Issue Updates

WASHINGTON NEWS
FROM THE FEDERATION OF MATERIALS SOCIETIES
October 8, 2004

CONGRESS LURCHES TOWARD YEAR-END

Having missed the start of the fiscal year on October 1, then a pre-election target date of October 8, the House and Senate left themselves little time to campaign and virtually assured a “lame-duck” session in late November. The President signed a continuing resolution, a temporary appropriations bill extending funding unsigned appropriations bills at FY 2004 levels through November 20. During the lame-duck session, most of the remaining bills are expected to be wrapped up in an omnibus appropriation, which probably will net out to little change in spending over this year’s levels. In general, the bills approved so far by the House would keep the federal investment in non-defense, non-homeland security R&D flat funded, while the Senate Appropriations Committee has been somewhat more generous to the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Commerce’s NIST and ATP programs, and others.

DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ADVANCES

According to Congressional budget procedures, authorization bills are supposed to be passed before appropriations bills, to give guidance to spending decisions on specific programs. This year, the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense was passed and signed into law over the summer, while the authorization bill emerged from a House-Senate conference committee just prior to adjournment for the election campaigns. Advocates from the science and engineering community were cautiously pleased with the result, since the $11.2 billion authorized for the DOD science and technology program brings it closer to the goal of three percent of total defense program spending established in Defense Guidance documents. The conference agreement includes funding for basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development in each of the services, and $5 billion for Defense-wide science and technology. The conferees commended the Department for “mobilizing the capabilities of the science and technology community in transitioning advanced technologies for support of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Global War on Terrorism.” The conferees endorsed the need for “robust science and technology funding in future budgets and continued emphasis on the development, recruitment, and retention of the skilled scientists and engineers necessary to ensuring the U.S. military’s technological edge.”

S&T WORKFORCE DATA

The ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), has urged the White House to follow up on recommendations contained in a report it commissioned on data regarding the U.S. scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematics workforce. The RAND report, The U.S. Scientific and Technical Workforce, recommends that Federal agencies take eight priority actions to improve data collection on the S&T workforce. In a letter to John H. Marburger, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Rep. Gordon and Rep. Jerry Costello (D-IL), said that “with the increased off-shoring of technical jobs, along with perennial recommendations for the training of more U.S. scientists and engineers, we believe that the RAND recommendations merit a rapid and serious response.” Rep. Gordon noted, “In Washington, government-commissioned reports all too often end up on a shelf. If Congress and the Administration are to make sensible policy decisions on the issue of off-shoring, we will need the best data available. The RAND report should not be consigned to a shelf – the Administration needs to follow up aggressively on its recommendations to improve the collection of these critical data.” The report is available at http://www.rand.org/publications/CF/CF194/

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH

The National Science Foundation has made awards of $130 million over five years to nearly 120 new Information Technology Research (ITR) projects dedicated to addressing the information technology priorities facing the country – advances in science and engineering, economic prosperity, and

national and homeland security. Projects cover a wide range of topics, including protection of critical infrastructures and stress corrosion cracking in materials. This year’s awards mark the fifth and final year of the ITR priority area at NSF. In prior years, the priority area emphasized fundamental information technology research and education, applications in science and engineering, and research and education in multidisciplinary areas, focusing on emerging opportunities at the interfaces between information technology and other disciplines.

NEW CENTERS FOR NANOSCALE RESEARCH

NSF recently announced awards of $69 million over five years to fund six major new centers in nanoscale science and engineering. The new centers will be located at the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northeastern University. The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers bring together researchers with diverse expertise – in partnership with industry, government laboratories, or partners from other sectors – to address complex, interdisciplinary challenges in nanoscale science and engineering. The new centers will impact a wide range of technologies, including nanomanufacturing, nanobiotechnology, electronics and medicine. In addition, the centers’ education programs are designed to develop an innovative workforce, advance pre-college training, address societal implications related to the research topic of each center, and to advance the public understanding of science and engineering.

FIRST NANOSCALE CENTER FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING

With a five-year, $15 million grant to Northwestern University, NSF is funding the nation’s first Center for Learning and Teaching in Nanoscale Science and Engineering. The Center will create modular education materials designed to integrate with existing curricula in grades 7-12, and to align with national and state science education standards. Expansions of the modules will be targeted at community colleges and undergraduate institutions and will eventually serve as the core of semester-long courses in nanotechnology. The initial modules will focus on materials science and engineering.