{"id":245045,"date":"2017-08-22T15:17:58","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T18:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=245045\/"},"modified":"2017-08-22T18:12:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T21:12:29","slug":"mission-thinking-about-the-future-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/mission-thinking-about-the-future-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission: Thinking about the future of science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Marcia Minillo<\/span><\/a> Emilio Moran, an expert on human settlements in AmazoniaMarcia Minillo<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Anthropologist Emilio Moran, holder of a FAPESP S\u00e3o Paulo Excellence Chair at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) and coordinator of a project regarding the impact of the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant, has been chosen by former U.S. President Barack Obama to serve on the National Science Board (NSB). The Board establishes strategies for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the leading basic research funding agency in the United States. It examines the entire range of policies defined by the country’s executive and legislative branches and decides which major research projects should be funded. Composed of 25 members, including prominent scientists and representatives of a number of industries that focus on innovation, the NSB meets five times a year and advises the U.S. government and Congress on matters related to science, technology, and education.<\/p>\n

Moran will serve a six-year term at the NSB. \u201cThe Board tries to ensure that funds invested in science and technology by the National Science Foundation are spent on high-quality research that meets the needs of the United States. Helping to make those decisions is a heavy responsibility,\u201d says Moran. The researcher is a professor at Michigan State University (MSU) and a pioneer in studies that combine natural and social sciences in an effort to understand the interactions between man and the environment. Rachel Croson, director of the MSU\u2019s College of Social Science, notes that Moran has a uniquely multidisciplinary background that promises to be very useful to the board. \u201cWe are proud to see him appointed,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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NSB public domain images<\/span><\/a> Meeting of the National Science Board in 2015, with National Science Foundation Director France CordovaNSB public domain images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In addition to Moran, three others were appointed members of\u00a0 the NSB by President Obama. One of them is University of Florida president, W. Kent Fuchs, who has many years of experience in university management: from 2002 to 2008, he was dean of the Cornell University College of Engineering and, from 2009 to 2014, he was Cornell University provost. He coordinated the establishment of a new Cornell campus devoted to technology and situated in New York City. Victor McCrary, another appointee and vice president of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, was an executive at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he managed investments of over US$60 million in security and defense projects. The third appointee, Julia Phillips, is an executive emerita of Sandia National Laboratories where, as a vice president, she was responsible for developing the institution\u2019s intellectual property protection policy. Three members of the board were reappointed for additional six-year terms. Physicist Arthur Bienenstock, professor emeritus at Stanford University, coordinated the board\u2019s initiatives to reduce the administrative costs that weigh heavily on NSF-financed researchers. W. Carl Linenberger, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado, and Anneila Sargent, an astronomy professor at the California Institute of Technology, are both known for their skills in supervising foundation programs.<\/p>\n

Long-term recommendations<\/strong>
\nThe National Science Board has become a forum for discussion of NSF directives and its future prospects. It makes long-term recommendations to both the U.S. government and Congress. Although the board participates in decisions made by the foundation, it does not directly intervene in its day-to-day operations. That task is performed by the NSF director, a post currently held by astrophysicist France Cordova, who also has a seat on the NSB. Some of the contributions by the NSB are published in reports, such as those presented every two years about the status of science and engineering in the United States, or those that address specific subjects. The most recent report has discussed the challenges involved in improving the training of professionals who work in science, technology, the various fields of engineering, and mathematics.<\/p>\n

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NSB public domain images<\/span><\/a> Medal representing the Vannevar Bush prize, awarded by the Board to leaders in science in the United StatesNSB public domain images<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The Board\u2019s tendency to think of science as a state policy rather than a government policy has taken shape over time. Its members are appointed by the president, but their six-year terms are completely independent of the U.S. political calendar. The idea of creating a body composed of people associated with science to support the NSF dates back to the second half of the 1940s, when it was accepted somewhat reluctantly. One of the people who are responsible for that format was engineer Vannevar Bush, who at the time headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development. In 1945, Bush produced an historic document entitled Science, the Endless Frontier<\/em>, in which he defended the importance of basic science for the future of the United States and the need for the government to fund the work of university researchers and the education of future scientists. Under his proposal, this function would be performed by an agency directed by a board composed of nine members, who would be selected from the scientific community and who had no government connections, in order to prevent politics from influencing the board\u2019s decisions.<\/p>\n

Although Bush\u2019s treatise had been commissioned by the White House, then-president Harry Truman had different plans for the future agency. He wanted the agency to be overseen by a White House-appointed director, rather than being administered by a board. Vannevar Bush teamed up with U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson, who introduced a bill proposing the establishment of a basic research agency controlled by a nine-member board. The law passed in 1947, but Truman vetoed it. Supported by sectors of the scientific community, Bush continued to defend his idea. A solution to the impasse came in 1950 with the passing of the law that gave the president the power to appoint the agency’s director, as Truman had wanted. It also had, however, something Bush wanted: a governing body of 25 members, which would be mandatorily composed of scientists, engineers, and educators – though all of them would be appointed by the White House. Members of the NSB were given the authority to select its chairperson\u2014currently Maria Zuber, vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n