47 



its funding. There is funding that we must be involved in in the 

 basic discovery of some knowledge to the transfer and getting that 

 knowledge applied in the linkage through the Cooperative Exten- 

 sion System. This balance is criticed for us to maintain. 



Presently, at the Federal level, there are three mechanisms of 

 funding: First, the National Research Initiative, which was dis- 

 cussed earlier, and this initiative was recently created and author- 

 ized by Congress in the 1990 farm bill. It recognized the need for 

 infusion of research focused mainly at the discovery level. 



Second is the base program or the formula funding. These funds 

 are vital for our State-Federal partnership and allow for the State- 

 level implementation of national strategies. I wish to point out that 

 in association with these base fiinds or formula funds, these are 

 peer reviewed and are evaluated into their various appropriate al- 

 locations at the individual State levels. 



The third source of funds that is coming presently from the Fed- 

 eral system is the special grants. Special grants are an underused 

 opportunity, in our estimation, for the Federal system to focus on 

 some short-term emergency issues that require a focused research 

 effort. We would like to propose a new type of special grant for con- 

 tract research, and if it is your pleasure, Mr. Chairman, I would 

 like to introduce into the record as an attachment to my prepared 

 statement a copy of a concept for special grants contract research. 



Mr. DOOLEY. Well welcome that. 



Mr. Fischer. As you pointed out earlier, Mr. Chairman, the Agri- 

 cultural Research System has been successful, and we are very ex- 

 cited to work with you and your committee in looking at how we 

 can improve it and how we can make it better. The question comes, 

 then, what combination of these funding mechanisms that I point- 

 ed out are the optimum? 



First, I would hke to point out that in science and education, we 

 are very pleased that it has been identified as one of the growth 

 areas in the Clinton administration. We are obviously pleased at 

 the proposed growth in the National Research Initiative that is not 

 at the expense of any of our other programs that are presently un- 

 derway, and, in addition, the reasonable growth in our formula 

 funding that maintains the State-Federal partnership. 



There is an opportiinity for us to look at some of the noncompeti- 

 tive special grants or the funding that are addressing some of these 

 national issues and how perhaps we can improve some of their ef- 

 fectiveness and efficiency. In many of the States, I wish to share 

 with you, Mr. Chairman, we are restructuring and downsizing our 

 systems because of the severity of the State budgets. We are some- 

 what in the same net-s\mis game that you are here at the national 

 level, and we are sensitive to that and desire to work with you to 

 work through how we can make this system more effective. 



Concerning priority setting, there is nothing that we can think 

 of on the research side that is more important both at the State 

 and at the national level. The written testimony provides details on 

 the priority setting, but I wish to, if I may, add to the written testi- 

 mony additional issues relevant to the priority setting of the State 

 agricultural experiment station entitled "Strategic Planning, Prior- 

 ity Setting, and Response to Changing Times." 



