Following the House’s controversial and partisan bills in 2014 and 2015 to reauthorize the National Science Foundation (NSF), four Senators of both parties have introduced a bill to reauthorize the NSF, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Gary Peters (D-MI) introduced the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (S. 3084) on June 23. According to their press release and a review of the bill, S. 3084 is designed to maximize the impact of basic research, reduce regulatory burdens on federally-funded researchers, expand opportunities for STEM education, and authorize efforts for manufacturing, commercialization, and leveraging the private sector. Co-sponsored by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), the bill differs from the House-sponsored America COMPETES bill at several key points. For one, the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act is a bipartisan effort, whereas America COMPETES largely follows party lines.
Another key difference is the Senate affirmation of the National Science Foundation’s criteria for determining grants. Members of the House Science committee have investigated and critiqued the process and proposed standards which would result in politicization of scientific research. See these past blog entries on the House efforts: 3/17/14 and 5/26/15. According to the Senate bill, the agency’s current practices, which are focused on merit-based peer-review, have “successfully identified and funded scientifically and societally relevant research and should be preserved.”
The bill also focuses on reducing red tape surrounding university-based research. Components include adopting a stream-lined, “just in time” process where applicants would submit certain information only after preliminary review when acceptance seems likely, and a central database for researcher profiles accessible to all agencies.
STEM education also gets a big boost, especially opportunities for women and minorities. The bill authorizes a STEM education advisory panel of no less than eleven experts to help guide federal decision making regarding educational programs and directs the NSF to continue their existing efforts to increase engagement of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in STEM fields. The NSF is also instructed to create a center for excellence to collect and distribute information regarding participation of underrepresented groups, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will establish an inter-agency group to compile research on promoting inclusion in broader STEM fields as well as the federal STEM workforce. Finally, agencies will be taking a closer look at expanding research opportunities for undergraduates in STEM fields.
Other provisions in the bill discuss cyber-security research, crowd-sourcing and citizen science, and innovative partnerships in manufacturing. Specific funding levels for the bill have not yet been set but are expected to be added at mark-up is scheduled for Wednesday, June 29. Sources indicated the NSF levels will be mostly flat from FY16 to FY17 and a four percent increase from FY17-FY18. For context, the previous NSF re-authorizations—in the so-called COMPETES bills of 2007 and 2010—had 10% and 7%, respectively, in annual increases. Check back later in the week for any updates!
For more information on this bill, see this 6/23 article by Science’s Jeff Mervis and this 6/23 update from FYI: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News.
The NSF stakeholder community welcomed the Senate bill for its bipartisanship and its affirmation of NSF’s merit-based peer review process. The reaction has been more tepid though for the authorization levels for the NSF budget. In its statement, the Association of American Universities said, “we are concerned that the bill as introduced does not contain any funding authorization levels… Earlier this year we were pleased to see the Senate approve legislation authorizing five-percent annual growth for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science… We appreciate the intention of committee leaders to provide an annual increase of four percent, not counting inflation, in funding. As this legislation advances, we urge the Committee to approve this amendment to provide authorized funding levels for NSF and NIST.”