Be Careful What You Wish For: A Cautionary Tale about Budget Doubling

摘要

Sometime in the near future, with timing dependent on the economy, the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other competing demands for government money, Congress will substantially boost R&D spending. It will do so in response to the great challenges facing the United States and the world-global warming, the threat of a global pandemic, rising energy and natural resource prices, and so on-whose solutions depend on increased scientific understanding and technological advance. It will also do so in response to the many reports, especially the National Academy of Sciences' 2006 Rising Above the Gathering Storm, highlighting the importance of advancements in science and technology to U.S. economic well-being and national security. Although federal R&D spending relative to gross domestic product has been declining during the past 20 years, between 1998 and 2003 the government increased spending in the biological and life sciences at rates that could presage a future spending boom. The Clinton administration began and the Bush administration completed a doubling of the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). At first glance, the doubling appeared to be an unalloyed benefit for medical research, but a closer examination reveals that scientists need to be careful what they wish for. The doubling did not appear to produce a dramatic outpouring of high-quality research. It failed to address critical flaws in federal research funding and actually exacerbated some existing problems, especially for younger researchers.