Another tsunami is approaching U.S. – A lack of funding for science, engineering research

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – As politicians pontificate from Dayton to Denver about the need for a sea change in America and as a powerful hurricane could hit New Orleans nearly three years to the day after Katrina, another tsunami is being overlooked.

In what is a long-term threat to the future of this country, federal funding for academic research in science and engineer failed to keep pace with inflation for the second consecutive year in 2007.

The National Science Foundation calls the funding slowdown “unprecedented.”

Now ask yourself – given what all is happening in the world today, is this the time for Congress to “earmark” funds for local pork while science and education funding slows?

As the threat of globalization and the rise of China and India cut further into the U.S. lead in so many aspects of knowledge, is this really the time to fund bridges to nowhere at the expense of science, technology, engineering and math?

How can the U.S. stem (as in STEM education) its reliance on foreign energy without pouring more R&D into alternative fuel research?

According to NSF data, college and university R&D funding reached $30.4 billion in 2007. That was just $320 million more than 2006’s total of $30.1 billion. In 2005, funding reached $29.2 billion.

So, while our leaders in Congress fiddled away on earmarks, R&D took a hit. (You can’t blame all this on the Bush administration; which party has controlled Congress for the past two years? This is a bipartisan challenge.)

From 2002 through 2005, R&D was a priority, as the NSF data shows:

• 2002: $21.87 billion

• 2003: $24.77 billion

• 2004: $27.64 billion

• 2005: $29.20 billion

The funding slowdown has been felt in other areas as well – state and local government, industry, institutional funding.

Overall funding reached $49.4 billion in 2007 – up 3.5 percent, or just 0.8 percent when adjusted for inflation.

However, the adjusted federal dollars declined 1.6 percent.

Local and state government dollars climbed to $3.14 billion, up a scant $20 million. (But that was certainly better than 2006, when spending increased a mere $2.1 million – and that was long before our economy ran into trouble.)

Industry support, meanwhile, increased $27 million to $2.67 billion.

Yet, as Rome burns, too many people fiddle. As the rising wave of foreign competition soars to new heights, our leaders savor their deckchairs and smorgasbords on the USS Titanic.

“Our global competitiveness depends on America’s having the best science and technology,” one university leader told Inside Higher Ed. “To keep our lead, we must support it. It is vital that federal funding at least keep pace with our closest competitors inn Europe and Asia.”

Rather than build fake pillars on multimillion-dollar sets in Denver and spend millions more on parties in Minneapolis, our politicians and business leaders would better serve the people by putting dollars where their collective rhetoric is.

Let’s STEM the tide before it’s too late and the levies guarding U.S. global economic leadership collapse, drowning the hopes of our children and grandchildren.