In Fiscal Year 1993,
Congressional direction precipitated the formation of the
EPSCoR Interagency Coordinating Committee (EICC). The
Committee on Appropriations of the United States Senate, in
reporting out the Fiscal Year of 1993 Veterans, Housing and
Urban Development, and Independent Agencies Appropriations
Act, page 161,
"direct(ed) the [National
Science] Foundation .....[to] produce... a plan to integrate
all [Experimental Programs to Stimulate Competitive
Research] EPSCoR programs into a single unified effort to
maximize the taxpayers investment in this effort."
A Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) was signed by the cognizant officials of those
agencies with EPSCoR or EPSCoR-like programs agreeing to
participate in an EPSCoR Interagency Coordinating Committee.
The agencies included: the Department of Defense
(DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science
Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA). The EICC serves as a working group which meets on a
regular basis to achieve the following objectives:
• Coordinate Federal EPSCoR and EPSCoR-like programs
on the impact of Federal support while eliminating
duplication in states receiving EPSCoR support from more
than one agency.
• Coordinate agency objectives with state and institutional goals,
where appropriate, to obtain continued non-federal support
of S&T research and training.
• Coordinate the development of criteria to assess gains in
academic research quality and competitiveness and S&T human
resource development.
Furthermore, as members of the EICC, the agencies agreed to
exchange information on pending legislation, agency
policies, and relevant programs related to S&T research and
training and, when appropriate, to provide responses on
issues of common concern.
As the lead agency within the
Federal-wide EPSCoR effort, National Science Foundation
staff were designated to serve as the Chair and Executive
Secretary of the EICC.
Membership of the EICC is found on the NSF EPSCoR web
site. |