ATLANTA -- Citing a percentage decline in federal funding for physical science research, the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) proposes plugging the monetary gaps early in the next millennium.
In 1970, funding for research into the physical sciences amounted to 50 percent of total federal expenditures for research. Today, that funding accounts for only 33 percent, NSF Director Rita Colwell told the opening plenary session of the American Physical Society (APS) centennial meeting in Atlanta, March 20.
"These are disturbing trends," Colwell said. She proposed that the NSF target broad research in information technology that has promising ties with physics. Other NSF priorities include improving mathematics and science education in the United States.
Borrowing a phrase from the 1992 presidential campaign, Colwell quipped: "It's not Y2K, stupid. Why it's K through 12." She suggested a program linking universities with elementary, middle and high schools that would place graduate student mentors in kindergarten through grade 12, reinforcing the NSF's broad-based educational initiative.
"These types of outreach projects help us spark careers for future scientists," she told the physicists.
"This is encouraging news, very good news indeed," said Robert Richardson, Cornell vice provost for research, who has been involved in the federal plans for improved funding in both physics and other disciplines. He is a member of the National Science Board. "This is an important opportunity for the physical and the life sciences."
Colwell's vision seems to have support in Congress. Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.), Congress's first physicist member since Benjamin Franklin, told the meeting that the House is poised to provide strong support for funding more basic research. Ehlers is vice chairman of the House Committee on Science and a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
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