Friday, 28 August 1992 Washington, DC
1. NSF IS POISED TO TAKE A DRASTIC TURN TOWARD INDUSTRY
SUPPORT!
It had every appearance of a coup. Within the
month of August, the Senate Appropriations Committee, the
Director of the National Science Foundation and the National
Science Board, in strikingly similar language, have called for a
redefinition of NSF's mission to compensate for industry's
failure to invest in research. NIH also disclosed plans to focus
on competitiveness in grant awards. But NSF officials and staff
from the Senate committee insist that there was no coordination;
it's all just a coincidence. Never-theless, some of the "new
directions for NSF," called for by Walter Massey, were taken
verbatim from the Senate Report. The most immediate concern is
the Senate VA/HUD/IA appropriation (WN 7
Aug 92), which will be taken up by the full Senate as soon as
it reconvenes after Labor Day. There is very little prospect of
changing the Senate report language, but since the House version
contains no equivalent language, it may be possible to persuade
the House/Senate Conference Committee that such a profound change
in the mission of NSF should not be imposed without extensive
discussion. The Conference Committee has not yet been named.
2. SPECIAL COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF THE NSF IS ON A FAST
TRACK (WN 21 Aug 92).
The
Commission is given just 75 days from its first meeting to
produce a final report. The plan is to have the CEO of a major
technology company and the president of a research university
serve as co-chairs of the 15-member panel. Clearly, the intent
is to have some sort of recommendation in place when the
transition to the next administration begins. A "discussion
paper" by Walter Massey left no doubt about what recommendation
the NSF director would like to see: "NSF would adopt an expanded
portfolio of programs that would be integrated with ongoing
activities and closely aligned with industry and other government
activities." An "expanded portfolio" is seen by some as the only
way to avoid slow starvation, but NSF has expanded its portfolio
before, and the only effect was to spread the butter more thinly.
In 1985, NSF was explicitly authorized to support "fundamental
engineering research" and the Organic Act establishing NSF was
changed to read "science and engineering" everywhere it then said
"science," except in the title--but the budget remained frozen.
3. "A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME," THE MOVIE, OPENS TODAY IN
CHICAGO
and the San Francisco Bay area. It is already
showing around LA. To encourage educators to bring their
classes, group ticket sales are being offered (call Joy Scott,
(818) 782-1323). But you may want to see the movie first. Like
the book, the movie will be understood best by new-agers. At the
film's West Coast premiere, Shirley MacLaine, who was Isaac
Newton in an earlier life, hosted a reception for Stephen
Hawking. "He says he's not a mystic," the actress babbled, "but
he needs more than astrophysics to believe in." The best
strategy may be to wait for the video to come out, then buy it
and put it on the coffee table next to the book.
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