National Science Foundation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. National Science Foundation. Seal of the National Science Foundation. Flag of the National Science Foundation. Agency overview. Formed. May 1. 0, 1. 95. 0; 6. Headquarters. Arlington, Virginia, U. NSF Program Areas Crosscutting and NSF-wide Biological Sciences Computer & Information Science & Engineering Cyberinfrastructure Education and Human Resources Engineering Environmental Research & Education Geosciences. S. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about US$7. NSF funds approximately 2. United States' colleges and universities. The director and deputy director are responsible for administration, planning, budgeting and day- to- day operations of the foundation, while the NSB meets six times a year to establish its overall policies. The current NSF director, confirmed in March 2. France A. The NSF also makes some contracts. Some proposals are solicited, and some are not; the NSF funds both kinds. The NSF does not operate its own laboratories, unlike other federal research agencies, notable examples being the NASA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NSF receives over 5. Crosscutting Programs Panelists 2 David Campbell Deputy Division Director (Acting); Directorate for Education & Human Resources; Division of Research on Learning in Formal & Informal Settings Thyaga Nandagopal Program Director. The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces a crosscutting/NSF-wide solicitation for Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE), which is an National Science Foundation (NSF) program that supports. Find Link on Crosscutting Programs Page . The panel recommended the following criteria as a basis for comparing and selecting technologies for the crosscutting program. The National Academies Press. For example, reviewers cannot work at the NSF itself, nor for the institution that employs the proposing researchers. All proposal evaluations are confidential: the proposing researchers may see them, but they do not see the names of the reviewers. The first merit review criterion is 'intellectual merit', the second is that of the 'broader societal impact' of the proposed research; the latter has been met with opposition from the scientific and policy communities since its inception in 1. However, both criteria already had been mandated for all NSF merit review procedures in the 2. America COMPETES Act. Other grants provide funding for mid- scale research centers, instruments and facilities that serve researchers from many institutions. Still others fund national- scale facilities that are shared by the research community as a whole. Examples of national facilities include the NSF. Undergraduates can receive funding through Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs. K- 1. 2 and some community college instructors are eligible to participate in compensated Research Experiences for Teachers programs. That includes about 1,2. National Science Board office and the Office of the Inspector General, which examines the foundation's work and reports to the NSB and Congress. In June 2. 01. 3 it was announced that the NSF would relocate its headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia in 2. Research directorates. By 1. 95. 0, support for major areas of research had already become dominated by specialized agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (medical research) and the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission (nuclear and particle physics). That pattern would continue after 1. U. S. The NSF is the only U. S. Especially after the technology boom of the 1. That support has manifested itself in an expanding budget. Although the federal government had established nearly 4. US relied upon a primarily laissez- faire approach to scientific research and development. Growing rubber shortages and other war related bottlenecks led many to rethink America's decentralized and market driven approach to science. Despite a growing consensus that something had to be done, there was no consensus on what to do. Two primary proposals emerged, one from New Deal Senator Harley M. Kilgore and another from Vannevar Bush. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia. Swept into office on the wave of new deal politicians, Kilgore was a small businessman with a deep distrust of monopolies. Looking about the landscape of wartime research Kilgore was concerned about the largely laissez- faire approach to producing technologies and products. He was also concerned about the lack of coordination between the federal government and private firms, believing that organizational chaos would lead to a failure in technology production. He was distressed by the concentration of research activities in the hands of a few elite universities and a few private firms. He feared that monopolistic industries had no incentives to develop the products needed for war and postwar economic and social welfare. His solution was to propose a comprehensive and centralized research body that would be responsible to many stakeholders and that would be in charge of producing both basic and applied research. According to this vision, research would no longer be driven by the invisible hand of the market. Research projects would be selected by the public. This public would be represented by a committee of stakeholders including commuting members, industry, and academia. Research results and products would not be owned by private interests, instead the public would own the rights to all patents funded by public monies. Rather than let the market pursue applied research, the proposed agency would pursue both basic and applied research that would support science direct economic and social importance. Responding to his worry about concentration, research monies would be equitably spread across universities. Non- elite universities as well as small businesses supported his proposals. The Budget Bureau also supported him. Opponents feared that the policy would take research out of the hands of scientists. Others suggested that the policy would socialize a large and independent section of the economy. Another opponent was Vannevar Bush, who was the liaison between Congress and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. He recognized some of the same problems as Kilgore highlighted, and liked some things in Kilgore's proposals, but he thought that the proposed federal science agency should have a much different form. Bush did not like the idea of letting social interests and community members drive science policy. He feared that the selection of research projects would become politicized, and he also had complete faith in the ability of scientists to pick the best possible projects. Furthermore, in contrast to Kilgore, he felt that the agency should have the narrower mandate of pursuing only basic science, rather than basic and applied science. Unlike Kilgore, he believed the public should not own research results and products, instead responsible researchers should own the research results. Broadly speaking, Bush's vision was significantly more narrow than Kilgore's proposal. It maintained the status quo in patenting arrangements, it limited project selection to scientists, and it narrowed projects to basic research. After failing multiple attempts, the NSF Act passed in 1. The final bill mostly took on the character of Vannevar Bush's proposal. Broadly speaking it brought about a fragmented or pluralistic system of federal funding for research. During the eight years between initial proposal and final passage, new and existing agencies claimed pieces from the original proposal, leaving the science foundation with limited responsibilities. In the end the final policy represented a failure for those who believed in popular control over research resources, and those who believe that planning and coordination could be extended to the sphere of science policy. Conversely the final policy represented a victory for business interests who feared competition from the government in the area of applied research and who saw Kilgore's patent law proposal as a threat to their property rights and for scientists who gained control of what would later become an important source of resources and professional autonomy. Governmental research into science and technology was largely uncoordinated; military research was compartmentalized to the point where different branches were often working on the same subject without realizing it. Separately, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored creation of organizations to coordinate federal funding of science for war, including the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development both from 1. Kilgore introduced the . The report laid out a strong case for federally funded scientific research, arguing that the nation would reap rich dividends in the form of better health care, a more vigorous economy, and a stronger national defense and proposes creating a new federal agency, the National Research Foundation. Despite broad agreement over the principle of federal support for science, working out a consensus how to organize and manage it required five years. Truman signed Public Law 5. U. S. C. In 1. 95. Truman nominated Alan T. Waterman, chief scientist at the Office of Naval Research, to become the first Director. With the Korean War underway, the agency's initial budget was just $1. After moving its administrative offices twice, NSF began its first full year of operations with an appropriation from Congress of $3. After the 1. 95. 7 Soviet Union orbited Sputnik 1, the first ever man- made satellite, national self- appraisal questioned American education, scientific, technical and industrial strength and Congress increased the NSF appropriation for 1. In 1. 95. 8 the NSF selected Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona, as the site of the first national observatory, that would give any astronomer unprecedented access to state- of- the- art telescopes; previously major research telescopes were privately funded, available only to astronomers who taught at the universities that ran them. The idea expanded to encompass the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the National Solar Observatory, the Gemini Observatory and the Arecibo Observatory, all of which are funded in whole or in part by NSF. The NSF's astronomy program forged a close working relationship with NASA, also founded in 1. NSF provides virtually all the U. S. Antarctic operations and research in form of the United States Antarctic Program. The foundation started the . In 1. 96. 0, the NSF's appropriation was $1. In 1. 96. 8 the Deep Sea Drilling Project began (until 1. Earth. The program became a model of international cooperation as several foreign countries joined. By 1. 96. 8, the NSF budget stood at nearly $5.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2017
Categories |