Senator Barbara Mikulski on "Scientific Patriotism" [ for those who dont know Senator Milulski is on

[David Farber <>]

From: fyi () aip org


Senator Barbara Mikulski on "Scientific Patriotism"


FYI No. 20, February 14, 1994


Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) recently addressed an OSTP Forum
on Science in the National Interest.  Selected portions of this
important speech follow. (Note: in the interest of space, some
paragraphs have been combined, with combined paragraph breaks
marked as //.)


"...my message is a call to arms. // Now we are in a new war -- the
war for America's economic future.  To win that war, we need strong
leadership.  To move aggressively to claim the markets of the new
world order.  And for that, we need a navigational chart to show us
how to win jobs today and jobs tomorrow -- with science and
technology as the cornerstone of our strategy.


"And this change has created a crisis in the science community.
Old assumptions about how to organize ourselves and how to spend
increasingly limited dollars seem out of step with where we as a
new age democracy must move.  // Unless we develop a new strategy
that fits the realities of the new world order, science and science
funding run the risk of being left out and left behind.


"Without a national strategy in science and the will to see that
this strategy gets implemented, federal science funding is sure to
become a continuing target of opportunity for what I call the `cut
cruisers' in Congress.  // They are my colleagues, who in a desire
to cut the deficit, falsely identify science and technology as the
new pork barrel spending of the 1990's.  And their numbers are
growing every year in both the House and the Senate.


"I truly believe that there is a new paradigm emerging in how
science is conducted and how science policy is organized.  It's
based upon the principle that science -- should lead to the new
ideas and new technologies -- which should lead to jobs,
particularly in manufacturing.  Because manufacturing is truly the
engine of our economy, and our industrial strength.


"We must focus our science investments more strategically -- around
national goals that are important to economic growth and whose
results will ultimately improve people's day-to-day lives.


"By strategic research, I mean investments in science that are
focused around important national goals.  Some of these have been
identified already by the FCCSET process: climate change, advanced
manufacturing, biotechnology, and high performance computing.
Others, like research on our civil infrastructure, or magnetic
levitation technology, are strategic subjects that involve only one
or two agencies.


"It does not mean that every NSF or NIH grant must result in six
patents and four commercial licensing agreements.  Nor does it mean
that every proposal must guarantee a private sector payoff in a
specific number of years. // It does mean that we should be
spending more than half of our basic research dollars in areas we
consider strategic.  Our investments in science and our science
policy will become a new superhighway of ideas and technology to
achieve national goals. // And the best federal model I know that
outlines what we consider strategic is...the NIH. If you look at
how NIH is organized, it is grouped around strategic areas to treat
and cure disease and illness -- crucial to our national well-being
and which touches the day-to-day lives of millions of Americans.


"At the heart of what we seek to do is retrieve the value of
scientific activity for the post-Cold War world, without abandoning
the very best of scientific inquiry or investigation. Science
should continue to be the place where we test new theories, break
new ground, and do that which delights scientists and mesmerizes
the world -- the surprise of new discoveries.


"We must, however, begin to organize scientific activity, at NSF
and through the federal government, horizontally. // We must be
willing to see the connections between particular disciplines which
historically have few links at universities or in our federal labs
-- and to structure our agencies and programs accordingly. //NSF's
current directorate structure is organized the way science
departments are at universities.  It's my belief that we need to
reexamine that premise...because it is the role of the federal
government to be a catalyst to help get the knowledge and
technologies created in our academic community into the market
place.  Federal science institutions need to be more nimble and
more agile. // Perhaps it's time for NSF to reorganize -- over time
-- into a series of institutes like manufacturing, climate change,
high performance computing, or other strategic areas.


"The so-called 60 % solution is based upon the Clinton
Administration's request for the NSF for 1994 -- which proposed
that 55% of NSF's budget should be for research in `strategic'
areas.  The Congress didn't pick which areas were strategic, NSF
did.  We simply asked them to increase their focus by 5%.


"The implications of this change to a more strategically-driven
approach does not mean the end of basic research.  We must do far
more basic research in strategic areas.  Those doing this research
must recognize there's a national purpose for their work.


"In short, we need to rekindle in the scientific community a new
sense of patriotism.  That their work is funded by ordinary
taxpayers -- the checkout clerk at the grocery store or a machinist
on the assembly line at GM.  It is not an entitlement, and it is
not always guaranteed. // And people will expect to see results --
not necessarily immediately, or so that every idea leads
instantaneously to the marketplace.  But that their basic research
is part of a continuum of excellence to solve problems with new
ideas and new theories. // This new scientific patriotism also
means having the willingness to collaborate more with industry.


"Finally, as we begin to set out on a research agenda that has a
strategic focus, we must build in rigorous milestones and
evaluation of our efforts.  In areas like manufacturing or high
performance computing, we need to ask ourselves: what goals do we
seek to achieve; what are the specific benchmarks along the way we
can measure our progress in achieving these goals; and how do the
federal investments we make parallel the priorities we have set in
these areas."