NSF Reorganization Spawns Social Science Directorate

WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation has reshuffled its grant-making bureaucracy to give greater prominence to the social and behavioral sciences. The reorganization, announced earlier this month by NSF director Walter Massey, also addresses simmering problems within the foundation's policy analysis and survey research programs that have led to congressional inquiries and heated debate within the field. The new NSF organizational chart, as described by Massey during a meeting of its gov

Written byJeffrey Mervis

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The new NSF organizational chart, as described by Massey during a meeting of its governing body, the National Science Board, features:

* A new directorate, one of six serving research scientists, that will cover the social, behavioral, and economic sciences (SBES). The agency has launched a national search for an eminent social scientist to run the new entity, which was carved from the directorate for biological, behavioral, and social sciences (BBS);

* The pared-down BBS directorate, renamed biological sciences (BS), roughly three-quarters of its former size. It will continue to be headed by microbiologist Mary Clutter.

* The elimination of the directorate for scientific, technological, and international affairs (STIA), which is now served by an acting head. Its international programs and science resources studies (SRS) divisions will be moved to SBES, and its division of policy and research analysis (PRA) will become part of a new office of planning and ...

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