University of California System Warily Eyes GOP Budget Cutting

For much of the past year, policymakers in Congress have focused on Republican plans to slash government spending and balance the federal budget. STRATEGY: UC president Richard C. Atkinson says he plans to continue to "seek the very best people". Whatever the funding levels for fiscal 1996, the Republicans have proposed deep cuts in federal spending for scientific research into the next millennium. Such spending has amounted to roughly $73 billion annually in recent years. But the "Contract With America," endorsed by House Republicans, calls for slicing $11.2 billion in federal science funds, or more than 15 percent, over the next five years. By some estimates, as much as 33 percent could be slashed during the next seven years. The academic institution with arguably the greatest stake in the outcome is the University of California (UC) system, which is widely regarded as the flagship of public education in the United States. How the University of California adjusts to the new reality in federal research funding is also likely to serve as a bellwether for other universities across the country, as the nine-campus system includes some of the nation's premier research universities. JEOPARDY: Chang-Lin Tien calls the cutbacks "a national security issue." "A 30 percent cut in seven years, I think that would be tragic," comments Chang-Lin Tien, chancellor of UC-Berkeley. Tien, who also serves on the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that cutting the federal R&D investment by a third would jeopardize scientific research nationwide, not to mention U.S. economic development. "In a sense," Tien maintains, "it is a national security issue." Federal funding, awarded chiefly through competitive grants and contracts, accounts for roughly 58 percent of all UC research expenditures. That means the UC system has a lot at risk in the calculus of federal cutbacks, but administrators point out that over the past few decades they have been able to parlay the government's largess into a number of impressive doctoral programs. When the National Research Council (NRC) released its rankings of research-doctoral programs last September (K.Y. Kreeger, The Scientist, Oct. 16, 1995, page 3), two UC schools were ranked among the overall top 10 research universities. Berkeley was the runaway winner, with 35 doctoral programs judged among the top 10 in the nation. UC-San Diego, which is just 35 years old, had 14 doctoral programs ranked among the top 10-and tied for 10th in the list of top schools. The council's survey also showed UCLA among the top 20, and underscored UC-San Francisco's reputation as a premier center for biomedical research. The university's reputation also is reflected in the ability of UC campuses to attract research dollars. In a ranking of federally financed research for science and engineering, UC-San Diego ranked sixth, while UC-San Francisco and UCLA ranked eighth and 10th, respectively. So what is UC's strategy for coping with cutbacks in federal research funding? University of California president Richard Atkinson, who was appointed in August (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, Oct. 2, 1995, page 17), says the strategy is the same as it has always been: to simply attract stellar scientists who conduct first-rate research. "It's sort of a free marketplace in the sense that you seek the very best people and, to the extent that your faculty is populated with the very best people, they're going to make [successful] proposals to the various funding agencies," Atkinson remarks. "So the strategy is no different than the strategy of the past," notes Atkinson, the former chancellor of UC-San Diego. "We're going to be seeking to maintain a really quality faculty so that from a competitive perspective they're going to be able to compete very well." Atkinson indicates that his survival-of-the-fittest philosophy means that shortcomings in federal funding will fall upon the less-than-stellar researchers and less-than-premier universities. "I would think that there would be a lot of universities that might decide, when the funding got tight, just to sort of say, 'We're not in the business of research in quite the same way,'" he says. "They may even be quite happy to pull back in terms of their desire to pursue the university research model." Other administrators familiar with Atkinson's thinking say he believes that even within the UC system, not every campus can afford to be all things to all people. Exactly how this strategy will unfold in the coming years is unclear, but the prospects seem troubling for the majority of scientists and institutions. Most UC administrators agree that cutbacks are forcing research universities to resort to a Darwinian model that supports only the best and the brightest. But philosophically, Tien sees a danger when elite institutions gobble up most of the research pie. "Even now the trend is that the best universities are getting better," Tien points out. "They are attracting [federal] funds and private funds, too. In many ways this reflects our society-you know, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But that would be bad for a democratic society." Counterbalancing this trend, however, is the congressional tradition of pork-barrel politics. Sarah Avellar Mathias, assistant director of UC's Federal Government Relations office in Washington, D.C., observed in a statement that "the superior competitive quality" of UC grant applications "could serve to maintain our current funding levels despite a smaller pool of funds." But Mathias also warned this scenario "doesn't take into account agency and congressional realities, including the deep-felt desire to maintain a proportionate level of funding for each state and region." Congressional Republicans have also signaled their intent to deeply slash funding for some agencies, while leaving other programs relatively intact. One target was the Department of Energy (DOE). The House and Senate both proposed substantial cuts in the department's funding for fiscal year 1996, which were modified only slightly by the administration (S. Sternberg, The Scientist, Nov. 27, 1995, page 1). When President Clinton finally signed the agency's appropriation bill, the department's program for energy supply research and development was slashed almost 18 percent from 1995 funding levels. Another 11 percent was cut from the Office of Energy Research. In the past, DOE has been a major