27 April 2009
Obama to Seek Record Levels of Research Investment
Science more essential than ever, president says
Washington — In a speech before a group of scientists and engineers April 27, President Obama announced new measures to bolster science and technology research and a new initiative to encourage the development of clean energy technology.
“Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been,” Obama said in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences. He addressed the 146th annual meeting of the honorific society of scientists and engineers that provides advice to the U.S. government on science and technology issues.
Obama said he seeks to restore and eventually surpass research investment levels achieved during the “space race” in the 1950s and 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed to send satellites into space and land humans on the moon. The United States will do this “through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine and improve education in math and science,” Obama said. “This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history.”
These policies are “what we need to look ahead,” Peter Agre, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, told America.gov. Agre shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The president’s proposed fiscal year 2010 budget — which still must be approved by Congress — proposes major increases in funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Obama also said he would provide $6 billion to support cancer research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the administration’s commitment to a multiyear plan to double cancer research in the United States.
NSF and NIH are primary sources of funding for academic research; the Office of Science “builds and operates accelerators, colliders, supercomputers, high-energy light sources and facilities for making nano-materials,” Obama said.
The president also announced an initiative to develop new energy technologies. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) will conduct “high-risk, high-reward research.” The $400 million Department of Energy program is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which helped develop the Internet, stealth aircraft and the Global Positioning System (GPS).
RISKS FOR A FEW, REWARDS FOR MANY
“Investing in research and development is like sending your kids to school,” something required for long-term success, Agre said, adding that Obama’s remarks were “realistic and inspirational.”
Government funding is required for basic scientific research because physics, chemistry or biology studies might not pay off for a year, a decade or at all, Obama said. “Rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.”
“That’s why the private sector under-invests in basic science — and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research. Because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.” Obama cited solar panels and computerized tomography scans as examples of technologies that originated from basic research in physics. “The calculations of today’s GPS satellites are based on the equations that Einstein put to paper more than a century ago.”
Obama emphasized that many of the challenges that science and technology will help solve are global, requiring that scientists in the United States work with their counterparts in other countries.
“Science, technology and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost-effectively when insights, costs and risks are shared,” Obama said. “That is why my administration is ramping up participation in and our commitment to international science and technology cooperation across the many areas where it is clearly in our interest to do so.”
An example of that commitment is the administration’s current gathering of leaders of the world’s major economies to begin addressing common energy challenges. (See “Clinton’s Remarks at Major Economies Forum on Energy, Climate.”)
Obama also wants to include scientists “directly in the work of public policy.” As part of this initiative, Obama announced the new members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of leading scientists and engineers that advises the administration in areas where understanding of science, technology and innovation is important to forming policy.
“This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views,” Obama said. “I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation.”
The new members of PCAST are “among the best scientists in the country,” Agre said, and include university presidents and Nobel laureates.
“The days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over,” Obama said. “Our progress as a nation and our values as a nation are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.”
A transcript of the president’s remarks and the full text of a fact sheet on the initiatives are available on America.gov.
