NSF's Struggle to Articulate Relevance

摘要

Public science today finds itself caught between competing demands: Researchers need autonomy to pursue questions wherever they lead, whereas funders demand that research meet societal needs. The National Science Foundation (NSF) offers a case study of the balancing of scientific autonomy and societal accountability. NSF is charged with funding basic (i.e., nonmis-sion) research. Yet Congress funds basic science in the hope that societal benefits will result. In 1997, NSF added a "broader impacts" review criterion to address concerns about relevance: Justify research in terms of societal outcomes. Over the past decade our nation's concern with accountability has increased, and in response, the NSF recently issued new draft criteria for the review of submitted proposals (1). The new plan will require researchers to identify the broader good of their research by selecting from a list of national priorities. No doubt, scientists who complained about the vagueness of the "benefits to society" clause in the former criterion will welcome the proposed changes as providing much-needed clarity and direction to the idea of "broader impacts." But specifying impacts raises three potential problems.