National Science Board Research Articles

Advancing the Frontiers

![Figure][1] There has been much discussion recently about ways to stimulate more “high-risk-high-payoff” research: projects that have the potential to make major leaps in scientific understanding. In the United States, the National Science Board, for example, has had a task force dedicated to this issue for over a year, and the National Institutes of Health's Roadmap includes efforts to transform fundamental and clinical biomedical research. One approach to advancing these frontiers has proven quite successful over the years. It is the model used by the Gordon Research Conferences (GRCs), which this year celebrate their 75th anniversary; their 2006 program appears in this issue of Science . The GRCs, which began in 1931 as a chemistry meeting conceived and organized by Neil Gordon, now encompass some 180 conferences each year at 17 different sites in the United States and abroad. Over 20,000 international scientists will participate in these intense meetings that span the whole spectrum of science, science education, and science policy. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has had a close association with the GRCs since 1938, when it took over managing the conferences—an arrangement that lasted until 1956, when the GRCs became independent. A fascinating compendium[*][2] of personal reminiscences about the conferences and their scientific impacts, contributed by a diverse group of 80 well-respected scientists, reveals why these conferences are so popular and successful and why they have persisted on a regular basis for so long. Reduced to its core, the success of these meetings amounts to the way in which their format has promoted transformative thinking and project development. Maxine Singer, for example, writes about the importance of the 1973 Nucleic Acids meeting in stimulating thinking about the implications of recombinant DNA (cloning) experiments. Other authors cite the central role of the GRCs in the emergence of such multidisciplinary fields as bioinorganic chemistry, organic electronics, and mammary gland biology. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: GORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES A core lesson from the GRCs is that even in this age of electronic communication technologies, there is no substitute for putting a small group of people together face to face and keeping them in close contact for a few days. The relatively isolated sites used for the GRCs and the fact that each conference is usually restricted to about 100 attendees encourages people to talk to each other with both informality and candor. And the conference agenda allows for plenty of unstructured discussion time and promotes long conversations about frontier science. Many of the important unanswered scientific questions are multidisciplinary in character. This feature of contemporary research was amply demonstrated in Science 's 2005 list of the top 25 questions for the next 25 years.[†][3] To promote the kind of thinking needed for problem-based rather than discipline-based science, one needs to bring experts together from all potentially relevant fields and create an environment in which they may speak freely and frankly with one another. That is exactly the kind of conversation that GRC attendees are engaged in. All discussions are off the record, and all conference communications are considered private. This fosters safe spaces for posing “risky” ideas and engaging in creative and occasionally speculative communal thinking. As Norman Hackerman emphasizes in the GRC compendium, “The greatest advantage of these meetings was that attendees were able to participate without worrying about being proved wrong in publication …” On the nonhierarchical nature of the meetings, Roy Vagelos reflects, “There I was [at his first Lipid Metabolism conference], a pipsqueak only a few years out of a postdoctoral fellowship, speaking alongside these giants of biochemistry.” Not surprisingly, some of the giants later became Vagelos' collaborators. The GRCs are only one way to encourage transformative thinking and research, but their track record suggests that we may need more venues like them. Scientists sometimes lament that peer review may be biased in favor of cautious and “safe” research, unsupportive of departures from mainstream thinking. By creating a relatively unthreatening, unconstrained atmosphere, the GRCs provide a refreshing opportunity to try out new ideas on one's colleagues, brainstorm about difficult and complex issues, and think about possible solutions. Not a bad strategy at all. [1]: pending:yes [2]: #fn-1 [3]: #fn-2

Task force examines U.S. hurricane research agenda

While U.S. federal, state, and local governments continue to debate what should be done, following the devastating 2005 hurricane season, to rebuild the Gulf Coast and to prevent future disasters, a task force of the U.S. National Science Board (NSB) has begun an effort to construct a national agenda for federally‐sponsored hurricane research.At a 24 January meeting at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) headquarters in Arlington, Va., task force members and government representatives examined current hurricane‐related research conducted and supported by several federal agencies, identified gaps in understanding and future priorities, and discussed how these agencies can better coordinate their activities.

ACTION URGED ON SCIENCE EDUCATION

NSF'S NATIONAL SCIENCE board (NSB) held the first of three hearings in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7 to solicit advice from a broad base of stakeholders on issues a new commission should address in developing a national strategy to improve K-16 science education. NSB members heard a strong call from members of Congress, federal officials, educators, and employers that NSF should lead the way in education reform. There was a consensus that the commission needs to come up with an action plan rather than another broad overview of the education landscape, which has been done often in the past 20 years. I will tell you bluntly that the commission will be a waste of time and an unaffordable missed opportunity if it does not provide a very clear, concise, and cogent statement of the NSF role in education at all levels and if it does not provide clear and very specific guidance about what ...

Board Suggests How to Thrive Under Stress

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATIONThe governing body of the U.S. National Science Foundation has drafted a long-term plan for running NSF without the promised doubling of its budget. The National Science Board's prescription: Give project managers more leeway, and don't let grants to large centers erode support to individuals.

