ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995           TAG: 9512200076
SECTION: EDITORIAL                PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO 

BACK TO BASICS MORE BANG FOR SCIENCE BUCKS

SPEAKING OF budgetary matters, one that has received inadequate attention for too many years is federal funding of scientific research. It needs to get attention soon.

The scientific community was right to worry, publicly, when the new Republican Congress proposed sweeping cuts in science funding. Cut too much, and you imperil America's global leadership in basic science, medicine and technical innovation.

Big cuts are rendered even scarier, however, because the process by which science now gets funded is a mess. If it featured more priority-setting and less waste, there'd be less chance that important research would go unfunded.

A new report requested by Congress and crafted by a scientific advisory council, but still mostly ignored in Washington, points to some of the needed reforms.

It proposes, for example, giving higher priority to basic research in university settings, in contrast with product development in private industry and weapons development in defense labs.

The report also proposes a new budget process. While not recommending a Department of Science that would centralize research and technology funding, it does call for an annual, comprehensive examination of funding before it gets split among various appropriations committees.

Such examination presumably would subject more funding proposals to scientific peer review, competition for grants, and priority-setting based on performance evaluations and changing missions, in contrast with the political spoils system that arbitrarily governs a lot of research funding today.

An improved process, with better accountability, would encourage increased rejection of dubious proposals and research of limited public value. It also would help justify increasing, rather than decreasing, support for civilian scientific research. As a superb investment in America's future, such support ought to be increased.

LENGTH: Short :   42 lines