To do this in a manner that preserves world-class standing of 

 American science and technology is one of our most important rec- 

 ommendations. 



World-class standing is not an end in itself. It makes sense only 

 in what it means for the American people and ultimately, for peo- 

 ple everywhere. 



Another principle — favoring projects and people over institutions 

 to free up or reallocate resources to meet opportunities and needs, 

 since it is much easier to cut back or eliminate a program of project 

 grants than it is to disengage from support of institutions. 



Another principle, perhaps our most important one — using merit 

 review, one relying strongly on external evaluators, both to make 

 awards and to judge programs. For awards, the committee felt 

 strongly that competitive merit review is the best system for assur- 

 ing that the best people and ideas are supported in a very tough 

 environment for funding. 



We were instructed to recommend changes as necessary, but to 

 preserve the best of past science and technology policy. Merit re- 

 view is among the best of the past. 



Another principle — urging that the national pursue international 

 cooperation to share costs, to tap into the world's best science and 

 technology, and to help it meets goals, especially where the nec- 

 essary facilities and instrumentation are very costly for one nation. 



Finally, the committee also addressed the federal role in develop- 

 ment of commercial technologies, as well as the role of federal lab- 

 oratories. And some words about the former, and we will return to 

 the latter issue in a little while. 



The committee did not contend that direct federal investments in 

 industry would produce no results. There are too many positive ex- 

 amples of success in the past to make that kind of a statement. 



Rather, it narrowed the criteria and raised the standards for 

 making such investments, comparing them to other alternatives, 

 such as R&D funding to universities and federal laboratories, and 

 asking for evaluation of relative productivity. 



I would like to close with a comment about some criticisms lev- 

 eled at the FS&T concept. These are the criticisms. 



The FS&T budget would give Congress a target for cost cutting. 



It has moved to centralization and top-down budgeting rather 

 than the decentralized pluralism that has been so successful in 

 building American strength in science and technology in the past. 



The old $70 billion R&D figure represents a larger figure within 

 which funds can be shifted into R&D — so don't reduce it. 



Our panel spent a lot of time discussing the matter. Our FS&T 

 concept preserves one of the best features of the past — returning 

 the capacity in science and technology in each mission agency that 

 it requires to perform its mission. That is, it preserves the bottoms- 

 up pluralistic system, actually strengthens it at a time of budget 

 stringency. 



Add to that, for the first time it would provide Congress with a 

 unitary view and a coherent view of the entire enterprise. 



The C5niics say that that's a dangerous thing to do, not us. 



The $70 billion R&D figure is called out in the President's budget 

 message. It is highly visible at 15 percent of the discretionary 

 budget. It is spurious in the sense that only half of it is real R&D. 



