The Problem of Research Priorities

Abstract

Since the peak of federal science funding was passed in the United States in about 1966, there has been evident a growing gap between research opportuni ties and financial resources in science. In academic science available support measured in dollars of constant purchasing power per eligible active investigator has declined by more than a factor of two. * Such a development was inevitable eventually, and had been predicted by many, but it burst upon the scientific world as a surprise after centuries of nearly uninterrupted growth of science and technology. Of course, during most of this time the scientific community was so small that its claim on economic resources was scarcely noticeable, so that sci ence could advance almost independently of the state of the economy. Even in the Depression of the 1930s the national scientific enterprise continued to grow in both funding and employment, in each year of the decade except 1932-34. The average annual real growth was between 7 percent and 9 percent between 1930 and 1940.2 Thus, an actual decline in support and manpower is a relatively new phenomenon, even though particular institutions, such as government lab oratories, have suffered severe temporary cutbacks.3 When science funding was increasing, questions of priority received little overt notice because worthy new projects and new investigators could be sup ported with little detriment to work already under way. It is only recently that competition among projects has become so severe that the scientific cornmunity has become aware of many worthwhile projects which could not find support and many able scientists who could not find professional opportunities com mensurate with their training. Some of this, of course, is part of the general phenomenon of expectations rising faster than resources in our society, but some of it represents a real constriction of resources in relation to opportunities. As a result, there is a feeling that the cost to scientific progress arising from wrong choices of scientific direction may be considerably higher than in the past.

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