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National Science Foundation
Seal of the National Science Foundation
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Flag of the National Science Foundation
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| Agency overview |
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| Formed | May 10, 1950 |
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| Headquarters | Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. |
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| Motto | Where Discoveries Begin |
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| Employees | 1700 |
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| Annual budget | $7.8 billion for 2018 |
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| Agency executive |
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| Website | www.NSF.gov |
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The
National Science Foundation (
NSF) is a
United States government agency that supports fundamental
research and
education in all the non-medical fields of
science and
engineering. Its medical counterpart is the
National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about
US$7.8 billion (fiscal year 2018), the NSF funds approximately 24% of all federally supported
basic research conducted by the
United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as
mathematics,
computer science,
economics, and the
social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.
The NSF's director and deputy director are appointed by the
President of the United States, and confirmed by the
United States Senate, whereas the 24 presidentially appointed members of the
National Science Board (NSB)
do not require Senate confirmation. 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 2014, is astronomer
France A. Córdova, former president of
Purdue University.
History and mission
The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950.
Its stated mission is "To promote the progress of science; to advance
the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national
defense."
The NSF's scope has expanded over the years to include many areas that
were not in its initial portfolio, including the social and behavioral
sciences, engineering, and science and mathematics education. The NSF is
the only U.S. federal agency with a mandate to support all non-medical fields of research.
Budget and performance history
After the technology boom of the 1980s, both sides of the aisle have generally embraced the notion that government-funded
basic research is essential for the nation's economic health and global competitiveness, and for national defense.
That support has manifested itself in an expanding budget—from $1
billion in 1983 ($2.52bn in 2018 dollars) to just under $7.8 billion by
FY 2018, (
fiscal year 2018 enacted level).
NSF has published annual reports since 1950, which since the new
millennium have been two reports, variously called Performance Report
and Accountability Report or Performance Highlights and Financial
Highlights; the latest available FY 2013 Agency Financial Report was
posted December 16, 2013, and the 6 page FY 2013 Performance and
Financial Highlights was posted March 25, 2013. Recently, the organization has been focusing on obtaining high
return on investment from their spending on scientific research.
Various bills have been introduced to direct funds within the NSF. In 1981, the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) introduced a proposal to reduce the NSF social sciences directorate's budget by 75%. Economist Robert A. Moffit suggests a connection between this proposal and Democratic Senator
William Proxmire's Golden Fleece Award
series criticizing "frivolous" government spending—Proxmire's first
Golden Fleece had been awarded to the NSF in 1975, for granting $84,000
to a social science project investigating why people fall in love.
Ultimately, the OMB's 75% reduction proposal failed, but the NSF
Economics Program budget did fall 40%. In 2012,
political science research was barred from NSF funding following the passage of the
Flake Amendment.
Legislation requiring specific appropriations for various directorates
was also approved by the House of Representatives in May 2015. This
legislation broke the precedent of granting the NSF autonomy to
determine its own priorities.
Timeline
Pre–World War II
Although
the federal government had established nearly 40 scientific
organizations between 1910 and 1940, the US relied upon a primarily
laissez-faire
approach to scientific research and development. Academic research in
science and engineering occasionally received federal funding. Within
University laboratories, almost all support came from private
contributions and charitable foundations. In industrial laboratories,
the concentration of workers and funding (some through military and
government programs as a result of
Roosevelt's
New Deal)
would eventually raise concern during the wartime period. In
particular, concerns were raised that industry laboratories were largely
allowed full patent rights of technologies developed with federal
funds. These concerns, in part, led to efforts like Senator
Harley M. Kilgore's "Science Mobilization Act" (see below).
1940–49
Amidst
growing awareness that US military capability depended on strength in
science and engineering, Congress considered several proposals to
support research in these fields. 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 1941-1947. Despite broad agreement over the principle of
federal support for science, working out a consensus how to organize and
manage it required five years.
The five-year political debate over the creation of a national
scientific agency has become a topic for academic study, and is
currently understood from a variety of perspectives. Themes include disagreements over administrative structure, patents and inclusion of social sciences, a
populist-versus-scientist dispute, as well as the roles of political parties, Congress, and
President Truman.
Most commonly, this debate is characterized by the conflict between
New Deal Senator
Harley M. Kilgore and
OSRD head
Vannevar Bush.
