National Science Board Report to NSF
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 15:30:21 -0400
Subject: National Science Board Report to NSF
From: "Jody Flemming" <jody@discoverlife.org>
To: Glenn Bogart <bogartg01@ten-nash.ten.k12.tn.us>,
Boyd Evison <QBoyd@aol.com>, Frank Harris <wfharris@utk.edu>,
Norm Johnson <johnson.2@osu.edu>, Tom Kiernan <tkiernan@npca.org>,
Rex Lowe <lowe@opie.bgsu.edu>,
Charles Maynard <grsm_friends_of_grsm_np@nps.gov>,
John Morse <jmorse@clemson.edu>, John Pickering <pick@pick.uga.edu>,
Susan Riechert <sriecher@utk.edu>,
David Scanlon <jltabor@sacam.oren.ortn.edu>,
Mike Sharkey <msharkey@byron.ca.uky.edu>,
Elizabeth Skillen <lockard@pick.uga.edu>,
George Stuart <stuart84@tds.net>,
George Briggs <hjansson@ncarboretum.org>,
Peter White <pswhite@unc.edu>, Mary Williams <mjwillia@tricon.net>,
Irven DeVore <devore@fas.harvard.edu>,
Keith Langdon <Keith_Langdon@nps.gov>,
Chuck Parker <chuck_parker@nps.gov>,
Becky Nichols <becky_nichols@nps.gov>, phil_francis@nps.gov
Hi,
John Morse brought this report to my attention and I thought everyone would
find it interesting. If this works out it could be good news for DLIA and
the ATBI...
> >On July 28, the National Science Board approved an "Interim Report"
> >entitled "Environmental Science and Engineering for the 21st Century: The
> >Role of the National Science Foundation" which recommends an initiative to
> >implement nearly all of the activities proposed for a National Institute
> >for the Environment. The report sets a funding target of $1 billion/year
> >to be achieved over five years.
> >
> >The Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (CNIE) has
> >praised the report's bold vision. "The concrete recommendations in the
> >Report address the central concern of the CNIE and its constituencies:
> >namely, to improve the scientific basis for environmental decision making.
> >If the National Science Foundation will now fully implement the
> >recommendations of its Board, this would help focus science on important
> >environmental problems that people care about, and the CNIE would
> >enthusiastically support the NSF efforts" stated CNIE President, Richard
> >Benedick following a meeting of the CNIE Board on the day following the
> >release of the report.
> >
> >The full text of the report and details of CNIE's response are available
> >at <www.cnie.org <http://www.cnie.org> .
The report includes twelve recommendations as follows:> >
> >"Recommendations
>
> >The NSF is supporting significantly more environmental research and
> >education than is generally appreciated. However, the Nation's need for
> >fundamental environmental knowledge and understanding requires further
> >attention. To expand and strengthen the Foundation's environmental
> >portfolio, the Board has developed twelve recommendations which are
> >organized into (a) two overarching keystone recommendations that address
> >critical funding resources and organizational issues, (b) five
> >recommendations on research, education, and scientific assessment, (c)
> >four crosscutting recommendations that address physical, technological and
> >information infrastructure, and (d) one recommendation that addresses the
> >importance of partnerships, collaborations, and coordination to NSF's
> >programs and activities in research, education, and scientific
> >assessments.
> >
> >Keystone Recommendations
> >
> >Resources and Funding (Recommendation 1): Environmental research,
> >education and scientific assessment should be one of the highest
> >priorities of the National Science Foundation. The current environmental
> >portfolio, an investment of approximately $600 million, represents only
> >about one-third of the resources necessary. In view of the overwhelming
> >importance and exciting opportunities for progress in the environmental
> >arena, and because existing resources are fully and appropriately
> >utilized, new resources will be required. Therefore, we recommend that
> >environmental research, education and scientific assessment at NSF be
> >increased by an additional $1 billion over the next 5 years.
> >
> >
> >Organizational Approach (Recommendation 2): NSF management should develop
> >an effective organizational approach that meets all of the criteria
> >required to ensure a well-integrated, high priority, high visibility,
> >cohesive, and sustained environmental portfolio within the NSF. These
> >criteria include:
> >
> >1. A high-visibility, NSF-wide organizational focal point with:
> >
> > * Principal responsibility for identifying gaps, opportunities and
> >priorities, particularly in interdisciplinary areas;
>* * Budgetary authority for enabling integration across research,
education, and
> >scientific assessment, and across areas of inquiry;
>* * Responsibility for assembling and publicizing, within the context of
the Foundation's
>normal reporting, a clear statement of NSF's environmental activities.
