Streamlining the funding process

While scientists certainly enjoy receiving government support for research, ask any one of them about the drawbacks and you're likely to hear grumbling about red tape, bureaucracy, and mountains of paperwork. Now, the White House would like to hear these complaints. And it says it wants to do something about them.The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is asking scientists and officials to send in their suggestions and criticisms so that government agencies can improve their policies and practices for funding research. A series of regional workshops will be held later this year to develop recommendations based on these comments. "We have 20 different ways of doing the same things in terms of regulations and rules and forms that have to be filled out—all the things that drive scientists and researchers crazy," said Constance W. Atwell, cochair of the OSTP subcommittee conducting the assessment. "One university may have to deal with 15 different agencies in support of the science that faculty members do."Atwell, who is also director of extramural research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said that White House science adviser John H. Marburger directed OSTP's National Science and Technology Council to conduct a "high-level, cross-agency" review of funding policies and practices. "We want to look at how the changing nature of science over the past decade is or is not reflected in the policies we have in place," she told The Scientist.The assessment will target three main areas, including identifying common practices among various federal granting agencies to make life easier for researchers and managers at their institutions. Aligning funding mechanisms with the changing ways in which research is conducted, especially involving teams working on large scientific projects, is another goal, as is improving the accountability and cost-effectiveness of research so that managers can "more transparently demonstrate responsible use of public resources."Three regional workshops will be convened starting in late October to explore issues involving each of these areas. In December, a fourth workshop will be held in Washington, D.C., to review the results and to come up with overall policy recommendations. "This is not about what science we do, or even how much funding there should be," Atwell said. "It's about how we should go about supporting that science."This is also by no means the first time a government entity has explored how the nation's scientific and research enterprise is managed. Earlier studies have been conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, by the congressional General Accounting Office, and by the Federal Demonstration Partnership, a cooperative initiative among federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funds. "What's different about this is the high-level, cross-agency policy imperative," Atwell said. The OSTP subcommittee will first seek to identify policies and practices that need changing and then find ways to test possible changes.Comments and observations from the research community are needed "so we can be sure we have some data we can use to drive the policy analysis," she said. In particular, the committee would like to receive feedback on the issues of inconsistency in policies and practices among federal agencies, whether the current process encourages or discourages innovative research, how researchers can best demonstrate return on federal research dollars, and how technology transfer issues have changed relationships among universities, industry, and government. "This will be a new look at how we do the business of science: how we fund science, the relationships between the federal agencies that support science, and the universities, research institutions, and small businesses that actually conduct the research," Atwell said.Comments on these issues are due by September 22, 2003, and can be emailed to: nstc_rbm@ostp.eop.gov. Details about the regional workshops will be made available as they are developed.

Streamlining the funding process

White House will review how agencies interact with researchers

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