Narratives about the National Science Foundation prior to the 1970s
typically concentrated on Vannevar Bush and his 1945 publication
Science—The Endless Frontier. In this report, Vannevar Bush, then head of the
Office of Scientific Research and Development which ran the
Manhattan Project
that outlived it, addressed what should be done in the postwar years to
further foster government commitment to science and technology.
Issued to President Harry S. Truman in July 1945, 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. It proposed
creating a new federal agency, the National Research Foundation.
Upon reexamining the historical record,
scholars discovered that the NSF first appeared as a comprehensive New
Deal Policy proposed by Sen. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia. In 1942,
Senator Kilgore introduced the "Science Mobilization Act" (S. 1297),
which did not pass.
Perceiving organizational chaos, elitism, over-concentration of funds
in a small set of universities, and lack of incentives for socially
applicable research, Kilgore envisioned a comprehensive and centralized
research body supporting
basic and
applied research which would be controlled by members of the public and civil servants rather than scientific experts.
The public would own the rights to all patents funded by public monies
and research monies would be equitably spread across universities.
Kilgore's supporters included non-elite universities, small businesses
and the Budget Bureau. His proposals received mixed support.
Vannevar Bush, an opponent of Kilgore, preferred science policy
to be driven by experts and scientists rather than public and civil
servants.
Bush was concerned that public interests would politicize science, and
believed that scientists would make the best judges of the direction and
needs of their field. While Bush and Kilgore both agreed that on the
need for a national science policy, Bush maintained that scientists should continue to own the research results and
patents,
wanted project selection limited to scientists, and focused support on
basic research, not in the social sciences, leaving the market to
support applied projects.
Sociologist Daniel Kleinman divides the debate into three broad
legislative attempts. The first attempt consisted of the 1945 Magnuson
bill (S. 1285), the 1945 Science and Technology Mobilization Bill, a
1945 compromise bill (S. 1720), a 1946 compromise bill (S. 1850), and
the Mills Bill (H.B. 6448). The Magnuson bill was sponsored by Senator
Warren Magnuson
and drafted by the OSRD, headed by Vannevar Bush. The Science and
Technology Mobilization bill was promoted by Harley Kilgore. The bills
called for the creation of a centralized science agency, but differed in
governance and research supported. The second attempt, in 1947, included Senator
H. Alexander Smith's bill S. 526, and Senator
Elbert Thomas's
bill S. 525. The Smith bill reflected ideas of Vannevar Bush, while the
Thomas bill was identical to the previous year's compromise bill (S.
1850).
After amendments, the Smith bill made it to President Truman's
desk, but it was vetoed. Truman wrote that he did so with regret, but
that the proposed agency would have been "divorced from control by the
people to an extent that implies a distinct lack of faith in the
democratic process".
The third attempt began with the introduction of S. 2385 in 1948. This
was a compromise bill cosponsored by Smith and Kilgore, and Bush aide
John Teeter had contributed in the drafting process. In 1949, S. 247 was
introduced by the same group of senators behind S. 2385, marking the
fourth and final effort to establish a national science agency.
Essentially identical to S. 2385, S. 247 passed the Senate and the House
with a few amendments.
It was signed by President Truman on May 10, 1950. Kleinman points out
that the final NSF bill closely resembles Vannevar Bush's proposals.
Kilgore and Bush Proposals differed on five issues which were central to the larger debate (Chart reproduced)
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Populist Proposal
(Harley Kilgore)
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Scientist/Business Proposal
(Vannevar Bush)
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National Science Foundation Act
1950
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| Coordination/Planning
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Strong Mandate
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Vague Mandate
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Vague Mandate
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| Control/Administration
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Non-scientist members of the public:
Business, labor, farmers, consumers
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Scientists and other experts
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Scientists and other experts
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| Research Supported
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Basic and applied
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Basic
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Basic
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| Patent Policy
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Nonexclusive licensing
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No nonexclusive licensing
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No nonexclusive licensing
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| Social Science Support
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Yes
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No
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No
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1950–1959
In 1950
Harry S. Truman signed Public Law 507, or 42 U.S.C. 16 creating the National Science Foundation. which provided for a
National Science Board of twenty-four part-time. In 1951 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 $151,000 for 9 months. After moving its
administrative offices twice, NSF began its first full year of
operations with an appropriation from Congress of $3.5 million, far less
the almost $33.5 million requested with which 28 research grants were
awarded. After the 1957 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 1958 to $40 million. In
1958 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 1958, in that the NSF provides virtually all the U.S.
federal support for ground-based astronomy, while NASA's responsibility
is the U.S. effort in space-based astronomy. In 1959 the U.S. and other
nations concluded the
Antarctic Treaty reserving
Antarctica
for peaceful and scientific research, and a presidential directive gave
the NSF responsibility for virtually all U.S. Antarctic operations and
research in form of the
United States Antarctic Program.
