National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950.[6] Its stated mission is "to promote the progress of science, to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense."[7] 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.[4]

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.[8] More recently, the NSF has focused on obtaining high return on investment from their spending on scientific research.[9]

Various bills have sought to direct funds within the NSF. In 1981, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) introduced a proposal to reduce the NSF social sciences directorate's budget by 75%.[10] 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%.[10] In 2012, political science research was barred from NSF funding by the passage of the Flake Amendment,[11] breaking the precedent of granting the NSF autonomy to determine its own priorities.[11]

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.[12]

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 (some through military and government programs as a result of Roosevelt's New Deal) 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".[13]

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 (OSRD) 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.[14] 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.[15] Themes include disagreements over administrative structure, patents and inclusion of social sciences,[15] a populist-versus-scientist dispute,[16] as well as the roles of political parties, Congress, and President Truman.[15]

Commonly, this debate is characterized by the conflict between New Deal Senator Harley M. Kilgore and OSRD head Vannevar Bush.[17] Narratives about the National Science Foundation prior to the 1970s typically concentrated on Vannevar Bush and his 1945 publication Science—The Endless Frontier.[18] 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.[18] 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.[18]

The NSF first appeared as a comprehensive New Deal Policy proposed by Sen. Harley Kilgore of West Virginia.[13] In 1942, Senator Kilgore introduced the "Science Mobilization Act" (S. 1297), which did not pass.[17][13] 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.[17] 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.[17] His proposals received mixed support.

Vannevar Bush opposed Kilgore, preferring science policy driven by experts and scientists rather than public and civil servants.[17] 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,[17] 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.[17]

Sociologist Daniel Kleinman divides the debate into three broad legislative attempts. The first attempt consisted of the 1945 Magnuson bill (S. 1285), the 1945 Science and Technology Mobilization Bill, a 1945 compromise bill (S. 1720), a 1946 compromise bill (S. 1850), and the Mills Bill (H.B. 6448). 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.[17][15] 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 (S. 1850).[17]

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".[19] 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.[17] It was signed by President Truman on May 10, 1950. Kleinman points out that the final NSF bill closely resembles Vannevar Bush's proposals.[20]

In 1950 Harry S. Truman signed Public Law 507, or 42 U.S.C. 16[21] creating the National Science Foundation.[22][23] which provided for a National Science Board of twenty-four part-time members. In 1951 Truman nominated Alan T. Waterman, chief scientist at the Office of Naval Research, to become the first Director. With the Korean War underway, the agency's initial budget was just $151,000 for 9 months. After moving its administrative offices twice, NSF began its first full year of operations with an appropriation from Congress of $3.5 million, far less the almost $33.5 million requested with which 28 research grants were awarded. After the 1957 Soviet Union orbited Sputnik 1, the first ever human-made satellite, national self-appraisal questioned American education, scientific, technical and industrial strength and Congress increased the NSF appropriation for 1958 to $40 million. In 1958 the NSF selected Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona, as the site of the first national observatory, that would give any astronomer unprecedented access to state-of-the-art telescopes; previously major research telescopes were privately funded, available only to astronomers who taught at the universities that ran them. The idea expanded to encompass the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the National Solar Observatory, the Gemini Observatory and the Arecibo Observatory, all of which are funded in whole or in part by NSF. The NSF's astronomy program forged a close working relationship with NASA, also founded in 1958, in that the NSF provides virtually all the U.S. federal support for ground-based astronomy, while NASA's responsibility is the U.S. effort in space-based astronomy. In 1959 the U.S. and other nations concluded the Antarctic Treaty reserving Antarctica for peaceful and scientific research, and a presidential directive gave the NSF responsibility for virtually all U.S. Antarctic operations and research in form of the United States Antarctic Program.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed Leland John Haworth as the second director of the NSF.[24] During the 1960s, the impact of the Sputnik Crisis spurred international competition in science and technology and accelerated NSF growth.[24] The NSF initiated a number of programs that support institution-wide research during this decade including the Graduate Science Facilities program (started in 1960), Institutional Grants for Science (started in 1961), and Science Development Grants, better known as Centers of Excellence program (started in 1964).[24] Notable projects conducted during this decade include creation of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (1960), creation of the Division of Environmental Sciences (1965), deep sea exploration endeavors Project Mohole (1961) and the Deep Sea Drilling Project (1968–1983), the Ecosystems Analysis Program (1969), and ownership of the Arecibo Observatory (1969).[24][25] In 1969, Franklin Long was tentatively selected to take over directorship of the NSF.[25][24] His nomination caused some controversy due to his opposition to the current administration's antiballistic missile program and was ultimately rejected by President Richard Nixon.[25][24] William D. McElroy instead took over as the third director of the NSF in 1969.[25][24] By 1968, the NSF budget had reached nearly $500 million.[24]

