STATEMENT OF DR. FRANK PRESS, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, 

 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, WASHINGTON, DC; AC- 

 COMPANIED BY MR. RICHARD MAHONEY, CHAIRMAN AND 

 CEO (RETIRED), MONSANTO, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI; AND DR. 

 MARYE ANNE FOX, VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH, UNI- 

 VERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN, TEXAS 



Dr. Press. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Com- 

 mittee. 



I understand your preference is for short statements and so, we 

 will abbreviate our remarks and I will share my time with my col- 

 leagues. 



Chairman Walker. Without objection, your entire remarks will 

 be submitted for the record. 



Dr. Press. Thank you. And our affiliations in VITA and so on are 

 in the testimony, so I won't bother going through that. 



We're delighted to have this opportunity to open this discussion 

 with this very important House committee. 



Our report was prepared in response to a bipartisan request from 

 the Senate Appropriations Committee. The report was issued this 

 past November, a month ahead of schedule, and since that time, 

 has had much discussion. It has been praised and it has been criti- 

 cized — a mixed reaction that, as members of the Committee on 

 Science will appreciate, is inevitable, given that we offer judgments 

 that potentially affect many stakeholders of the research enter- 

 prise, from the agencies that fund it to those that perform the work 

 and, not the least, to Congress, that must constantly assure that 

 public funds are soundly invested. 



Let me say something about the context of the Committee's work. 



We needed no instruction on the budget environment in which 

 we worked. In fact, our Committee accepted the reality that in- 

 creased funding for the total science and technology enterprise that 

 is across the whole of the government was unlikely to grow in the 

 immediate future, and there was the possibility of some contrac- 

 tion. 



Nevertheless, we offer guidance appropriate for these cir- 

 cumstances that would maintain the strong research and innova- 

 tion enterprise that the American political system has built over 

 four decades. 



Another reality is the history of the enterprise. 



The contemporary research enterprise is a composite of responses 

 to crises, exploitation of new opportunities, and creation of new 

 agencies with new missions requiring fundamental science and 

 technical competence. 



It is an opportunistic rather than a planned history, and our 

 country is much the richer for it, having gained an enormously pro- 

 ductive research enterprise. 



At the same time, the structure is hardly simple. It is a complex- 

 ity of programs that weave through agencies or disciplines, such as 

 computer sciences, which are substantially dependent for support 

 by one agency, but in fact benefit the missions of many agencies. 



Looking at the research enterprise agency by agency is an unco- 

 ordinated process can offer a misleading picture of what is actually 

 going on. Rather, the enterprise needs to be viewed and understood 

 in its totality, especially when funding is constrained. 



