Comments on the Draft Report for Public Comment: 
Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century: the Role of the National Science Foundation
(NSB-02-190, December 4, 2002)
 
The Council on Undergraduate Research
734 15th St NW Suite 550
Washington, DC 20005
January 8, 2003

The Council on Undergraduate Research, a national organization representing faculty and administrators at nearly 900 colleges and universities in the U.S., is pleased to provide comment on the draft National Science Board's Report, "Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century: the Role of the National Science Foundation." We thank the NSB for its thoughtful and balanced report detailing national needs across the scientific community. We do have two concerns with the report, which we detail below.
 
1. Recommendation 3: Expand education and training opportunities at new and existing research facilities.
Investment in S&E infrastructure is critical to developing a 21st century S&E workforce. Educating people to understand how S&E instruments and facilities work and how they uniquely contribute to knowledge in the targeted discipline is critical. Training and outreach activities should be a vital element of all major research facility programs. This outreach should span communities from existing researchers who may become new users, to undergraduate and graduate students who may design and use future instruments, to kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) children, who may become motivated to become scientists and engineers. There are also opportunities to expand public access to National S&E facilities though high-speed networks and special outreach activities.
 
We commend the general thrust of this recommendation, but we believe that it leaves something out. The report urges that we "…expand education and training opportunities at new and existing research facilities," but it does not explicitly mention expanding ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR RESEARCH, ESPECIALLY FOR FACULTY MEMBERS FROM PRIMARILY UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (BACCALAUREATE COLLEGES, COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITIES) AND COMMUNITY COLLEGES. We believe that these highlighted words should be added to the recommendation, and that the first line should be modified to read, "Expand RESEARCH, education, and training opportunities …." The nation's research infrastructure should better serve the entire academic research community. For example, NSF could encourage research partnerships or other arrangements between the major research facilities and investigators or groups of investigators based in non-research universities. NSF could have a funding program that helps community colleges, baccalaureate colleges and comprehensive universities to access and use NSF centers and national lab facilities. Of course, as this greater access is gained, both research and education/training will be accomplished.
 
2. Recommendation 1: "Increase the share of the budget devoted to S&E infrastructure. 
NSF's future investment in S&E infrastructure should be increased in order to respond to the needs and opportunities identified in this report. It is hoped that the majority of these additional resources can be provided through future growth of the NSF budget. The more immediate needs must be at least partially addressed through increasing the share of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure. The current 22 percent of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure is too low and should be increased. In increasing the infrastructure share, the focus should be on providing individual investigators and groups of investigators with the resources they need to work at the frontiers of S&E."
 
CUR is concerned about the statement that infrastructure needs "must be at least partially addressed through increasing the share of the NSF budget devoted to infrastructure". We believe that the recent budgetary practice of allocating significant portions of budget increases to special initiatives and cross-directorate programs has already had a negative effect on the growth of core directorate research programs. While we wholeheartedly support many of the new interdisciplinary and cross-directorate efforts, we believe that it is time now to refocus on the core research programs and the educational opportunities that they support, without further dilution. Infrastructure funds should not come at the expense of core research funding.