News

(Update: 1:07 p.m. New York Times

“The competitive edge of the United States economy has eroded sharply over the last decade, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group.

“The report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the United States ranked sixth among 40 countries and regions, based on 16 indicators of innovation and competitiveness. They included venture capital investment, scientific researchers, spending on research and educational achievement.

“But the American economy placed last in terms of progress made over the last decade. “The trend is very troubling,” said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the foundation.” (Emphasis added)

Source:  New York Times,  February 25, 2009

Source: Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Report, February, 2009

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When elected, President Obama said science would be important again.

He has made good on those words.

The requirements are that the grants be made by 2010 and completed in no more than two years.

No problem. So few grants have been approved in recent years, there is a backlog of “meritorious” proposals just waiting to be told to get going.

The U.S. has been at great risk of losing a generation of scientific gains for lack of funding and pre-eminence in various scientific disciplines.

Flat funding levels in the sciences for six years is like six years in the life of an Olympic contender. They move on without you if you’re not out there on the field.

New York Times

…”After working under flat federal research financing for years, scientists are ecstatic. “This is a miracle, I think,” A. J. Stewart Smith, the dean for research at Princeton, said. “It is redressing this terrible problem where the success rate for excellent proposals was very low.”

…”When President Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus measure last Tuesday, one of the law’s most surprising provisions was a 36 percent increase in the budget for the National Institutes of Health. The law gives the health institutes $10.4 billion in addition to its annual budget of $29 billion, and the new money must be allocated by September 2010 on grants and other projects that can extend no more than two years. (Emphasis added)

“The law gives the National Science Foundation $2 billion in stimulus financing for research grants, and the foundation also has until September 2010 to spend the money. But the foundation will act much faster, pushing nearly all of that money out to scientists within 120 days, said Jeffrey Nesbit, an N.S.F. spokesman. (Last year, the science foundation’s $6.1 billion budget included $4.8 billion for research grants; Congress has not finished work on the budget for the current fiscal year.)

“The spending increase comes after six years of nearly flat research budgets at the N.I.H., the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and growing desperation at research universities, which depend on the agencies to underwrite much of their scientific faculty and laboratory infrastructure.” (Emphasis added)

Source:  New York Times,  February 24, 2009