In 1972 the NSF took over management of twelve interdisciplinary materials research laboratories from the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). These university-based laboratories had taken a more integrated approach than did most academic departments at the time, encouraging physicists, chemists, engineers, and metallurgists to cross departmental boundaries and use systems approaches to attack complex problems of materials synthesis or processing. The NSF expanded these laboratories into a nationwide network of Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. In 1972 the NSF launched the biennial "Science & Engineering Indicators" report[26] to the US president and Congress, as required by the NSF Act of 1950. In 1977 the first interconnection of unrelated networks was developed, run by DARPA.

During this decade, increasing NSF involvement lead to a three-tiered system of internetworks managed by a mix of universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. By the mid-1980s, primary financial support for the growing project was assumed by the NSF.[27] In 1983, NSF budget topped $1 billion for the first time. Major increases in the nation's research budget were proposed as "the country recognizes the importance of research in science and technology, and education". The U.S. Antarctic Program was taken out of the NSF appropriation now requiring a separate appropriation. The NSF received more than 27,000 proposals and funded more than 12,000 of them in 1983. In 1985, the NSF delivered ozone sensors, along with balloons and helium, to researchers at the South Pole so they can measure stratospheric ozone loss. This was in response to findings earlier that year, indicating a steep drop in ozone over a period of several years. The Internet project continued, now known as NSFNET.

In 1990 the NSF's appropriation passed $2 billion for the first time. NSF funded the development of several curricula based on the NCTM standards, devised by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. These standards were widely adopted by school districts during the subsequent decade. However, in what newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal called the "math wars", organizations such as Mathematically Correct complained that some elementary texts based on the standards, including Mathland, have almost entirely abandoned any instruction of traditional arithmetic in favor of cutting, coloring, pasting, and writing. During that debate, NSF was both lauded and criticized for favoring the standards.

In 1991 the NSFNET acceptable use policy was altered to allow commercial traffic. By 1995, with private, commercial market thriving, NSF decommissioned the NSFNET, allowing for public use of the Internet. In 1993 students and staff at the NSF-supported National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, developed Mosaic, the first freely available browser to allow World Wide Web pages that include both graphics and text. Within 18 months, NCSA Mosaic becomes the Web browser of choice for more than a million users, and sets off an exponential growth in the number of Web users. In 1994 NSF, together with DARPA and NASA, launched the Digital Library Initiative.[28] One of the first six grants went to Stanford University, where two graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, began to develop a search engine that used the links between Web pages as a ranking method, which they later commercialized under the name Google.

In 1996 NSF-funded research established beyond doubt that the chemistry of the atmosphere above Antarctica was grossly abnormal and that levels of key chlorine compounds are greatly elevated. During two months of intense work, NSF researchers learned most of what is known about the ozone hole.

In 1998 two independent teams of NSF-supported astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe was actually speeding up, as if some previously unknown force, now known as dark energy, is driving the galaxies apart at an ever-increasing rate.

Since passage of the Small Business Technology Transfer Act of 1992 (Public Law 102–564, Title II), NSF has been required to reserve 0.3% of its extramural research budget for Small Business Technology Transfer awards, and 2.8% of its R&D budget for small business innovation research.

