RESEARCH AND TECHNICAL PROGRAMS SUBCOMMITTEE

1. "Conflicts Between the Federal Research Programs and the Nation's Goals for Higher Education," House Report No. 1158, October 13, 1965. Eighteenth Report by the Committee on Government Operations.

(a) Summary of report.-Research and higher education share the common objectives of extending scholarship and developing the intellectual resources of the Nation, yet the inmediate interests of the one are not necessarily those of the other.

The report found that the prospective demand for higher education was enormous, with a 50-percent increase in enrollment expected from 1964 to 1970. In the face of rising enrollments educational experts predict a critical shortage of qualified teachers at colleges and universities. As the demand for teachers rises, smaller colleges and universities will be faced with having to lower instructional standards, if a higher proportion of potential teachers cannot be encouraged to remain in the profession.

This report examined the influence of the Federal R. & D. program upon U.S. higher education, and found at least three critical conflicts. Federal R. & D. programs have (1) diverted scientific manpower from teaching and have overemphasized research to the detriment of undergraduate teaching; (2) have concentrated federally sponsored research at a few large universities in a few geographic areas, without compensating returns in the training of young scientists or the improvement of undergraduate education; and (3) have heavily emphasized research in the natural sciences while virtually ignoring the social sciences and the humanities.

In order to balance the present use of scientific manpower on research with investment in the education of new manpower for the future, the report recommended the following policy changes:

(1) The Bureau of the Budget should gather reliable up-to-date data on the national pool of scientists, engineers, and other professional personnel employed under Federal research programs by professional category, by category of employer, by Government agency sponsoring the program, and by field of research—and publish these data at least yearly.

(2) On the basis of such information, the Bureau of the Budget should scrutinize all Federal research and development programs with a view to balancing the manpower needs for research and development, on the one hand, and the needs for teachers at colleges and universities, on the other.

(3) Research grants and contracts should be drawn in such a way that senior investigators are encouraged to teach as well as to perform research.

(4) The major Federal science agencies should, by new legislation where necessary, institute programs of science teaching fellowships

in mission-related science fields with awards at least as attractive as those available under the present fellowship and traineeship programs (principally National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health).

(5) To assist in the recognition of excellence in teaching, the President should consider giving an annual award or medal to outstanding undergraduate teachers at colleges and universities.

To combat overconcentration, the report recommended:

(1) The system of awarding projects should be modified so that more institutions, in wider geographical areas, will receive awards. Research awards should be made not only on their research merits but also on their capacity to improve quality of science education at the college or university.

(2) The system of awarding projects should be modified by making more representative the panels which judge the scientific merits of proposed projects.

(3) The system of awarding projects should be augmented by expanding institutional grants.

In addition, the report recommended that massively increased support for scholarship and for instruction in the humanities and social sciences-by some combination of private means, or Federal, State, and local government support-be accepted as an important national goal.

(b) Estimated monetary and other benefits. This investigation was directed as much toward strengthening higher education through bringing goals for Federal research and higher education into balance as it was toward promotion of effectiveness and efficiency in Federal R. & D. programs. Therefore, it is not possible realistically to assess monetary benefits.

Nonmonetary benefits proceeding from the committee recommendations are:

(1) On September 13, 1965, the President issued a policy statement on "Strengthening Academic Capability for Science," in which he emphasized the importance for the Nation of strengthening the higher education system in the pursuit of Federal research goals. In instructions to the agencies, following this statement, he directed,

Research supported to further agency missions should be administered not only with a view to producing specific results, but also with a view to strengthening academic institutions and increasing the number of institutions capable of performing research of high quality.

(2) The Bureau of the Budget, in cooperation with the National Science Foundation, is now engaged on a study to establish methodology for obtaining needed data on scientific manpower use by Federal programs. This first study has as its objective a determination of Federal demands for the time of college and university faculties in science and engineering.

(3) The Bureau of the Budget has agreed to develop guidelines for Government-wide use which limit cases and define the unusual circumstances in which Federal agencies may employ senior scientists at colleges and universities full time on research. The Bureau has requested the Federal Council for Science and Technology's Com

mittee on Academic Science and Engineering to carry forward work on these guidelines.

(4) The Federal Council for Science and Technology has established a new Committee on Academic Science and Engineering. Its responsibility is to examine the effects of Federal research policies and programs on the higher education system and to recommend programs which will improve both education and science research. This FCST Committee has been requested by both the President's science adviser and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to review all the Committee's recommendations.

(5) In addition to addressing these requests to the FCST Committee on Academic Science and Engineering, the Executive Office has asked the Federal Interagency Committee on Education to look into the encouragement of teaching by holders of research fellowships.

(6) Beginning with fiscal year 1967 both the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation have initiated programs to stimulate research and educational excellence in science and engineering at colleges and universities that are not now among the major recipients of Federal research and development funds. The Department of Defense "university program," budgeted for $20 million in fiscal 1967, is designed to interest the "second tier" universities and colleges in research of defense interest. As much as $200,000 per institution per year, for periods up to 3 years, will be made available to qualifying institutions. The National Science Foundation's college science improvement program was established in fiscal 1967 in order to support the improvement of teaching at the college level. The program is limited to 4-year colleges granting more than 100 science baccalaureates in a given 3-year period, and that have not granted more than five Ph. D.'s per year. The college science improvement program, budgeted for $10 million in fiscal 1967, will make available up to $225,000 per eligible institution during the course of a 3-year period.

(c) Hearings.-Hearings were held June 14, 15, and 17, 1965, and printed.