1960–1969
Emphasis
on international scientific and technological competition accelerated
NSF growth. The foundation started the "Institutional Support Program", a
capital funding program designed to build a research infrastructure
among U.S. universities; it was the single largest beneficiary of NSF
budget growth in the 1960s. In 1960, the NSF's appropriation was $152.7
million and 2,000 grants were made. In 1968 the
Deep Sea Drilling Project
began (until 1983), which revealed evidence about the concepts of
continental drift, sea floor spreading and the general youthfulness of
the ocean basins compared to Earth. The program became a model of
international cooperation as several foreign countries joined. By 1968,
the NSF budget stood at nearly $500 million.
1970–1979
In 1972 the NSF took over management of twelve interdisciplinary materials research laboratories from the Defense Department's
Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA). These university-based laboratories had taken a more
integrated approach than did most academic departments at the time,
encouraging physicists, chemists, engineers, and metallurgists to cross
departmental boundaries and use systems approaches to attack complex
problems of materials synthesis or processing. The NSF expanded these
laboratories into a nationwide network of
Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. In 1972 the NSF launched the biennial "Science & Engineering Indicators" report
to the US President and Congress, as required by the NSF Act of 1950.
In 1977 the first interconnection of unrelated networks was developed,
run by
DARPA.
1980–1989
During
this decade, increasing NSF involvement lead to a three-tiered system
of internetworks managed by a mix of universities, nonprofit
organizations and government agencies. By the mid-1980s, primary
financial support for the growing project was assumed by the NSF.
In 1983, NSF budget topped $1 billion for the first time. Major
increases in the nation's research budget were proposed as "the country
recognizes the importance of research in science and technology, and
education". The
U.S. Antarctic Program
was taken out of the NSF appropriation now requiring a separate
appropriation. The NSF received more than 27,000 proposals and funded
more than 12,000 of them in 1983. In 1985, the NSF delivered ozone
sensors, along with balloons and helium, to researchers at the South
Pole so they can measure stratospheric ozone loss. This was in response
to findings earlier that year, indicating a steep drop in ozone over a
period of several years. The Internet project continued, now known as
NSFNET.
1990–1999
In
1990 the NSF's appropriation passed $2 billion for the first time. NSF
funded the development of several curricula based on the
NCTM standards, devised by the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. These standards were widely adopted by school districts during the subsequent decade. However, in what newspapers such as the
Wall Street Journal called the "math wars", organizations such as
Mathematically Correct complained that some elementary texts based on the standards, including
Mathland,
have almost entirely abandoned any instruction of traditional
arithmetic in favor of cutting, coloring, pasting, and writing. During
that debate, NSF was both lauded and criticized for favoring the
standards. In 1991 the NSFNET
acceptable use policy
was altered to allow commercial traffic. By 1995, with private,
commercial market thriving, NSF decommissioned the NSFNET, allowing for
public use of the Internet. In 1993 students and staff at the
NSF-supported
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, developed
Mosaic, the first freely available browser to allow
World Wide Web
pages that include both graphics and text. Within 18 months, NCSA
Mosaic becomes the Web browser of choice for more than a million users,
and sets off an exponential growth in the number of Web users. In 1994
NSF, together with
DARPA and
NASA, launched the Digital Library Initiative. One of the first six grants went to
Stanford University, where two graduate students,
Larry Page and
Sergey Brin,
began to develop a search engine that used the links between Web pages
as a ranking method, which they later commercialized under the name
Google.
In 1996 NSF-funded research established beyond doubt that the chemistry
of the atmosphere above Antarctica was grossly abnormal and that levels
of key chlorine compounds are greatly elevated. During two months of
intense work, NSF researchers learned most of what is known about the
ozone hole.