> >* * A formal advisory process specifically for environmental activities.*
> >
> > 2. Continuity of funding opportunities, in particular in
interdisciplinary areas.
> >3. Integration, cooperation and collaboration with and across established
> >programmatic areas, within NSF and between NSF and its sister Federal
> >agencies.
> >
> > Research Recommendations
> >
> >As the fields of environmental research have matured intellectually, their
> >requirements for knowledge across all scientific, engineering and
> >mathematics disciplines have increased. The Board finds that meeting this
> >challenge will require increasing disciplinary research efforts across all
> >environmental fields. Information and understanding from certain
> >disciplines that are especially relevant to environmental problems are
> >often lacking. Most environmental issues are interdisciplinary, and their
> >drivers, indicators and effects propagate across extended spatial and
> >temporal scales. Increased resources are needed for interdisciplinary,
> >long-term, large-scale, problem-based research and monitoring efforts. In
> >addition, special mechanisms may be required to facilitate successful
> >interdisciplinary programs.
> >
> >Disciplinary Research (Recommendation 3): Environmental research within
> >all relevant disciplines should be enhanced, with significant new
> >investments in research critical to understanding biocomplexity, including
> >the biological/ecological and social sciences and environmental technology.
> >
> >Interdisciplinary Research (Recommendation 4): Interdisciplinary research
> >requires significantly greater investment, more effective support
mechanisms,
> >and strengthened capabilities for identifying research needs,
> >prioritizing across disciplines, and providing for their long-term support.
> >
> >Long-Term Research (Recommendation 5): The Foundation should significantly
> >increase its investments in existing long-term programs and establish new
> >support mechanisms for long-term research.
> >
> > Education Recommendation
> >
> >The role of the NSF is to create educational and training opportunities
> >that enhance scientific and technological capacity associated with the
> >environment, across both the formal and informal educational enterprise.
> >Environmental education and training should be science based, but should
> >be given a renewed focus on preparing students for broad career horizons
> >and should integrate new technologies, especially information
> >technologies, as much as possible. The twin goals of learning are to gain
> >knowledge and to acquire skills such as problem solving, consensus
> >building, information management, communication, and critical and creative
> >thinking.
> >
> >Environmental Education (Recommendation 6): The Foundation should enhance
> >its formal educational efforts by encouraging submission of proposals that
> >capitalize on the inherent student interest in environmental areas while
> >supporting significantly more environmental educational efforts through
> >informal vehicles. All Foundation-supported education activities should at
> >their core recognize potential and develop the capacity for excellence in
> >all segments of society, whether or not they have been part of the
> >scientific and engineering traditions.
> >
> > Scientific Assessment Recommendation
> >
> >The Board defines scientific assessment, for the purposes of this report,
> >as inquiry-based analysis of relevant biological, socioeconomic and
> >physical environmental scientific information to provide an informed basis
> >for 1) prioritizing scientific investments and 2) addressing environmental
> >issues. The role of the NSF is to facilitate the development of methods
> >and models of scientific assessment and foster the conduct of scientific
> >analyses of environmental issues, both domestically and internationally.
> >Research on how to do effective, credible and helpful scientific
> >assessments is timely. In addition, the Board finds that there is an
> >identified need for a credible, unbiased approach to defining the status
> >and trends, or trajectory, of environmental patterns and processes. Such
> >assessments, coordinated across the Federal sector and, where appropriate,
> >internationally are needed for setting scientific priorities and for
> >summarizing scientific information for decision-makers.
> >
> >Scientific Assessments (Recommendation 7): The Foundation should
> >significantly increase its research on the methods and models that support
> >the scientific assessment process. In addition, NSF should, with due
> >cognizance of the activities of other agencies, enable an increased
> >portfolio of scientific assessments for the purpose of prioritizing
> >research investments and for synthesizing scientific knowledge in a
> >fashion useful for policy and decision-making.
> >
> > Infrastructure Recommendations
> >
> >Environmental research depends heavily on effective physical
> >infrastructure. These include environmental observatories complemented by
> >high-speed communications links, powerful computers, well-constructed
> >databases, natural history collections that provide a baseline against
> >which to measure environmental change, and both traditional and virtual
> >centers that pull together interdisciplinary teams. The Board finds that
> >an important role of the NSF is to facilitate the development of
> >facilities, instrumentation, and other infrastructure that enables
> >discovery, including the study of processes and interactions that occur
> >over long-time scales.
