's future, such a view of it will prevail. Then, we can look 

 forward to a higher level of funding and more benefits from this 

 program. 



I want to add that the Board on Agriculture doesn't believe that 

 competitive grants should be the exclusive mechanism by which ag- 

 ricultural research is funded. It believes that expanding this pro- 

 gram restores or introduces balance into the portfolio of funding 

 mechanisms that we currently use at the Federal level. But, it rec- 

 ognizes that in many cases formula funding will be the appropriate 

 way to address long-term site-specific problems in agriculture, and 

 that on occasion special grants would be required to address, for 

 example, specific Federal needs. There were special grants made 

 over the past several years to fund work in UVB radiation, which 

 was important to supporting the Federal science effort in under- 

 standing global change. 



