256 



Further factors which have decreased funds available to the established 

 academic institutes are the proliferation of new marine laboratories ; the emer- 

 gence of oceanographic interests on the part of scientists who were previously 

 content to engage in essentially non-marine problems ; and the establishment of 

 oceanographic departments in inland universities. While this factor was ob- 

 viously stimulated by the past increase of funds for oceanography and the con- 

 sequent temptation for those, previously not interested, to divert their interest 

 in this direction, the net result has been to dilute the available funds. The develop- 

 ment of new institutes is not in itself harmful, when adequate additional funds 

 are available both for new developments and also for maintaining the pioneer 

 institutes at a stable financial level. A national policy is recommended which 

 recognizes that the encouragement of newcomers to a field must be tied to ade- 

 quate increase in funds. In the absence of such funds, a policy which gives 

 priority to helping the newcomers can be harmful to the long established insti- 

 tutes, which have pi-ovided the backbone of oceanography over the past 20 to 

 50 years. 



Among other factors which have conspired to make funding of the established 

 institutes erratic and difficult to live with is the fact that there is a well defined 

 tendency on the part of government agencies to carry out in-house a dispropor- 

 tionate amount of basic research, with only marginal relation to their missions. 

 This has on certain occasions resulted in competition with the institutions. Other- 

 wise acceptable proposals to NSF have been turned down on the grounds that a 

 government agency is planning to do the work. A closer cooperation between the 

 government agencies and the institutions could well help to correct this. The in- 

 stitutions must also shoulder the responsibility for not providing an adequate 

 number of mission-oriented scientists to the agencies. 



The private universities belonging to COLD have complained about the er- 

 ratic financing due to NSF cost sharing rules. The objections specifically relate 

 to the sudden increase in costs which is particularly difficult for private insti- 

 tutions to meet; the cumbersome methods for assessing the cost sharing; and 

 the especial hardships whereby an institute with a large staff of scientists en- 

 gaged purely in research is treated in exactly the same fashion as a small, non- 

 oceanographic department in which the staff is primarily engaged in teaching. 



Many oceanographic institutions are state institutions or quasi-state institu- 

 tions with support from state funds. These are nevertheless affected adversely 

 by the rules in general, but the few privately funded institutions face a very 

 serious i>roblem. The rules tend to remove them, at least partially, from the capa- 

 bility of participating in new grants from Federal sources. The matching funds 

 required by the massive grants in oceanography cannot be met within existing 

 funding. Private institutions are already fully extended in the struggle to match 

 their rising costs, since they do not have the opportunity to seek state funds. 

 State universities, too. have difficulty in obtaining increased state funds, even 

 though they are qualified to request them. 



The Bureau of the Budget has set the cost sharing policy for the funding 

 agencies, and the agencies are obliged to administer it. However, we l)elieve 

 that a simpler system could carry out the policy without the inequities now 

 existing. 



The effect of the cost sharing policy is not the official across ttie hoard cost of 

 5 ipereent. The amount may reach in excess of .30 percent in some grants, and 

 never less than 5 percent. One of the institutions reports that the present cost 

 funding requirements may force it to give up as much as 60 percent of its grants. 

 unless the rules are changed. Another has been obliged to curtail its traditional 

 practice of giving professorial rank (Research Professor) to researcli personnel 

 not engaged in teaching, since the title alone would bring about increased amount 

 of cost isliaring, according to the rules. 



In general it may he said that cost .sharing is especially hard on oceanographic 

 institutions, that it adversely affects some state universities, and that it is in- 

 varibly an increased and almost insurmountable burden to private institutions, 

 ■whose only recourse is to .seek new private sources. 



Another complaint put forward by the same institutions relates to the manner 

 in which proposals for certain types of biological oceanography are in direct 

 competition with non-oceanographic biology proposals. This creates an unfair 

 competition, since the higher cost of oceanograjjhic operations tend to predispo.se 

 review panels in favor of the non-oceanographic project. Furthermore, it has been 

 said that the panels are often composed predominantly of persons neither ex- 



