NSF Carves Out Elite Fellowship From Existing Faculty Awards

WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation has quietly launched a new, highly selective program of research awards to young faculty. The initiative, to be called the Presidential Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows program, will offer more money than and have different ground rules from those of the existing Presidential Young Investigators (PYI) award, which will now be called simply the NSF Young Investigators Program. And more than a name change may be afoot for the original PYI program. There are indications that the more plebeian title is a harbinger of significant revisions in a program that over the past seven years has given five-year, no-strings-attached research grants to more than 1,400 scientists and engineers starting out on their academic careers. The new faculty fellows program will cost $15 million annually once it is fully implemented over five years. It is expected to be carved out of the existing PYI program, which White House officials decided was too large. The National Science Board approved the new fellows program, set to begin as early as this fall, at its meeting held last month. "When President Bush found out about the PYI program, he want-ed to be involved much more personally in it than his predecessor," says Mary Clutter, assistant NSF director for the biological and behavioral sciences and chairwoman of a task force that is reviewing the PYI program. "But the White House said that 200 [the average number of PYIs selected each year] was too large a number." As a result, the first class of presidential faculty fellows will be a much more exclusive group than were the PYIs. Only 30 will be chosen, a cadre that Clutter speculated could be used as a "young scientists advisory board" if the president desires such counsel. The new fellows also must be nominated by the president of their university, with a limit of two per institution. PYIs were nominated by their department chairs, and it wasn't unusual for some universities to be the proud parents of a half-dozen or more young investigators in any one year. In a major policy shift, the new presidential program also drops the requirement that NSF funds be matched by private or industrial sources. That feature was a cornerstone of the PYI program, with NSF contributing a minimum of $25,000 each year and promising a dollar-for-dollar match of the next $37,500, up to a total annual award of $100,000 per investigator. The matching funds are supposed to foster collaboration between investigators and the private sector, say NSF officials, and improve the chances that the fruits of the research will eventually be applied to commercial products. The new fellows won't have those constraints. They will receive $100,000 per year from NSF for each of five years--with no matching funds required. "The White House didn't want them to have to spend time raising money," explains Clutter. "They felt that these talented scientists should be allowed to get on with their careers and not have to worry so much about resources." In the meantime, the status of the renamed NSF Young Investigators is unclear. In 1982, then-presidential science adviser George Keyworth pushed the PYI program as a way to stop the cream of each year's Ph.D. engineering class from forsaking hard-to-fill faculty positions and taking better-paying industrial jobs. That rationale has since been swept aside, however, and replaced by the currently fashionable topic of supporting young investigators. NSF director Walter Massey says that, in the short run, the rules for the Young Investigators in fiscal year 1992 will remain the same. (Last month NSF named 220 young scientists as 1991 PYIs.) But he adds that Clutter's task force has been asked to examine all aspects of the program. Two key elements are the proper selection process for applicants and the overall purpose of the awards. The internal review panel is already mulling over the results of an outside report prepared last fall for NSF by Westat Inc. of Rockville, Md. Its survey of the first two classes of PYIs found that the program has not begun to fulfill two of its four primary objectives--attracting and retaining outstanding young faculty in science and engineering and fostering cooperation between academia and industry--and made only minor progress on a third objective, that of promoting research funding from the private sector. However, according to the report, the program has improved the research capability of the typical PYI's institution. Specifically, the report found that PYIs had no more interaction with industry than did their peers, and that PYIs had made up their mind to remain in academia long before they received the award. In addition, Westat found, their presence on campus has had "no discernible influence" on graduate students pondering a career path. On the other hand, the report pointed to some ways in which PYIs differ from their peers. They are more likely to have achieved tenure at their institution, and to attain the rank of full professor. At the same time, they do no better than their colleagues in obtaining research grants. Current members of the program were chosen chiefly on the basis of recommendations from their bosses and on their academic credentials. Applicants are not asked to submit a formal research proposal, although they provide a brief summary of the nature of their intended work. Critics of the program say that NSF should require a formal application so that it may be peer reviewed. Massey says that both sides of the argument have merit. But he believes that the program's track record--three PYIs have gone on to win the foundation's most prestigious research prize for young investigators, the $500,000 Waterman Award, and a majority has been awarded research grants--indicates that "we're doing something right." The Westat report provides ammunition to those who deride the current selection process as a "beauty contest" rather than a scientific award. It found that 48 percent of the 388 PYIs received their Ph.D.'s from only seven institutions--the University of California, Berkeley; the California Institute of Technology; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Illinois; and Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton universities--suggesting that who PYIs know and where they studied play an important role. Clutter says that the fate of the PYI program will become clear over the next several months. "We're going to study the whole issue of research initiation," she says, "with an eye on what we need to do to support beginning scientists." Those recommendations will then go to Massey, she adds, who will make the final decision.

NSF Carves Out Elite Fellowship From Existing Faculty Awards

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