But while there was no real dissent from Culberson's view that federal spending on science is crucial and should be protected and even expanded, lawmakers and the hearing's lone witness, President Ralph J. Cicerone of the National Academy of Sciences, acknowledged that there would not be a limitless supply of money available for science programs, and that difficult choices about priorities would have to be made.

And Cicerone and some lawmakers agreed that federal agencies and universities needed, as they managed the sudden, massive infusion of money from the economic stimulus package, to learn lessons from the doubling of the budget of the National Institutes of Health that the government provided a decade ago, to avoid repeating problems that emerged in the wake of that effort.

 

 

National Center for Research Resources strategic plan links and information.

Federal funding of academic science and engineering (S&E) R&D failed to outpace inflation for the second year in a row, according to FY 2007 data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges.

Principal investigators on federal research grants spend about 42 percent of their time dealing with administrative work related to their project rather than on science, according to a new report released by the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP). The findings of the "faculty burden survey" derive from responses by more than 6,000 university faculty. The FDP notes that "the 'creep' toward increasing administrative burden decreases the productivity of our nation's talented academic researchers and lessens the impact of the federal dollars invested in research." The burden, in part, consists of progress report submissions, personnel hiring, project revenue management, institutional review board protocols and training, and numerous other requirements. No single burden stands out as the greatest problem, the report notes. The FDP, which grew out of a project begun in 1986, is a cooperative initiative between ten federal agencies and 98 institutions that collectively receive more than $15 billion in federal funds, with a goal to streamline procedures for administration of research grants and contracts. The report has been circulated to the federal Office of Management and Budget and other agencies.