make to the achievement of the nation's social and economic goals. They consider how the executive branch might be structured so that the problems that exist now-and that will become more pressing-can be dealt with more effectively.

V. HISTORICAL NOTE: WHERE WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE

A. Development of Federal Programs of Support for Academic Science

Soon after World War II, it became clear that pursuit of national objectives in health, agriculture, atomic energy, and defense would require an expanding effort in science, the principal resource for which was the nation's universities. Federal action during the past two decades has featured the development of many programs designed to utilize and to enlarge this capability in institutions of higher learning.

The country has benefited enormously from this close association of university capability and national purposes:

The vigor and excellence of American science have placed the U.S. in the vanguard of scientific and technological advance. It is now the envy of and emulative model for the world.

Science has been brought into a more sensitive and responsive relationship to urgent public needs and national goals.

The entire framework of research and graduate education in science has been strengthened and broadened, and the nation's resources of scientific manpower have been substantially increased and enhanced.

The process of undergraduate education has also benefited through the enrichment of the academic environment, the quality of teaching, and the improved content of curricula that have resulted from these developments. The pluralistic system of Federal support for academic research has evolved and served the nation well. The principle of pluralism is basically sound and should be sustained but it should now be modified and supplemented along the lines suggested later in this paper.

Federal mission agencies have increasingly called on universities to perform research. Until 1966, the annual growth in Federal funds for this purpose was nothing less than spectacular, averaging 22.7 percent per year between 1956 and 1966, (see Table IV). It is hardly surprising that universities have reached a point of great dependence upon Federal funds for research. While it was obvious to all that this high annual rate of expansion of funds for academic research could not continue indefinitely, the abruptness of the change in FY 1967 and the subsequent drop to levels below those needed even to maintain the existing effort have created unforeseen difficulties for many universities.

TABLE IV.-FEDERAL FUNDS FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AT UNIVERSITIES!

1 Does not include Federal contract research centers and AEC educational research centers.

* Figures for 1955-67 taken from NSF Federal Funds for Research, Development, and Other Scientific Activities, vol. XVII, 1968.

* Estimated at approximately the 1968 level plus or minus 2 percent.

Certain salient aspects of the existing system of support are relevant to the further evolution of national policy and action:

The dominant national urgencies were first perceived in areas demanding progress in the physical and biomedical sciences. Thus the flow of Federal science funds for research and graduate education has been almost exclusively dircted to the natural sciences with only limited and latterly recognition of the needs for and utility of expanding intellectual effort in the social sciences.

Federal funding of universities for purposes other than science (see Table II) has been increasing steadily and rapidly over the past five years. The science funds tend to be highly concentrated and the non-science funds tend to be widely dispersed, so that the shifts in funding are not compensatory for individual institutions. However, in terms of the entire system it is evident that a basic shift in the balance between Federal funds for science and for broader purposes has been taking place. The most significant area of recent growth has been for support of institutions and students in areas other than science-general university and college support and support for the arts and humanities.

Federal support for research expanded rapidly as an indispensable means of achieving national goals. No other sources of funds were able, or could have properly been asked, to foot this bill. As a consequence, a growing proportion of academic research is absolutely dependent upon Federal money. There is no realistic prospect that this situation will change. Private funds are extremely important, but they simply cannot bear the bulk of the cost. State and local funds are also important, particularly in providing basic support for many colleges and universities, but this burden, plus the other demands on their limited resources, will prevent them from assuming the burden of support for academic science that has evolved as a Federal responsibility.

Federal science funds for research and for graduate education now come predominantly through mission agencies whose primary responsibilities are for accomplishment of national purposes in which support for academic science is defined in terms of the tasks of the Federal agency. Thus, the bulk of support for academic science is provided as a derivative and partial activity, largely through devices directed toward discrete and limited segments of university activity (research projects, special training programs, etc.)

All of the Federal agences which support science in universities have been concerned with the effects of their activities on colleges and universities, and they have taken concrete measures to provide broad institutional support on the sound ground that they will depend for years to come on the strength of colleges and universities. However, these commendable initiatives have been and will continue to be limited in the last analysis, to the field for which the Federal agency has responsibility--defense, health, space etc. (and in the case of NSF, for science totally). Even NSF cannot provide funds not related to science or science education.

