Researchers Applaud Call For A `National Science Forum'

Science policy leaders are applauding the findings of a Carnegie Commission task force that has called for establishing a new, nongovernmental "national forum" to develop long-term science and technology goals for the United States. Frank Press, president of the National Academy of Sciences, says he hopes that steps can be taken quickly to implement the study group's recommendation that the forum be based within the NAS complex. "The procedure will be for us to make a proposal to the Carnegie Corporation [the commission's parent entity] for establishing the forum, along the lines of their report, and developing the necessary funds to finance it.... I would say that the proposal would go forward within a month or two," Press says. The forum--bringing together individuals from industry, academia, nongovernmental organizations, and the interested public--was the principal recommendation set forth in a recent report by a task force of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government. In its report, the task force warns: "We believe that America faces a clear choice. For too long, our science and technology policies, apart from support of basic research, have emphasized short-term solutions while neglecting longer-term objectives. If this continues, the problems we have encountered in recent years, such as erosion of the nation's industrial competitiveness and the difficulties of meeting increasingly challenging standards of environmental quality, could overwhelm promising opportunities for progress." Instead, according to the report--entitled "Enabling the Future: Linking Science and Technology to Societal Goals"--the United States should "base its S&T policies more firmly on long-range considerations and link these policies to societal goals through more comprehensive assessment of opportunities, costs, and benefits." Along with proposing the new national forum, the task force calls for stepped-up attention to long-term goals by the committees of Congress; congressional support agencies, including the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and the Congressional Budget Office; and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Management and Budget. John H. Gibbons, director of OTA and a member of the task force, says the forum could draw upon OTA's experience with tackling broad-based assessments by convening advisory panels that bring together the "stakeholders" on various policy issues. The task force's chairman, H. Guyford Stever, former National Science Foundation director and White House science adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations, says he estimates that the forum could be launched with an opening budget of "a good fraction of a million dollars." Because the forum would be nongovernmental, it would not be convered by federal regulations setting tight limitations on holding meetings in closed session. That question has figured in a recent court challenge brought against the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (Barton Reppert, The Scientist, July 6, 1992, page 1). Stever observes: "I've served on a million different committees during my time.... There are lots of times when we're working on something, and everybody holds back if the general public is there." Carnegie Commission task force member Rodney W. Nichols, chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, says one area on which the proposed forum should concentrate is "thinking through our national research and development in an international context--whether it's health, or AIDS; whether it's megascience projects, like the superconducting supercollider or the space station; whether it's rather nitty-gritty small things, like more travel money available." Also requiring more long-term thinking, he says, is "E-cubed": the intersection of issues dealing with energy, environment, and economics.~ "Everywhere around the world there are the same tradeoffs being faced. We want economic development. But at the same time we want cheap energy and we want improved environment," Nichols says. Rep. ~Rick Boucher (D-Va.), chairman of the subcommittee on science, a unit of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, says he "heartily endorses" the task force's call for a national forum. "The Carnegie Commission has performed a valuable service in analyzing the appropriateness of the federal role in funding civilian research today in light of changed circumstances-- namely, the end of the Cold War and the lessened emphasis on defense research spending which will follow in the wake of that, and also the rise of multilateral competition to American companies in foreign markets," Boucher says. At the same time, Boucher adds: "As this forum is established, it needs to be truly independent and not dominated by any particular interested sector. And I have a concern that if it is structured within, for example, the National Academy of Sciences, it might be subject to undue influence from the scientific community itself." The forum concept and other suggestions of the task force also have drawn praise from Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Va., that aims to increase public awareness about the importance of medical research. "Getting more people involved in the discussion process will go a long way towards democratizing science," she says. Of the prospects that the task force's proposals will actually be put into effect, Woolley says that "in fact, Ross Perot is right- -that there are plenty of good plans lying around Washington. The problem is they don't get implemented. But I think the timing right now is extraordinarily good for the Carnegie Commission's report--partly because it reinforces what the NIH strategic plan is doing right now, and the NSF process for developing a plan." National Institutes of Health officials have been trying for months to develop a long-term strategic plan for NIH, while a special commission of the National Science Board has been charged with outlining future goals and programs for NSF. Barton Reppert is a freelance writer based in Gaithersburg, Md.

Researchers Applaud Call For A `National Science Forum'

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