2. "Plugging the Dollar Drain: Cutting Federal Expenditures for Research and Related Activities Abroad," House Report No. 1453, April 27, 1966. Twenty-Sixth Report by the Committee on Government Operations.

(a) Summary of report. The report discusses the fact that although the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit is still large, the dollar drain through Federal expenditures for foreign research, training, and science administration continues. The report found three principal deficiencies in the management of current foreign science activities of the Federal Government which result in unnecessary dollar outflow to foreign countries:

(1) Projects that lack urgency are still being financed and dollar economies on necessary activities are not vigorously sought.

(2) Present controls on foreign research are loose or haphazard. (3) U.S. initiatives to expand research abroad without dollar drain are insufficient.

The report recommended that the following steps be taken to limit dollar outflow resulting from spending for research:

(1) The Bureau of the Budget should issue a directive limiting foreign research expenditures causing dollar drain to projects that are urgently needed by the United States, cannot be carried on in the United States either by American or foreign scientists, and will not be financed by foreign governments despite specific efforts by the United States to obtain such alternative financing.

(2) The Bureau of the Budget should periodically review foreign research projects causing dollar drain to determine whether these criteria are being met.

(3) The Bureau of the Budget should set fiscal 1967 ceilings on foreign research expenditures consistent with the new criteria, set forth in the Bureau of the Budget directive, for each agency financing foreign research in dollars.

(4) Fellowships and traineeships for study outside the United States should be limited to those cases in which comparable training is unavailable in the United States.

(5) The Bureau of the Budget should undertake a thorough investigation of overseas science offices with a view to minimizing the dollar costs of these offices through consolidations.

(6) The Office of Science and Technology should make greater efforts to expand OECD financing of research, both in the developed countries and developing countries, and the financing of scientists coming to the United States to study or to perform research.

(7) The agencies supporting foreign research should make increased use of excess currencies to finance foreign research projects. (b) Estimated monetary and other benefits.-As a result of the report's recommendations, the Bureau of the Budget and the National Science Foundation have increased their efforts to reduce foreign dollar expenditure on research and training. Annual savings of at least $2 million in foreign costs are now anticipated.

(1) The Bureau of the Budget issued new instructions to the departments and agencies reinforcing general guidelines contained in Circular A-58 on dollar spending overseas.

(2) The Bureau of the Budget is now engaged in negotiations with the principal foreign-research-performing agencies to reduce fiscal year 1967 dollar ceilings on foreign research expenditures below those now permitted.

(3) The Bureau of the Budget has undertaken a review of all overseas science offices with a view to reducing expenditures for such offices. (4) The National Science Foundation will apply more stringent guidelines during fiscal year 1967 in the awarding of fellowships for study at institutions in foreign countries.

(c) Hearings.-Hearings were held February 10 and 24, 1966, and printed.

3. "Federal Research and Development Programs: The Decisionmaking Process," House Report No. 1664, June 27, 1966. Thirty-Fourth Report by the Committee on Government Operations.

(a) Summary of reports.-The report discusses the relationship between Federal R. & D. and the Nation's progress toward important national goals, and the need for a rational decisionmaking process in

the allocation of Federal R. & D. funds. While the President and Congress make ultimate decisions on the Federal R. & D. budget, the report emphasizes the need for common procedures and criteria in antecedent stages of decisionmaking in all Federal agencies.

The report found that the Federal Government has not in the past employed consistent criteria and procedures in undertaking research and development. In the case of the defense, space, and atomic energy programs, Federal R. & D. has been aggressively employed by farsighted decisionmakers, by establishing far-reaching program objectives, searching for new ideas and new technology to meet those objectives, and using systems analysis and systems engineering to match R. & D. to program objectives. In these programs, Federal R. & D. is not only vast in scale but highly purposive and directed toward increasing the effectiveness of the underlying programs. However, in three civilian programs examined in the report-urban transportation, housing and hospital construction, and water pollution control-Federal R. & D. was found to be small in scale, piecemeal in approach, diffuse in character, largely nondevelopmental, and ineffective in improving operating programs.

Three main defects were pointed out in the report: Too few R. & D. initiatives on the part of the directors of some civilian programs; inadequate Executive Office initiatives to remedy R. & D. weaknesses at the program level; and insufficient cost-benefit comparisons on the part of the Executive Office in evaluating competing claims to Federal R. & D.

The report found that the Bureau of the Budget planning-programing-budgeting system will greatly improve the decisionmaking process on Federal R. & D. but it also concluded that the following efforts will be needed to eliminate defects of the present Federal R. & D. decisionmaking process:

(1) Both to identify and to suggest remedies for R. & D. deficiencies, outside expert analysts as well as those within the Federal Government should be regularly utilized to analyze Federal civilian sector areas of responsibility, to formulate alternative R. & D. plans, and to present information on their respective probable costs and benefits to Federal programs.

(2) The Executive Office should examine program-level R. & D. recommendations in order to eliminate gaps and duplications, to determine the adequacy of R. & D. and to initiate necessary remedial

action.

(3) To the maximum extent practicable, the Executive Office should use a cost-benefit approach in evaluating major R. & D. proposals, and it should initiate studies by economists and scientists to work toward improved cost-benefit analysis of R. & D., both within programs and among competing programs.

(4) The Executive Office should publish_yearly a "Science and Technology Report," similar in scope to the Economic Report.

(5) To assist the committee to continue its examination of the Federal R. & D. decisionmaking process, the National Academy of Sciences was invited to submit comments on this report and to forward to the committee any suggestions which it deems appropriate.

(b) Estimated monetary and nonmonetary benefits.-Improvements in the decisionmaking process on Federal R. & D. should not