When NSF was estabilshed in 1950, the National Science Board and the Director were assigned responsibility for (a) supporting basic research and scientific education so as to assure the continued health and vitality of the country's scientific resources and to serve the general welfare and interest and (b) developing and encouraging national policy for science and research. While the National Science Foundation Act has been described as "a commitment by the Federal government to support . . . the sciences not for the specific sake of the accomplishment of practical missions" 5 and as "a decisive turning point in the Federal government's relationships to higher education." NSF, for a variety of reasons, has been unable to fulfill its intended role. During the years when mission agency budgets for academic science were growing rapidly. NSF's broad objectives were inadequately supported by Congress, the executive branch, and the scientific community, except for a slight post-Sputnik flurry. Consequently, the abrupt drop in the rate of growth of mission agency budgets in FY 1967 found NSF without the means to offset the uneven effects of the curtailment of funds from the multiple agency sources of major support for academic science. The reduction in NSF's NSF Report to UNESCO on U.S. Science Policy, 1968.

proposed budget for FY 1969 which was imposed by Congress was the severest suffered by any of the agencies which finance academic science. The already overworked and underpaid "physician" became the sickest "patient" of all and the vestigial hope that NSF might somehow cushion the impact of budgetary stringencies upon the universities disappeared. The only agency which Congress had established for the specific purpose of assuring the integrity of academic science was effectively prevented by Congress from fulfilling its function on the first occasion in history when the agency had become truly essential for the support of academic science. Until now, Congressional action on the NSF FY '70 budget gives little cheer to those who hope for the agency's convalescence this year.

The pattern of diffuse and subordinate attention to the overall needs of science, scientific education, and the universities as institutions is also reflected in Congress. Responsibility for the several Federal agencies whose programs furnish the principal support for academic science is divided among many committees and subcommittees in both the House and the Senate. This complicates the task of directing attention to the problems of basic academic functions of the universities in a context distinct from their use in mission programs or the research interests of individual faculty members. The difficulty is compounded by the current mood of Congress-a substantial degree of skepticism and disenchantment as to the national benefits to be derived from science, particularly basic science, aggravated by a hardening attitude toward the universities in general as a result of student dissent and the apparent inability of most administrators and faculties to control campus disorders.

While budgets were expanding, steps were taken which had the effect of providing in a rudimentary way support for graduate education as such. Provision of support on such a rapidly rising curve, for such diverse purposes, and with the degree of freedom that was necessary and proper inevitably involved underpinning to some degree and in some fashion the process of graduate education itself. When budgets began to contract, it became painfully evident in many universities that Federal funds had indeed permeated the financial structure of the entire institution and that the reductions would result not only in a shrinkage in support of research of interest to the Federal government but also in general financial stringencies for the entire educational process.

B. Present Situation and Immediate Prospects

1. In the Context of Academic Science.—As a system for supporting academic science, the devices used by the various Federal agencies have been productive and flexible. This was particularly true during the period of rapidly increasing budgets. But as the rate of increase has slackened and as mandatory cutbacks in expenditure threaten to reduce support, the limitations of the system that were not evident during the earlier period have become very clear.

Means for ensuring stability of support for academic science within individual institutions have proved to be inadequate; means for assisting universities to deal with fluctuating levels of support are inadequate.

For several reasons, the effects of leveling or decreasing Federal research budgets will not be distributed uniformly among universities, and among parts of universities. The characteristics of the group of universities which will as a whole be hardest hit seem clear:

(a) Those with low reserves, shaky state appropriations or slender current endowment income.

(b) Those which have relatively new programs of research and graduate education.

(c) Those which receive a high proportion of their total research support from one or two Federal agencies at this time, particularly NSF. (d) Those which have made heavy commitments of their own funds in expectation of receiving Federal funds which will not in fact be available. Over the years, an accretion of onerous administrative requirements has tended to multiply red tape, unduly complicate relations between universities and Federal agencies, and increase the costs of operating the system. Federal funds for science must be administered more simply, and accountability for proper use of public funds must be simultaneously enhanced.

The tightness of Federal funds for academic science has made more urgent an increase in the capacity of colleges and universities to set policy and make decisions of two types. The first is to establish general institutional goals which place academic research soundly in the context of the total array of functions of the institution. The second is to reach a sound balance between two important goals that are difficult to reconcile-on the one hand maintenance of economy, efficiency, accountability and order, and on the other hand maintenance of the important values of academic freedom for schools, departments and individuals. This is primarily a problem for the institutions themselves, but their task can be made easier by proper Federal policy.

The capacity of institutions to adapt has already been reduced by the preceding lean years and continued lack of growth in Federal support of academic science research will affect programs of higher quality and scientists of higher competence. Maintenance of the existing level of support of current projects and established investigation will be at the expense of support of new investigators."

The desirability of using federal research funds to strengthen the total academic science system of the nation by helping new centers to develop has been widely recognized. This was a central theme of the President's memorandum of September 13, 1965, to heads of departments and agencies on Strengthening Academic Capability for Science Throughout the Country, and his statement to the Cabinet of September 14, 1965. However, it has become clear that the existing system was not an adequate means, even when funds for academic science were growing, of develping new centers of high quality for academic science. The approach to be effective must be more broadly based if there is to be a substantial expansion of the number of institutions which are first-rate centers for academic science. When funds for academic science are limited, very little can be done to expand the system.

