14 

 ON ALLOCATION OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 



Statement of 



Frank Press, PhD 



Chair of the Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and 



Development 



National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering/Institute 

 of Medicine and Cecil and Ida Green Senior Fellow, Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington 



Marye Anne Fox, PhD 



Member, Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and Devel- 

 opment and Vice President for Research, University of Texas at Austin 



Richard J. Mahoney 



Member, Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and Devel- 

 opment and Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Monsanto Com- 

 pany 



before the 



Committee on Science 



U.S. House of Representatives 



FEBRUARY 28, 1996 



Good Morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Frank 

 Press. I am the Cecil and Ida Green Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington and served as chair of the Committee on Criteria for Federal Support 

 of Research and Development of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineer- 

 irjg and the Institute of Medicine. I am joined by my colleagues, Marye Anne Fox, 

 vice president for research and the M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Regents Chair 

 in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, and Richard J. Mahoney, former 

 chairman and chief executive officer of the Monsanto Company and distinguished 

 executive in residence at the Center for Study of American Business at Washington 

 University. We are delighted and honored by the opportunity to discuss the recent 

 report on Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology, which was prepared 

 in response to an initial request from the Senate Appropriations Committee. The re- 

 port v/as issued this past November, a month ahead of schedule, and since that time 

 has had much discussion. It has been both praised and criticized; a mixed reaction 

 that, as members of the Committee on Science will appreciate, is inevitable given 

 that we offered judgments that potentially affect the many perspectives of the na- 

 tion's research and innovation enterprise — from the agencies that fund it, to those 

 who perform the work, and not least, to the Congress that must constantly assure 

 that public funds are soundly invested. 



The report speaks for itself, and we would like to focus on several specific aspects, 

 including the context for the report, its key recommendations and conclusions, plans 

 for 'continuing work, and the committee's views of the federal role in advancing com- 

 msrcial technologies and the role of federal laboratories vis-a-vis universities. 

 Context for the Committee's Work 



Members of Congress need no instruction on the budget environment in which we 

 worked. In fact, our committee accepted the reality that increased funding for the 

 total science and technology enterprise was unlikely in the immediate future, but 

 went on to apply that reality in a way that it believes offers guidance for support 

 of the strong research and innovation enterprise that the American political system 

 built ?nd continues to maintain. 



Another reality is the history of the enterprise. The contemporary research enter- 

 prise is a composite of responses to crises, exploitation of new opportunities, and 

 creation of new agencies with new missions requiring fundamental scientific and 

 technical competence. It is an opportunistic rather than planned history, and the 

 United States is much richer for it, having gained an enormously productive re- 



