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| Behavioral and Social Sciences Research in the FY 2000 Budget
Patricia Kobor, APA; Sandi Wurtz, AERA; and David Johnson, FBPCS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
HIGHLIGHTS
INTRODUCTION Perhaps the most important feature of the FY 2000 budget request for behavioral and social science research is its diversification. Not long ago, researchers knew the exact program in the exact agency that would fund their research. The trend across government now, however, is to fund research thematically. While core disciplinary programs continue to grow modestly, substantial new money now comes from initiatives. Many of the initiatives span agencies, reflecting a continuing federal effort to coordinate research expenditures. The largest proposed new government-wide initiative to include the behavioral and social sciences is the Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT2) initiative. The Department of Education, National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development plan to continue a joint initiative in education research. At the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research will continue to leverage inter-institute collaborative funding projects even as the Center for Scientific Review heads into its first full year of proposal reviews under a totally revamped review panel structure for behavioral and social sciences. At NSF, new or continuing initiatives mean that potential funding for behavioral and social science research could come from directorates other than the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate. NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH) The Administration's FY 2000 budget provides a 2.1 percent increase for NIH, bringing the total to $15.9 billion (see Table II-9). Such a modest overall increase would result in equally modest increases in NIH's behavioral and social science portfolio. NIH is now tallying behavioral and social science research spending in two ways. The first set of figures has been kept since the early 1980s, and tracks spending on health and behavior research. The NIH Office of Financial Management estimates an overall NIH expenditure of $1.06 billion in health and behavior research in FY 1999, and a $21 million increase, to $1.08 billion, for health and behavior research in FY 2000. NIH has recently begun keeping count of research on behavioral and social science, using a broader definition than that for health and behavior. According to this tally, NIH's estimated behavioral and social science research for FY 1999 is $1.50 billion. FY 2000 estimates were not available at press time. This broader definition includes more social science research in the count (i.e., ethical and legal research conducted in the National Human Genome Research Institute) and more behavioral neuroscience research funding. The new definition was promulgated by the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), and has been applied by the institutes to research conducted from FY 1996 to FY 1999. The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993, which authorized the creation of OBSSR, specified that the Office was to promulgate a uniform definition of behavioral and social science so that it could be more reliably tracked at NIH. (The definitions and information about trans-NIH requests for applications are available at the OBSSR web site. Since estimates for FY 2000 are available for health and behavior research spending, it is possible to analyze its growth relative to the overall NIH budget. Estimates in FY 2000 should reflect any expansion of health and behavior initiatives begun with the 15 percent overall NIH increase in FY 1999. Examples appear in Table 1.
Table 1. Health and Behavior
(H&B) Research at the National Institutes of Health NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF) Between 1942, when the idea of a civilian agency to support basic research was first raised, and 1950, when Congress created NSF, there was great debate about whether the behavioral and social sciences should be included in NSF. Vannevar Bush, who convinced President Roosevelt that a NSF was needed, was against inclusion, saying these were applied, not basic, sciences. Senator Harley Kilgore, the driving force in Congress for creating the Foundation, wanted them to be included. In the end, the legislation creating NSF identified by name a number of sciences that would be in the Foundation, and then stated that "other" sciences would also be included. It was that word "other" that stood for the behavioral and social sciences (and engineering). The three "others" have fought for respect at NSF ever since. A landmark achievement was the creation in 1992 of a Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE) at NSF. Formerly these sciences were housed with Biology in what was called the Biological, Behavioral, and Social Sciences Directorate. While the major support for behavioral and social sciences still comes from SBE, for some sciences amounting to more than 80 percent of all available support, these sciences also share in the strong trend at NSF toward ordering research support under broad initiatives rather than directorate-specific programs. Thus, in addition to SBE, support for behavioral and social science research is now in the Education and Human Resources (EHR), Biology (BIO), and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorates as well. For FY 2000, the Administration requests a 4.2 percent increase for SBE, which would raise support $5.8 million from the FY 1999 level of $137.2 million to $143.0 million. Within that increase, the two research divisions would be increased 5.3 percent each: Social and Economic Sciences would rise from $60.4 million to $63.6 million, and Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences from $40.3 to $42.4 million. The other two divisions, International Cooperative Scientific Activities and Science Resources Studies, would grow by 0 and 2.8 percent, respectively, making those budget requests $22.1 and $14.9 million respectively. In addition, $10 million is requested in the CISE budget for behavioral and social science research related to IT2, a major new government-wide initiative. EHR requests $25 million for its share of the joint NSF-ED-NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Education Research Initiative described below, with its overall education research budget request rising $6.5 million to $49.2 million, a 15.2 percent increase. BIO supports neuroscience and behavioral research using animal models through its Integrative Biology and Neuroscience Division. A 4.0 percent increase is requested for these activities, which would raise support from $90.6 to $94.3 million. