Obama’s stimulus plan must include science

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Obama's stimulus plan must include science

By Gross and Kandel Published: January 12 2009

In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, the economist

Maynard Keynes wrote an open letter to President lin Roosevelt.

In it, he described in terms that resonate today the requirements for

an economic recovery package: " Speed and quick results are essential

.... I put in the forefront ... a large volume of ... expenditures

under government auspices ... Preference should be given to those

which can be made to mature quickly on a large scale. "

As president-elect Barack Obama's team designs an economic stimulus

programme involving large expenditures, it may seem to others that

administration priorities, such as strongly increased federal

investment in the sciences, must wait for better times. We believe,

with Mr Obama, to the contrary. The stimulus provides a great

opportunity to begin rebuilding US science, because increased science

funding is an ideal stimulus: it creates good jobs across the economy;

there is large pent-up need so that money can be spent immediately;

and it represents an investment in the infrastructures of scientific

research and higher education that are vital to the future.

Basic science research in the US is largely funded by grants to

individual investigators or national laboratories from the National

Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Department of

Energy and other agencies. Federal money that science agencies invest

in research grants, scientific infrastructure or national laboratories

can be spent immediately to support research programmes already

approved, salaries for laboratory scientists, purchases of supplies

and equipment (most from small US businesses) and institutional

expenses of the colleges, universities and medical schools where

researchers work.

Scientific funding creates good jobs. For example, Families USA has

estimated that each $1bn (€742m, £660m) of NIH research grant funding

creates more than 15,000 jobs with an average wage of $52,000 a year

and generates $2.21bn of new business activity, a much better

" multiplier " than many proposed parts of the stimulus package.

Federal funding for non-defence research in the life sciences has

fallen in real dollars every year since 2004 and for far longer in the

physical sciences. As a result, the health of the US scientific

enterprise is seriously threatened. Success rates for

investigator-initiated research grants are dangerously low, a

situation that not only threatens established productive investigators

but endangers even more the emerging careers of young investigators on

which our research future depends.

Money could be spent within weeks of passage of a stimulus to fund the

many highly rated applications that have been waiting for support in

2008 and to restore dollars cut from funded grants in recent years.

NIH alone could spend up to $5bn immediately on grants for highly

rated projects and a similar amount over the next year. The NSF, DOE

Office of Science and the National Institute of Science and Technology

can be equally effective in applying funding immediately to backlogs

of approved research proposals and to research facilities. Many

national laboratories have been operating on inadequate budgets, with

projects delayed, staff cut or forced to work reduced hours; projects

are in danger of being terminated and facilities closed without

additional funding.

Investing in scientific research serves a dual purpose: it is an

immediate stimulus to the economy and an investment in US leadership

in science, engineering, technology and education. This leadership is

vital to the US's economy and prestige, as well as to success in such

goals as achieving energy independence, mitigating global warming and

treating and curing disease. In addition to the immediate multiplier

effect of research spending, the intellectual property created by

publicly funded research leads to the creation of innumerable small

companies and, ultimately, many large companies in biotechnology,

energy, computer technology and other scientific and engineering

fields. Federal seed money is multiplied by inflows of private

capital. Federal funds also support virtually all research training

and much of the academic training of those earning their PhDs in

science and engineering in US institutions and so train the personnel

who staff, as well as create, US scientific and engineering companies.

Spending on science, engineering and technology would be only a

relatively small part of a larger stimulus package, yet it would make

a vital contribution to the US's future. Increases in science spending

provide an excellent stimulus at a time when the economy needs one.

But to rebuild US science, spending must be sustained even when the

economy returns to health. Mr Obama has made a commitment to restore

scientific funding to the levels needed to maintain the vitality and

leadership of US scientific research. We believe that the forthcoming

economic stimulus package provides a remarkable opportunity to

initiate this effort immediately, forcefully and productively.

Gross, Nobel laureate in physics, is director of the Kavli

Institute for Theoretical Physics and professor of physics, University

of California, Santa Barbara. Kandel, Nobel laureate in

physiology or medicine, is university professor and director of the

Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University, and senior

investigator at the Medical Institute. A similar letter

to president-elect Obama has been signed by 49 Nobel laureates along

with other leaders of science. , professor of

neuroscience and physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia,

co-wrote this article

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ec4adea-e0b2-11dd-b0e8-000077b07658.html