NSF joined with other federal agencies in the National Nanotechnology Initiative, dedicated to the understanding and control of matter at the atomic and molecular scale. NSF's roughly $300 million annual investment in nanotechnology research was still one of the largest in the 23-agency initiative. In 2001, NSF's appropriation passed $4 billion. The NSF's "Survey of Public Attitudes Toward and Understanding of Science and Technology" revealed that the public had a positive attitude toward science, but a poor understanding of it.[29] During 2004–5 NSF sent "rapid response" research teams to investigate the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster[30] and Hurricane Katrina.[31] An NSF-funded engineering team helped uncover why the levees failed in New Orleans. In 2005, NSF's budget stood at $5.6 billion, in 2006 it stood at $5.91 billion for the 2007 fiscal year (October 1, 2006, through September 30, 2007), and in 2007 NSF requested $6.43 billion for FY 2008.[32]

President Obama requested $7.373 billion for fiscal year 2013.[33] Due to the October 1, 2013 shutdown of the Federal Government, and NSF's lapse in funding, their website was down "until further notice", but was brought back online after the US government passed their budget. In 2014, NSF awarded rapid response grants to study a chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water of about 300,000 West Virginia residents.[34] In early 2018, it was announced that Trump would cut NSF Research Funding by 30% but quickly rescinded this due to backlash.[35] As of May 2018, Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air Force, signed that letter of intent with the director of NSF initiating partnership for the research related to space operations and Geosciences, advanced material sciences, information and data sciences, and workforce and processes.[36]

• Office of the Director
• Office of the Inspector General
• Office of Budget, Finance, and Award Management
• Office of Information & Resource Management

The NSF also supports research through several offices within the Office of the Director, including the Office of Cyberinfrastructure,[57] Office of Polar Programs,[58] Office of Integrative Activities,[59] and Office of International Science and Engineering.[60]

The NSF organizes its research and education support through seven directorates, each encompassing several disciplines:

• Biological Sciences (molecular, cellular, and organismal biology, environmental science)[61]
• Computer and Information Science and Engineering (theoretical computer science, fundamental hardware and software, systems and networking, and artificial intelligence)[62]
• Engineering (bioengineering, environmental systems, civil and mechanical systems, chemical and transport systems, electrical and communications systems, and design and manufacturing)[63]
• Geosciences (geological, atmospheric and ocean sciences)[64]
• Mathematical and Physical Sciences (mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and materials science)[65]
• Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (neuroscience, management, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, science of science policy and economics)[66]
• Education and Human Resources (science, technology, engineering and mathematics education at every level)[67]

An eighth directorate, the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), was created in 2022 to accelerate the transition of basic research into real world impact.[68] It has a primary goal of the support of use-inspired research and the translation of research results to the market and society.

Prior to October 2018, NSF maintained three overseas offices to promote collaboration between the science and engineering communities of the United States and other continents' scientific communities:[69]

• Brussels for Europe, formerly based in Paris[70] (established 1984; relocated to Brussels in 2015)
• Tokyo for East Asia, except China[71] (established 1960)
• Beijing for China[72] (established 2006)

All three overseas offices were shut down in October 2018, to reflect the agency's move to a more nimble international posture. Rather than maintain dedicated offices, NSF will dispatch small teams to specific international institutions. Teams may work for up to a week on-site to evaluate research and explore collaborations with the institution.[73]

In addition to the research it funds in specific disciplines, the NSF has launched a number of projects that coordinate the efforts of experts in many disciplines, which often involve collaborations with other U.S. federal agencies.[74] Examples include initiatives in:

• Nanotechnology[75]
• The science of learning[76]
• Digital libraries[77]
• The ecology of infectious diseases[78]

NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) gathers data from surveys and partnerships with other agencies to offer official data on the American science and engineering workforce, graduates of advanced U.S. science and engineering programs, and R&D expenditures by U.S. industry.[79] NCSES is one of the principal U.S. statistical agencies. It is a part of the NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE).[80]