The responsibility of the National Science Foundation "for augmenting the research capabilities of academic institutions in all fields of science through the support of basic research and research facilities and through measures for improving the quality of education in the sciences" has not been matched by Congressional willingness to make sufficient resources available for this "balancing" responsibility, the magnitude of which is defined, in large measure, by the demands of the other agencies upon the universities. NSF will be unable to carry out its responsibilitiles without sizeable budget increases.

A major effect of the existing system for support of academic science has been to increase the need for highly qualified faculty. Much of this expansion of graduate education has been initiated independently but in the expectation that the Federal Government will continue its support for two key segments of the enterprise-provision of research funds and of support for advanced students. This expectation was recognized in President Johnson's education message to the Congress, The Fifth Freedom, on February 5, 1968:

"As never before, we look to the colleges and universities-to their faculties; laboratories; research institutes and study centers-for help with every problem of our society and with the efforts we are making toward peace in the world . . .

"First, we should increase the Federal payment available to help graduate schools meet the cost of educating a student who has earned a Federal Fellowship. At present, Federal Fellowship programs are actually deepening the debt of the graduate schools because this payment is too low.

"Second, we should launch a new program to strengthen those graduate schools with clear potential for higher quality.

"With enrollments growing, we must begin to enlarge the capacity of graduate schools. This program will underwrite efforts to strengthen faculties, improve courses, and foster excellence in a wide range of fields.

"New Starts" required to finance the research of younger investigators are particularly hard hit when budgets are cut, or even when the rate of increase decreases. This is because most agencies commit funds for a number of years in order to provide stable support. Accordingly, only a fraction of the funds in any year is available for new starts. Cuts in budgets can practically eliminate new starts, since to reprogram any appreciable portion of funds already committed involves dismantling ongoing programs. Some agencies are deliberately setting aside funds to support new investigators and new ideas, but this requires cutting off support already committed to other worthwhile research.

"Third, I urge the Congress to increase government-sponsored research in our universities. The knowledge gained through this research truly is powerpower to heal the sick, educate the young, defend the nation, and improve the quality of life for our citizens."

2. In the Context of Higher Education.-We shift now to a new problem-the relationship between the existing system of Federal support for academic science and the emerging Federal programs for broader support of higher education. To a substantial degree, as previously mentioned, the system for support of academic science has been adapted over the years to take account of the needs of institutions. However, we are now seeing that a system designed fundamentally to meet the needs of Federal agencies for science and technology is not an adequate means of meeting the emerging responsibilities of the Federal Government for support of higher education. Many of the questions now raised with respect to the “adequacy” of the existing Federal system for support of academic science are really directed to the more fundamental question of the nature of the responsibilities of the Federal Government for the support of universities, and particularly for support of graduate education.

The constrained Federal academic science budgets of the past four years have hastened recognition of the fact that the present structure is unresponsive to emerging demands to serve a new and different purpose-support of higher education. The agencies which compose the network supporting academic science serve essentially as separate conduits for funds to support research, training, or institutional development but, in concert, they do not function as a system responsive to the needs of universities in general because they were not intended or designed to constitute such a system.

The "pause" resulting from prevailing budgetary constraints and those in prospect for the immediate future affords an excellent opportunity for a precise assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system which will be crucial to designing a superior system for the long run. Present circumstances can expose and force choices relating to policy and purpose and to means and structure which were not clearly seen by either government or universities while budgets were still increasing.

It is now quite evident that forging a new and more logical relationship between Federal support for academic science and the emerging Federal role in support of higher education totally is a major task for the next decade. This process will require major changes in approach in the structure of the executive branch and in legislation over a wide front. This overall policy area is more significant and far less well defined than the policy questions relating to academic science as a discrete problem.

C. Needs and Problems

1. More Money for Academic Science.-While the 20% per year increases in federal funds for academic science cannot be reasonably expected in the future, it is important to point out that substantial additional funding for academic science will be required from year to year if academic science and the universities are to fulfill their roles in performing research for the mission agencies and in producing the skilled manpower which the nation requires. Furthermore, there is a need for an immediate increase in resources available to the universities if the disruption and disarray created by the abrupt cutbacks now being experienced are to be ameliorated. For the long run, this is a question that can be resolved only if there are sustained increases in funds for academic science for all major federal agencies at a reasonable, moderate rate. For the immediate future, the problems generated by particularly sharp reductions in expenditures by the National Science Foundation are most acute. The responsibility of the National Science Foundation "for augmenting the research capabilities of academic institutions in all fields of science through the support of basic research and research facilities and through measures for improving the quality of education in the sciences" must be matched by Congressional willingness to make sufficient resources available for this "balancing" responsibility, the magnitude of which is defined in large measure by the demands of the other agencies upon the universities. Even with this new authority, NSF will be unable to perform the function without sizeable budget increases.

2. More Than Money.-Additional funding alone, however, within the existing pattern and under existing policies will merely postpone rather than solve the problems of administration of Federal academic science research programs.