David Allan Bromley

David Allan Bromley

Science Education Review

The board that oversees the National Science Foundation is hoping that a new study of U.S. math and science education will help make the case for a bigger NSF education budget. The study, commissioned by the National Science Board, comes as the White House has proposed shifting precollege science and math instruction funds from NSF to the Department of Education. But many education researchers say NSF has a better track record on science-based reforms. Although the study's exact focus is still unclear, board president Warren Washington says he'll be looking for outside education experts who have the political savvy to sell the report's conclusions.

Report: Excerpts from Science and Engineering Indicators 2004

Excerpts from Science and Engineering Indicators 2004, the biennial report to theU.S. Congress from the National Science Board, present data from a variety of sources on public attitudes toward and public understanding of science and technology in the United States and Europe.

National science board report indicates U.S. research workforce may decline in size

The United States continues to maintain a global leadership role in research and development, but some troubling trends could affect the science and engineering workforce and the U.S. economy, according to the 2004 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators, a biennial report of the National Science Board.The report was issued on 4 May.

National Science Board Honors Mary L. Good

National Science Board Honors Mary L. Good

NSF to allow Smithsonian funding

The U.S. National Science Board approved a resolution to allow all full‐time and postdoctoral scientists from the Smithsonian Institution to apply for National Science Foundation grants through the agency's normal merit review process.The resolution modifies NSF's policy on funding other federal agencies, and it acknowledges “the unique status of [the] Smithsonian Institution and its special contributions to science research and education.”

Reply [to “Comment on ‘Righting the balance: Gender diversity in the geosciences’”] by Floyd Herbert

In our article “On Gender Equity in the Geosciences,” we are not advocating a quota of 50% women in the geosciences, but rather, suggesting that the field would be strengthened if all the individuals with doctorates in the geosciences (including the 28% of all Ph.D.s who are women) were to remain active in these fields [National Science Board, 2002; Kastens, 2003].Currently, only about 13% of employed Ph.D.s in these fields are women, which means that there is a considerable loss of trained scientists in the Earth, atmospheric, and oceanographic sciences. Even the entry‐level hires at Ph.D.‐granting institutions are only 20% female [Holmes et al, 2003].

The changing identity of the scientist.

Last year's Science and Engineering Indicators 2002 , the US National Science Board's biennial report about science, technology and engineering in the USA, stated, “It is generally conceded that scientists and engineers have somewhat of an image problem” (US National Science Foundation, 2002, pp7‐25–7‐31). It further describes how a ‘Draw‐a‐scientist’ test administered to children revealed that the stereotypical images of scientists are “alive and well in the minds of children”. And the stereotype is not confined to children. A survey of general public opinion would readily find a scientist depicted as a white male, middle‐aged or older, wearing a lab coat and glasses and featuring some type of facial hair. This image and various literary characters from Dr Faust and Dr Frankenstein to Dr Moreau and Dr Jekyll have contributed to a constructed and more or less unattractive vision of the scientist, often at odds with the self‐image cherished by the scientists themselves. These fictional representations and the collective imagination of the scientist are reflections of the response to the role of science and technology in the social context. Even more radically, the actual image of scientists is inseparably linked with the transmutations of science itself, of which the scientist is at the same time product and agent. Without doubt, science has put on a new face in the past century. It has come to occupy a central role in society and now enjoys a privileged position among the knowledge‐producing disciplines. As a consequence, the resources devoted to science have increased hugely. There has also been, in general, a visible shift in the way in which science is organized and in how it produces knowledge. Science has become ‘big’, global and complex (Price, 1971), and the emphasis has shifted from the individual scientist to collaborative work. Similarly, scientific knowledge …

Curricula For A Sustainable Future: A proposal for integrating environmental concepts into our curricula

AbstractThe global scientific community recognizes the critical need for industries to develop and practice manufacturing techniques that minimize harm to our environment. In the National Science Board's report Environmental Science and Engineering for the 21st Century, the National Science Foundation was urged to promote “Environmental research, education, and scientific assessment [as] one of NSF's higher priorities.” Although there are a number of independent efforts to fold environmental issues in existing undergraduate curricula, no dominant method has emerged as a means of including these concepts. One of the difficulties in adjusting our materials science and engineering (MSE) curricula is the problem of how and what to include in an already full curriculum. In this paper, we propose a path for integrating environmental and sustainability concepts within the framework of existing curricula. We will suggest learning outcomes for each year of the MSE curriculum and offer examples.

Global and domestic trends “Imperil” Future U.S. Science Workforce

The U.S. science and engineering workforce of the future “is imperiled” by increased global competition for talent and by flat or reduced domestic student interest in the physical sciences and other areas, according to a 19 November report by the U.S. National Science Board (NSB).Citing U.S. census data, the report indicates that the percentage of the foreign‐born who are filling U.S. science and engineering occupations has risen sharply from 14% in 1990 to 22% in 2000. Awards of doctorates to the foreign‐born jumped from 24% to 28%, while those with master's degrees increased from 19% to 29%, and the bachelor's degree share rose from 11% to 17%. The census data reflects immigration patterns and the numbers of foreign specialists working in the U.S. with visas.