In 1998 two independent teams of NSF-supported astronomers discovered
that the expansion of the universe was actually speeding up, as if some
previously unknown force, now known as
dark energy,
is driving the galaxies apart at an ever-increasing rate. Since passage
of the Small Business Technology Transfer Act of 1992 (Public Law
102-564, Title II), NSF has been required to reserve 0.3% of its
extramural research budget for Small Business Technology Transfer
awards, and 2.8% of its R&D budget for small business innovation
research.
2000–2009
NSF joined with other federal agencies in the
National Nanotechnology Initiative,
dedicated to the understanding and control of matter at the atomic and
molecular scale. NSF's roughly $300 million annual investment in
nanotechnology research was still one of the largest in the 23-agency
initiative. In 2001, NSF's appropriation passed $4 billion. The NSF's
"Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and
Technology" revealed that the public had a positive attitude toward
science, but a poor understanding of it. During 2004–5 NSF sent "rapid response" research teams to investigate the aftermath of the
Indian Ocean tsunami disaster and
Hurricane Katrina. An NSF-funded engineering team helped uncover why the levees failed in
New Orleans.
In 2005, NSF's budget stood at $5.6 billion, in 2006 it stood at $5.91
billion for the 2007 fiscal year (October 1, 2006 through September 30,
2007), and in 2007 NSF requested $6.43 billion for FY 2008.
2010–present
President Obama requested $7.373 billion for fiscal year 2013. Due to the
October 1, 2013 shutdown
of the Federal Government, and NSF's lapse in funding, their website
was down "until further notice," but was brought back online after the
US government passed their budget. In 2014, NSF awarded rapid response
grants to study a chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water of
about 300,000 West Virginia residents. In early 2018, it was announced that Trump would cut NSF Research Funding by 30% but quickly rescinded this due to backlash.
As of May 2018, Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air force signed
that letter of intent with the director of NSF initiating partnership
for the research related to space operations and
Geosciences, advanced
material sciences, information and
data sciences, and workforce and processes.
Grants and the merit review process
The
NSF seeks to fulfill its mission chiefly by issuing competitive,
limited-term grants in response to specific proposals from the research
community and establishing cooperative agreements with research
organizations. It does not operate its own laboratories, unlike other federal research agencies, notable examples being
NASA and the
National Institutes of Health
(NIH). The NSF uses four main mechanisms to communicate funding
opportunities and generate proposals: dear colleague letters, program
descriptions, program announcements, and program solicitations.
The NSF receives over 50,000 such proposals each year, and funds about 10,000 of them.
Those funded are typically projects that are ranked highest in a
'merit review' process, the current version of which was introduced in
1997.
Reviews are carried out by ad hoc reviewers and panels of independent
scientists, engineers, and educators who are experts in the relevant
fields of study, and who are selected by the NSF with particular
attention to avoiding conflicts of interest. 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 1997. In June 2010, the
National Science Board
(NSB), the governing body for NSF and science advisers to both the
legislative and executive branches, convened a 'Task Force on Merit
Review' to determine "how well the current Merit Review criteria used by
the NSF to evaluate all proposals were serving the agency."
The task force reinforced its support for both criteria as appropriate
for the goals and aims of the agency, and published a revised version of
the merit review criteria in its 2012 report, to clarify and improve
the function of the criteria. However, both criteria already had been
mandated for all NSF merit review procedures in the 2010
re-authorization of the
America COMPETES Act. The Act also includes an emphasis on promoting potentially
transformative research, a phrase which has been included in the most recent incarnation of the 'merit review' criteria.
Most NSF grants go to individuals or small groups of
investigators, who carry out research at their home campuses. 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’s national
observatories, with their giant optical and radio telescopes; its
Antarctic
research sites; its high-end computer facilities and ultra-high-speed
network connections; the ships and submersibles used for ocean research;
and its gravitational wave observatories.
In addition to researchers and research facilities, NSF grants
also support science, engineering and mathematics education from pre-K
through graduate school. Undergraduates can receive funding through
Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs. Graduate students are supported through Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeships (IGERT) and Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) programs and through the Graduate Research Fellowships,
NSF-GRF. K-12 and some community college instructors are eligible to participate in compensated
Research Experiences for Teachers programs.
