National Science Foundation
The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent agency of the United States federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health. With an annual budget of about $9.9 billion, the NSF funds approximately 25% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States' colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the NSF is the major source of federal backing.
NSF's director and deputy director are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, whereas the 24 president-appointed members of the National Science Board do not require U.S. Senate confirmation. The director and deputy director are responsible for administration, planning, budgeting and day-to-day operations of the foundation, while the NSB meets six times a year to establish its overall policies.
History
Founding
The U.S. National Science Foundation was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. Its stated mission is "to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense." The NSF's scope has expanded over the years to include many areas that were not in its initial portfolio, including the social and behavioral sciences, engineering, and science and mathematics education. The NSF is the only U.S. federal agency with a mandate to support all non-medical fields of research.Budget and performance history
Since the technology boom of the 1980s, the U.S. Congress has generally embraced the premise that government-funded basic research is essential for the nation's economic health and global competitiveness, and for national defense. This support has manifested in an expanding National Science Foundation budget from $1 billion in 1983 to $8.28 billion in 2020.NSF has published annual reports since 1950, which since the new millennium have been two reports, variously called "Performance Report" and "Accountability Report" or "Performance Highlights" and "Financial Highlights"; the latest available FY 2013 Agency Financial Report was posted December 16, 2013, and the six-page FY 2013 Performance and Financial Highlights was posted March 25, 2013. More recently, the NSF has focused on obtaining high return on investment from their spending on scientific research.
Various bills have sought to direct funds within the NSF. In 1981, the Office of Management and Budget introduced a proposal to reduce the NSF social sciences directorate's budget by 75%. Economist Robert A. Moffit suggests a connection between this proposal and Democratic Senator William Proxmire's Golden Fleece Award series criticizing "frivolous" government spending — Proxmire's first Golden Fleece had been awarded to the NSF in 1975 for granting $84,000 to a social science project investigating why people fall in love. Ultimately, the OMB's 75% reduction proposal failed, but the NSF Economics Program budget did fall 40%. In 2012, political science research was barred from NSF funding by the passage of the Flake Amendment, breaking the precedent of granting the NSF autonomy to determine its own priorities.
Funding profile
In fiscal year 2020, NSF received 42,400 proposals and awarded 12,100, for a funding rate of 28%. In FY 2021, the estimates are 43,200 and 11,500 respectively, giving a funding rate of 26.6%. According to FY 2020 numbers, the median annualized award size is $153,800 and the average duration of an award is 2.9 years.In 2022 the NSF has started funding open source software as part of their Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems program.
Timeline
Pre–World War II
Although the federal government had established nearly 40 scientific organizations between 1910 and 1940, the US relied upon a primarily laissez-faire approach to scientific research and development. Academic research in science and engineering occasionally received federal funding. Within University laboratories, almost all support came from private contributions and charitable foundations. In industrial laboratories, the concentration of workers and funding would eventually raise concern during the wartime period. In particular, concerns were raised that industry laboratories were largely allowed full patent rights of technologies developed with federal funds. These concerns, in part, led to efforts like Senator Harley M. Kilgore's "Science Mobilization Act".1940–1949
Amidst growing awareness that US military capability depended on strength in science and engineering, Congress considered several proposals to support research in these fields. Separately, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored creation of organizations to coordinate federal funding of science for war, including the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development both from 1941 to 1947. Despite broad agreement over the principle of federal support for science, working out a consensus on how to organize and manage it required five years. The five-year political debate over the creation of a national scientific agency has been a topic for academic study, understood from a variety of perspectives. Themes include disagreements over administrative structure, patents and inclusion of social sciences, a populist-versus-scientist dispute, as well as the roles of political parties, Congress, and President Truman.Commonly, this debate is characterized by the conflict between New Deal Senator Harley M. Kilgore and OSRD head Vannevar Bush. Narratives about the National Science Foundation prior to the 1970s typically concentrated on Vannevar Bush and his 1945 publication Science—The Endless Frontier. In this report, Vannevar Bush, then head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development which began the Manhattan Project, addressed plans for the postwar years to further foster government commitment to science and technology. Issued to President Harry S. Truman in July 1945, the report made a strong case for federally-funded scientific research, arguing that the nation would reap rich dividends in the form of better health care, a more vigorous economy, and a stronger national defense. It proposed creating a new federal agency, the National Research Foundation.
The NSF first appeared as a comprehensive New Deal Policy proposed by Sen. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia. In 1942, Senator Kilgore introduced the "Science Mobilization Act", which did not pass. Perceiving organizational chaos, elitism, over-concentration of funds in elite universities, and lack of incentives for socially applicable research, Kilgore envisioned a comprehensive and centralized research body supporting basic and applied research which would be controlled by members of the public and civil servants rather than scientific experts. The public would own the rights to all patents funded by public monies and research monies would be equitably spread across universities. Kilgore's supporters included non-elite universities, small businesses, and the Budget Bureau. His proposals received mixed support.
Vannevar Bush opposed Kilgore, preferring science policy driven by experts and scientists rather than public and civil servants. Bush was concerned that public interests would politicize science, and believed that scientists would be the best judges of the direction and needs of their field. While Bush and Kilgore both agreed on the need for a national science policy, Bush maintained that scientists should continue to own the research results and patents, wanted project selection limited to scientists, and focused support on basic research, not the social sciences, leaving the market to support applied projects.
Sociologist Daniel Kleinman divides the debate into three broad legislative attempts. The first attempt consisted of the 1945 Magnuson bill, the 1945 Science and Technology Mobilization Bill, a 1945 compromise bill, a 1946 compromise bill, and the Mills Bill. The Magnuson bill was sponsored by Senator Warren Magnuson and drafted by the OSRD, headed by Vannevar Bush. The Science and Technology Mobilization bill was promoted by Harley Kilgore. The bills called for the creation of a centralized science agency, but differed in governance and research supported. The second attempt, in 1947, included Senator H. Alexander Smith's bill S. 526, and Senator Elbert Thomas's bill S. 525. The Smith bill reflected ideas of Vannevar Bush, while the Thomas bill was identical to the previous year's compromise bill.
After amendments, the Smith bill made it to President Truman's desk, but it was vetoed. Truman wrote that regrettably, the proposed agency would have been "divorced from control by the people to an extent that implies a distinct lack of faith in the democratic process". The third attempt began with the introduction of S. 2385 in 1948. This was a compromise bill cosponsored by Smith and Kilgore, and Bush aide John Teeter had contributed in the drafting process. In 1949, S. 247 was introduced by the same group of senators behind S. 2385, marking the fourth and final effort to establish a national science agency. Essentially identical to S. 2385, S. 247 passed the Senate and the House with a few amendments. It was signed by President Truman on May 10, 1950. Kleinman points out that the final NSF bill closely resembles Vannevar Bush's proposals.
| Populist Proposal | Scientist/Business Proposal | National Science Foundation Act 1950 | |
| Coordination/Planning | Strong Mandate | Vague Mandate | Vague Mandate |
| Control/Administration | Non-scientist members of the public: Business, labor, farmers, consumers | Scientists and other experts | Scientists and other experts |
| Research Supported | Basic and applied | Basic | Basic |
| Patent Policy | Nonexclusive licensing | No nonexclusive licensing | No nonexclusive licensing |
| Social Science Support | Yes | No | No |