John Robinson Pierce

John Robinson Pierce

Academic specialties in U.S. are shifting; hiring of women geoscientists is stagnating

Women have been receiving a greater proportion of the bachelor's and master's degrees in the geosciences over the last 10 years, reaching near 40% in 2000 (latest data available), while receiving only 28% of the Ph.D.s that year. Women are now only 20% of assistant professors at Ph.D.‐granting institutions, a proportion that has not changed in the last 4 years. As part of a larger study to find what key barriers continue to prevent larger numbers of women geoscientists from becoming academics, data have been compiled from the National Science Board [NSB, 2002] and the American Geological Institute's (AGI) Directory of Geoscience Departments [Claudy, 2001] on geoscience specialty by gender.The data are broken down by the specialty of the Ph.D., and compared to hiring rates at Ph.D.‐granting institutions over the last 10 years. These institutions are the focus because they are the source of future Ph.D.s, and diversity of their faculty is critical to assuring diversity and consequent intellectual vigor and strength of our future academic workforce. The data reveal both a slight shift in the subdisciplines of all geoscientists employed in tenure‐track positions at Ph.D.‐granting institutions, and that hiring of women into tenure‐track positions in specific subdisciplines has not kept pace with their Ph.D. production during that time.

National Science Board Honors Public Service

Aformer NSF director and the first American woman to walk in space are among this year’s winners of awards presented by the National Science Board, the governing board of NSF, in May at a dinner hosted by the State Department. Richard C. Atkinson, who directed NSF from 1977 to 1980, received the NSB’s top honor, the 2003 Vannevar Bush Award, for his “contributions to our understanding of human cognition and his vigorous advocacy of the scientific enterprise in the public interest.” According to the board, his research on the nature of memory “led to better understanding of brain structures that relate to psychological phenomena and the effects drugs have on the memory.” In the 1960s, he created one of the first computer-controlled systems for classroom instruction, work that led to the commercialization of computer-assisted instructional systems. During his tenure as NSF’s director, Atkinson negotiated the first-ever memorandum of understanding between the US and the People’s Republic of China. That effort helped “[open] the doors for major exchanges of scientists and scholars between the two nations,” declared the NSB. Atkinson was named president of the University of California system in 1995. He will retire from that post on 1 October.A former NASA astronaut, a radio show, and a nonprofit educational organization garnered the NSB’s Public Service Awards. Kathryn D. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, was honored with the individual award for her “accomplishments as an explorer of Earth and space, a science educator, and a role model for girls and young women.” Sullivan is president and CEO of COSI Columbus, a science center in Columbus, Ohio, whose focus is to make science fun through hands-on discovery.The group award went to the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and the radio series Earth & Sky . The NSB acknowledged CASW, a nonprofit educational organization, for its “achievement in bringing together scientists and science writers for the purpose of improving the quality of science news reaching the public.” The council, located in Hedgesville, West Virginia, funds programs to help journalists and science writers present accurate and informative news stories about developments in science, medicine, and technology. Earth & Sky, a 90-second radio series produced by the nonprofit organization Earth & Sky Inc based in Austin, Texas, was recognized for its “achievement in broadcasting explanations of research and everyday science to a worldwide audience.” The program is broadcast by nearly 680 radio stations in the US and heard internationally on other radio networks. Atkinson PPT|High resolution Sullivan COSI COLUMBUSPPT|High resolution© 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Update on the Next Recompetition of the American National Election Studies (ANES)

At its meeting on November 13, 1997, the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation approved a Resolution Concerning Competition, Recompetition and Renewal of NSF Awards (NSB 97-224). In the Resolution, the Board:· “(a)ffirms its strong support for the principle that expiring awards are to be recompeted unless it is judged to be in the best interest of U.S. science and engineering not to do so. This position is based on the conviction that peer-reviewed competition and recompetition is the process most likely to assure the best use of NSF funds for supporting research and education.· And (r)equests that the Director, NSF, take such steps necessary to ensure that NSF practices embody this principle.”

Knowledge, Reservations, or Promise?

This study introduces a media effects model specific to public perceptions of science and technology. Analysis of the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators Survey provides evidence that different media—newspapers, general television, science television, and science magazines—do affect perceptions differently. These media effects are direct but also indirect, as mediated through effects on science knowledge. Although newspaper reading, science television viewing, and science magazine reading all promote positive perceptions of science, given the relative size of its audience, the impact of general television viewing remains the most compelling finding. The negative images of science on television appear to cultivate scientific reservations, whereas television's portrayal of science as sometimes omnipotent, and offering hope for the future, appears to also promote a competing schema related to the promise of science. Television's direct effect on reservations is reinforced through the medium's negative relationship with science knowledge.

Building a home for the biogeosciences: Challenges for understanding terrestrial ecosystems

In recent years, biological, geological, and atmospheric studies have been combined in name and practice and the term ‘biogeosciences’ has quickly entered the scientific lexicon. AGU has recognized the biogeosciences as a vital and rapidly developing field through the creation of a new section in 2000. In reports from the National Science Board [2000] and the National Research Council of The National Academies [1999], the central role of coupled biologic, geologic, and atmospheric systems in the Earth system has been highlighted.