In addition, an early career-development program (CAREER) supports
teacher-scholars that most effectively integrate research and education
within the mission of their organization, as a foundation for a lifetime
of integrated contributions.
Scope and organization
National Science Foundation's former headquarters
In addition to around 1,400 permanent employees and the staffs of the NSB office and the
Office of the Inspector General, the NSF workforce includes some 200 scientists on temporary duty and 450 contract workers.
Scientists from research institutions can join the NSF as temporary
program directors, called "rotators", overseeing the merit review
process and searching for new funding opportunities. These assignments
typically last 1–2 years, but may extend to 4. The NSF also offers contracting opportunities. As of May 2018, the NSF has 53 existing contracts.
Offices
- Office of the Director
- Office of the Inspector General
- Office of Budget, Finance, and Award Management
- Office of Information & Resource Management
The NSF also supports research through several offices within the
Office of the Director, including the Office of Cyberinfrastructure, Office of Polar Programs, Office of Integrative Activities, and Office of International Science and Engineering.
Research directorates
The NSF organizes its research and education support through seven directorates, each encompassing several disciplines:
- Biological Sciences (molecular, cellular, and organismal biology, environmental science)
- Computer and Information Science and Engineering (fundamental computer science, computer and networking systems, and artificial intelligence)
- Engineering (bioengineering, environmental systems, civil and
mechanical systems, chemical and transport systems, electrical and
communications systems, and design and manufacturing)
- Geosciences (geological, atmospheric and ocean sciences)
- Mathematical and Physical Sciences (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and materials science)
- Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (neuroscience, management, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, science of science policy and economics)
- Education and Human Resources (science, technology, engineering and mathematics education at every level)
Overseas sites
Prior
to October 2018, NSF maintained three overseas offices to promote
collaboration between the science and engineering communities of the
United States and other continents' scientific communities:
Brussels for Europe, formerly based in Paris (established 1984; relocated to Brussels in 2015)
Tokyo for East Asia, except China (established 1960)
Beijing for China (established 2006)
All three overseas offices were shut down in October 2018, to reflect
the agency's move to a more nimble international posture.Rather than
maintain dedicated offices, NSF will dispatch small teams to specific
international institutions. Teams may work for up to a week on-site to
evaluate research and explore collaborations with the institution.
Crosscutting programs
In
addition to the research it funds in specific disciplines, the NSF has
launched a number of projects that coordinate the efforts of experts in
many disciplines, which often involve collaborations with other U.S.
federal agencies. Examples include initiatives in:
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
NSF's
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
(NCSES) gathers data from surveys and partnerships with other agencies
to offer official data on the American science and engineering
workforce, graduates of advanced U.S. science and engineering programs,
and R&D expenditures by U.S. industry. NCSES is one of the
principal U.S. statistical agencies. It is a part of the NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE).
Public attitudes and understanding
NSF
surveys of public attitudes and knowledge have consistently shown that
the public has a positive view of science but has little scientific
understanding. The greatest deficit remains the public's understanding of the
scientific method.
Comparison surveys elsewhere in the world, including Japan and Europe,
have indicated public interest in science and technology is lower than
in the US, with
China a notable exception. A majority of Americans (54%) had heard "nothing at all" about
nanotechnology in 2008.
Criticism
In May 2011,
Republican Senator
Tom Coburn released a 73-page report, "
National Science Foundation: Under the Microscope", receiving immediate attention from such media outlets as
The New York Times,
Fox News, and
MSNBC.
The report found fault with various research projects and was critical
of the social sciences. It started a controversy about political bias
and a Congressional Inquiry into federally sponsored research. In 2014,
Republicans proposed a bill to limit the NSF Board´s authority in
grant-writing.
In 2013, the NSF had funded the work of Mark Carey at
University of Oregon
with a $412,930 grant, which included a study concerning gender in
glaciological research. After its January 2016 release, the NSF drew
criticism for alleged misuse of funding.
Some historians of science have argued that the National Science
Foundation Act of 1950 was an unsatisfactory compromise between too many
clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government. The NSF was certainly not
the primary government agency for the funding of basic science, as its supporters had originally envisioned in the aftermath of
World War II. By 1950, 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 1957 when U.S. anxiety over the launch of
Sputnik led to the creation of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (space science) and the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (defense-related research)
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