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (ED) Federal educational research was initiated in 1867 with the creation of the Office of Education (USOE). For 90 years USOE served primarily in collecting routine data and disseminating statistics. Beginning in 1954 and using the natural sciences as a model, USOE provided funding for field-initiated research, primarily at universities. Today, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the Department of Education serves as the major federal agency providing research and data collection on education in the United States. The Administration is requesting a significant increase in appropriations for a new educational research agenda that would increase funding in core programs under OERI. Funding for five existing or proposed new initiatives, some of them interagency efforts, would pour $45 million into educational research. The largest new interagency R&D program, the Education Research Initiative, would focus on developing the knowledge and experimental methods that will allow for the implementation and evaluation of large-scale educational interventions in mathematics and reading instruction strategies, including technology, in elementary and middle schools. ED would provide $25 million and would work in conjunction with NSF and NICHD. Other initiatives that would gain funding include: 1) Comprehensive School Reform Design, which would gain an additional $5 million up to $15 million to evaluate these models qualitatively and quantitatively in order to enhance current designs and develop stronger design components, 2) Adolescent and Adult LiteracyCatching Up and Filling In would receive $5 million to address problems with literacy programs assisting middle and high school students and young adults, 3) Reading in English for Spanish Speakers would receive $5 million for a joint OERI/NICHD effort to provide a better demographic and knowledge base on reading issues for Latino students, and 4) The Eisenhower Professional Development Federal Activities program would garner an increase of $6.7 million for advancing the America Counts national mathematics program. Funding for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) would increase from $68 to $77.5 million. The funding gains for NCES would aid in the redesign and add new data elements to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, as required by the recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) would increase from $81.0 million to $91.0 million with new programs focusing on technology. Level funding is proposed for research under Special Education. Special Education would require approximately $47.6 million of its research and innovation budget of $64.5 million for continuation of current activities, leaving the remaining $15.9 million available for new activities. Vocational and Adult Education research would go from $13.5 million to $17.5 million. Research activities would be expanded in existing areas, and a new activity would initiate a national assessment of vocational educational programs and professional development. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD) The armed services have been crucial supporters of behavioral and social science research for nearly a century. To aid assessment of enlistees for World War I, the Army supported development of the Army Alpha Test, the first aptitude test. The theoretical framework for testing that underlies today's Graduate Record Exam and the Scholastic Assessment Tests is a product of military support, as are today's computer-based "smart tests," which adjust to the test taker and yield a detailed profile of each individual's strengths and weaknesses. Military support created the multidisciplinary field of judgment and decision making research. Major advances in knowledge about human cognition and learning have come from military support. That knowledge is now being applied by the Navy to development of computer circuitry that imitates brain circuitry. The services have also been leaders in support of research to improve training for complex tasks, in embedding training programs in the control circuitry of equipment used in the field, and in developing remote learning technology and applications. Despite that history, some behavioral and social science programs are threatened today. In FY 1998, the Army attempted to eliminate the Army Research Institute, which funds basic and exploratory development behavioral research. Intercession by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Congress saved the program. In FY 1999, the Air Force reduced from $14 to $3 million funds for advanced personnel and training research headquartered at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio. Congress restored funding, but so far the Air Force has chosen not to use the funds for the Brooks programs. No funding is requested in FY 2000. Lost if these programs are eliminated is maintenance of a priceless, irreplaceable cognitive database containing testing data for all new members of the Air Force over nearly the last 40 years. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