source of funding for UC researchers-funneling $66.9 million to the system in 1994. Congress also proposed scaling back research grants at the National Science Foundation, which last year provided UC with $188 million. The NSF appropriation for 1996 that was hammered out in a House-Senate conference represents a 2.5 percent trim in total R&D funding from 1995, although the matter was unresolved at press time, since it was included in a package that was vetoed by the president. Another independent agency targeted by Congress was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which supplied $58.8 million to UC researchers in 1994. This year's appropriation worked out in conference cuts NASA funding for research by 4.4 percent. In what appeared to be a bright spot, Congress passed a continuing resolution containing a 5.7 percent increase in 1996 funding for the National Institutes of Health-which provides about 35 percent of all research funding at the University of California. (In 1994, UC labs received $668 million from NIH.) Such increases reflect the disparate impact of federal funding for research. And even before anybody had ever heard of the Contract With America, the university had been experiencing painful cuts. Owing to state fiscal problems in the 1990s, California has cut its contribution to the UC budget by $433 million, a figure that represents about 20 percent of the state-financed portion of the university's 1989-90 budget. And regardless of the federal cuts in 1996, UC officials are mindful that Congress has promised that deeper cuts in federally funded research will be made through the year 2003. So administrators throughout the far-flung system have adopted their own battle plans to deal with future cutbacks. UCLA has implemented a two-pronged strategy to attract more research dollars. PARTNERING: Kumar Patel looks to forge ties with industry. "First of all, what we have tried to do at UCLA is identify a number of multidisciplinary research activities which could have a significant market in some of the federal agencies that are dealing with problem-oriented solutions as opposed to discipline-oriented funding," says Kumar Patel, UCLA's vice chancellor for research. Such an approach identifies a complex problem, such as protein folding, that could involve the work of scientists in such diverse fields as physics, chemistry, and biology. Patel cites materials science as an example of a program that brings together physicists, chemists, chemical and electrical engineers, and even researchers in the life sciences. Such a multidisciplinary program also appears more attractive to federal agencies, Patel says. At the same time, Patel is also looking increasingly for funding from private industry. Recognizing that industries are cutting back their in-house research, Patel notes that there is an increasing need for the kind of research done at universities. "We have taken a very proactive stand in terms of trying to identify industrial needs and see where some of those needs fit with our existing research capabilities," Patel comments. "We are not going to do development. We are still going to do research, but it's a question of whether we increase private funding for particular types of research." By pursuing these strategies, Patel predicts that UCLA can actually increase its research dollars by 3 percent or 4 percent a year. At Berkeley, Tien compares his strategy for maintaining federally funded research to managing a mutual fund. Tien says the university has broadly diversified its sources of government funding so the campus is not overly dependent on a single agency, like the Department of Defense. Tien says managing the university's research portfolio is also important. The chancellor notes that when the stock market is booming, just about any fund manager does well, because "whatever you buy will increase in value. But in a downturn, or bear market, then portfolio management is extremely critical." For example, Tien states that it is important to identify specific programs within the university's research portfolio that have the potential to attract increased funding. These days, the hot areas of research are in telecommunications and neuroscience. Conversely, a major investment in one field-such as research in thermonuclear fusion-can result in a spate of demoralizing layoffs if DOE sustains deep cuts. At the San Diego campus, administrators are encouraging greater communication among the faculty with the idea of building broader, multidisciplinary research programs. SUPPORT: Rober Dynes says that his school backs its scientists. The administration is also trying to make research proposals more competitive by showing its strong backing in terms of matching funds and lab support put together from any and all sources, says Robert Dynes, a UC-San Diego vice chancellor for academic affairs. Like UCLA, San Diego is also seeking new partnerships with corporations, even with small businesses that might be willing to support the work of a graduate student in a field in which the company has strong technological interests. Dynes says he also has been putting together what he calls "bridge grants" intended to keep a research program going for a year after suffering cutbacks, enabling principal investigators to look for other sources of funding. "All my resources come from overhead costs," Dynes notes, "but the maintenance of a viable research program is so important that some other things will get deleted." 'TIME TO FIGHT': Marvin goldberger calls the cuts "unacceptable". This is no time to be mild-mannered and acquiescent, according to Marvin Goldberger, dean of natural sciences at UC-San Diego. Goldberger, who was a cochairman of the NRC study of research-doctorate programs, says a 30 percent cut over the next seven years is "absolutely unacceptable." "I think it's time to fight," Goldberger declares. "I'd like to see university presidents from across the country speak out. . . . I don't know if the battle is over yet, but I'm someone who would rather die fighting than just roll over and get gored." Access to the latest budget figures for federal research funding levels can be obtained on a World Wide Web site set up by the Association of American Universities: http://www.Tulane.edu:80/~aau/. Bruce V. Bigelow is a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune and a freelance science writer.

University of California System Warily Eyes GOP Budget Cutting

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