Panel Refines NSF Centers

WASHINGTON—NSF's proposed science and technology centers should not be required to obtain industry support nor to encompass more than one discipline, according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences. Funding should be ended after nine years, the report suggested, and the pro gram should not be supported at the expense of grants to individual investigators if NSF's budget fails to grow as quickly as the administration has proposed. The 11-member panel, chaired by chemist Richard Zare of Stan ford University, completed its re port in three months at the request of NSF Director Erich Bloch. The timing of the report, which complements a five-year plan being developed by staff that addresses the proper balance of funding at NSF, also reflects Bloch's desire to begin the program during the 1988 fiscal year that begins October 1. Although the panel was asked to study the details of creating and operating such centers—their essential features, the criteria for se lection and the disciplines to be included, among other factors— members also looked at how such a program would fit into NSF's cur rent pattern of funding university-based research. Their fears about, the future health of individual investigators was reinforced in a discussion last month by the National Science Board of both the NAS report and NSF's five-year plan. "There's concern in our group that the centers represent a less flexible form of commitment," said Charles Hess of the University of California at Davis, chairman of a group of seven board members who hope to complete by next month a report on the broader issue of the proper balance of NSF support. "Once they develop an academic and political constituency, it will be more difficult to cut them if the foundation faces a steady-state budget. Instead, there is concern that the money would come out of individual investigator grants." Bloch sees industrial participation as a major plank in that campaign, and called it "a prerequisite" in his letter asking the academy's National Research Council to undertake a study. But the NAS panel felt otherwise. "It's nice if industry wants to contribute," said Zare, "but they are already paying, as taxpayers. I don't think that industry can anticipate what the next revolution in basic research will be, and you put blinders on the entire program if you require that type of participation." Zare's panel also took exception to the common belief that such centers must be interdisciplinary. "There's no question that some of the most exciting work today is at the interface between fields," Zare said. "And we support that approach. But there is also a lot of exciting work occurring smack-dab in the middle of some fields." Regardless of the scope of the centers and who funds them, Zare said, a sunset provision is essential "If you don't set a limit, you build a structure that gets tired—one in which you have to wait for people to die to start off in a new direction. Zare said a casual reader of the report "might be surprised at how cautionary we were" in discussing the financial outlook. "We're really worried that Congress will think this is a great idea and tell NSF to do it without giving them any more money." That feeling was shared by several NSB members, who also worried more generally about over selling the. concept of conducting research within centers. "My understanding is that we're already committed to a $300 million increase to support existing centers," said San Diego State University President Tom Day. "And that's apart from the cost of starting another 100 centers [which the Zare panel estimated at $1 million to $5 million per center per year]. "I suspect that the numbers don't all add up, or maybe they add up just barely if you assume we'll get 100 percent of what we're asking for," Day said. "That's the same arithmetic that is going on at college campuses all over the country, and there's a lot of concern out there." Richard Nicholson, who is over seeing that portion of the NSF strategic review that deals with the centers, said he expected its recommendations to be "very influential" in developing guidelines on the program. Mervis is on the staff of The Scientist.

Panel Refines NSF Centers

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