> >
> >Enabling Infrastructure (Recommendation 8): High priority should be given
> >to enhancing infrastructure for environmental observations and collections
> >as well as new information networking capacity. A suite of environmental
> >research and education hubs should be created, on the scale of present
> >Science and Technology Centers and Engineering Research Centers, that
> >might include physical and/or virtual centers, site-focused and/or
> >problem-focused collaboratories, and additional environmental information
> >synthesis and forecasting centers.
> >
> > The Board finds that a critical role of NSF is to foster research that
> >seeks to develop innovative technologies and approaches that assist the
> >Nation in conserving its environmental assets and services. The NSF could
> >facilitate an effort to identify technologies that represent
> >order-of-magnitude improvements over existing environmental technologies,
> >and-in communication with other Federal agencies, the academic community
> >and the private sector-define the scientific and engineering research
> >needed to underpin these technologies.
> >
> >Environmental Technology (Recommendation 9): The Foundation should
> >vigorously support research on environmental technologies, including those
> >that can help both public and private sectors avoid environmental harm and
> >permit wise utilization of natural resources.
> >
> > The Board further finds that technological advances are often keystone
> >enabling elements that profoundly advance scientific research. The future
> >of scientific research, education, and scientific assessments will
> >increasingly depend on new and advanced technological developments in
> >instrumentation, information technologies, facilities, observational
> >platforms, and innovative tools for science and engineering.
> >
> >Enabling Technologies (Recommendation 10): The Foundation should enable
> >and encourage the use of new and appropriate technologies in environmental
> >research and education.
> >
> > The Board finds that the role of NSF, in partnership with other Federal
> >agencies, is to stimulate the development of mechanisms and infrastructure
> >to synthesize and aggregate scientific environmental information and to
> >make it more accessible to the public.
> >
> >Environmental Information (Recommendation 11): The Foundation should take
> >the lead in enabling a coordinated, digital, environmental information
> >network. In addition, the NSF should catalyze a study to frame a central
> >source that compiles comparable, quality-controlled time series of
> >measurements of the state of the environment.
> >
> > Partnerships, Coordination and Collaborations Recommendation
> >
> >The Board finds that collaborations and partnerships are essential to
> >important and high-priority environmental research, education, and
> >scientific assessment efforts and are most effective when they are based
> >on intellectual needs. Partnerships, among federal agencies, with
> >non-governmental bodies (e.g., private sector entities, NGO's, and
> >others), and with international organizations can provide the intellectual
> >and financial leveraging to address a) environmental questions at the
> >local level, b) larger-scale regional issues, and c) problems for which
> >the research and the policy dimensions are international. There are thus
> >many opportunities to partner in bilateral/multilateral agreements or via
> >National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) science and engineering
> >initiatives. The Board endorses strong NSF participation in the
> >coordinating mechanism provided through NSTC.
> >
> >The most effective partnerships involve the evolution of trust among
> >participants, strategic thinking processes to identify and evaluate common
> >interests and objectives, and relatively simple, flexible administrative
> >arrangements. They also require sufficient staff, resources and time to
> >mature.
> >
> >Implementation Partnerships (Recommendation 12): The NSF should actively
> >seek and provide stable support for research, education, and assessment
> >partnerships that correspond to the location, scale, and nature of the
> >environmental issues. These partnerships and interagency coordination
> >should include both domestic and international collaborations that foster
> >joint implementation including joint financing when appropriate. This
> >report clearly establishes the need for an expanded national portfolio of
> >environmental R&D. Therefore, the Board suggests that the NSTC, with
> >advice from PCAST, reevaluate the national environmental R&D portfolio,
> >including identification of research gaps and setting of priorities, and
> >the respective roles of different Federal agencies in fundamental
> >environmental research and education.
> >
> > Conclusion
> >
> >Scientific understanding of the environment, together with an informed,
> >scientifically literate citizenry, is requisite to quality of life for
> >generations to come. As the interdependencies of fundamental and applied
> >environmental research become more evident, the NSF should capitalize on
> >the momentum gained in its past support for premium scholarship and
> >emerging new research areas and technologies. The time is ripe to
> >accelerate progress for the benefit of the Nation."
> >
Jody Flemming
Discover Life in America
1314 Cherokee Orchard Rd.
Gatlinburg, TN 37738
423.430.4752
| Discover Life in America | Science | NSF IRC | Jody Flemming - 4 August, 1999 |