TARGETING SCIENCENational Academy of Sciences President Says U.S. Science Is Facing ‘Pessimistic’ Future, Urges Changes to Regain Leadership in Science
National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt says there is a goal shared by all Americans. “Everyone, whether scientists or non-scientists alike, wants U.S. science to be the world leader.” She added: “The elephant in the room right now is whether the drastic reductions in research budgets and new research policies across the federal agencies will allow us to remain a research and development powerhouse.”
On Tuesday, June 3, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt delivered her second annual State of the Science address to a packed auditorium at the NAS building in Washington, D.C., and more than 2,000 virtual viewers.
McNutt discussed the many problems facing the U.S. scientific enterprise — from federal budget cuts to a burdensome regulatory environment to a loss of international talent — and proposed a range of actions to strengthen it.
McNutt noted that there is a goal shared by all Americans. “Everyone, whether scientists or non-scientists alike, wants U.S. science to be the world leader.”
The debate is about how we get there, she said. “The elephant in the room right now is whether the drastic reductions in research budgets and new research policies across the federal agencies will allow us to remain a research and development powerhouse,” said McNutt. “Thus, we are embarking on a radical new experiment in what conditions promote science leadership — with the U.S. being the ‘treatment’ group, and China as the control.”
She added, “I certainly hope that just like any other experiment, all results will be carefully monitored, they will be made instantly available, honestly reported, and a course correction will be instituted should these policies not turn out with that top line [goal] that we all agree we want to see.”
Pessimistic Scenario Is Unfolding
McNutt discussed current developments against the backdrop of the National Academies’ 2007 report Rising Above the Gathering Storm — which examined growing international competition for science leadership and outlined different future scenarios for how the U.S. could fare.
The report “predicted exactly what would happen as knowledge and low-cost labor become widely available, and the answer was erosion in U.S. leadership,” said McNutt.
For many years, under what the report called a “business-as-usual” scenario — in which the U.S. continued to follow the Vannevar Bush playbook — America has been losing ground, as China and other nations started to follow the same playbook, explained McNutt. “The U.S. no longer dominates investment in R&D, and we’ve got lots of competition worldwide.”
Now, she said, evidence suggests that U.S. science is on the verge of the report’s “pessimistic” scenario — a worst-case situation in which America falls far behind other nations.
