Profession
By Liane Reif-Lehrer
Lack of adequate funding is the nemesis of today's scientific research. As money gets tighter, many scientists who have relied entirely on the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other government agencies for research support now find it necessary to look here for funding. Although corporations are slowly entering the research support scene, private foundations remain the predominant source of nongovernment grant awards.
Foundations provide moneys as small as $100 and as large as $1 million and more. In 1989, for example, according to the New York-based Foundation Center, publishers of the Foundation Grants Index, the Duke Endowment of Durham, N.C., gave $5,016 to a hospital for operating support to be used toward charity care. In the same year, the Rockefeller Foundation of New York gave $1.16 million to a Canadian university for an epidemiology training program.
In the past, some scientists ...
