Prosperity in the USA depends on science -both basic and applied. Our future welfare rests on advances in all science as it leads to new benef1cial technologies. Without support and funding for the efforts of the 36.8 million Americans who work in science fields (1) our economy and our standard of living would be drastically reduced. Our national scientific leadership excels due to the researchers who went before us. Without fundamental research in electrical engineering, we would not have the internet. Without the past efforts of aerodynamic engineers, we would not have planes, trains, space rockets and so much more. The success of companies like Tesla do not rest on the efforts of one businessman but on the efforts of many scientists who developed the advanced technology needed to assemble electric vehicles. Over the past fifty years, new treatments and diagnostic methods for disease and disease prevention have been established due to basic fundamental science. Reproductive health is what it is today due to our understanding of the basic processes of reproduction in many species, especially our own. Think about it. Only fifty years ago individuals who suffered a heart attack were treated with bedrest and pain medication, that was all we could offer then. Now, there are myriad ways to save their lives and to maintain their health in subsequent years. Both women and men who struggle with infertility are able to have children due to the discoveries in fundamental reproductive science. But right now, a distinct warning is flashing in front of us. If we as a nation, cut back our support- financial and philosophically, for our scientific research community we will face tremendous loss and our prosperity will sink. The need for support for research was very clear to our country during World War II and the years immediately thereafter. One person, Vannevar Bush, a well-educated electrical engineer and pioneer in the development of the analog computer, understood that our future was tied to science and the scientific process. He was the head of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development and was instrumental in establishing the National Science Foundation. He said then, that new technology and innovation needs to be at the forefront of the nation’s priorities to ensure the future prosperity of our country (2). He was the person who transferred the medical research contracts from OSRD to the National Institutes of Health, which had been authorized by Congress in 1938 to fund scientific grants (3). He realized that only the federal government has the ability to invest in complex research with a broad purpose and a long vision of the benefit of all citizens (2). Science is a complex system. To practice it fully there needs to be 1. A talented, interconnected workforce 2. Adequate and dependable resources (space and complex equipment and data analysis facilities) 3. World-class basic research in all the disciplines of science (4)The NIH currently funds most of the medical and other health care research, including that in nursing, for the USA. There are currently twenty-seven NIH Institutes. In 2023 they awarded 58,951 scientific grants and contracts to 2743 academic universities, hospitals and businesses. This was 583 more than in 2022 (5). These grants and contracts are awarded to scientists through their affiliated institutions for their effort in conducting research projects. Each grant or contract award pays for a percentage of salary support for senior scientists, as well as other scientific team members including junior scientists, students, postdoctoral fellows, skilled laboratory technicians, and research assistants who are all necessary part of the teams need to conduct modern science. In addition, each grant award contributes to the support systems- laboratory space, shared equipment and the staff needed to maintain infrastructure known as “indirect costs” . The grants and contracts are awarded based on a two- level review process. The first level is at a scientific review committee of scientific peers and the second level is conducted at the level of each Institutes Board of Directors made up of appropriate scientist and lay persons and approved by the White House. Funding effort as opposed to funding specific outcomes is essential to the USA leadership in science. The reasoning for this is because the complexity of science means that not all experimental protocols lead to innovative discoveries. However, experiments lead to more questions and then more experiments that eventually lead to discoveries. If the NIH funded only successful outcomes without funding the scientific process, breakthroughs would not happen. That is the genius of how science is funded by the NIH and other federal agencies such as NSF. Maintaing our lead in fundamental science demands that we continue to fund science effort. In the case of NIH, by not funding that federal agency, the USA will lose out in global leadership in advances in the fundamental science that supports health.In my fifty- year long career I have personally observed what happens when federal funding is decreased. Not only are individual scientists lost to the scientific field when they lose grants, the field loses expert technicians; students do not choose to enter science but go into other work so that they can support themselves; and universities loose supporting staff. Universities attempt to support these endeavors as best they can, but they do not have unlimited and unrestricted resources. In my career during the late 1980s I saw how a world class laboratory in a major research university was forced discontinue their work due to lack of funding. Technicians with decades of experience were laid off. They needed to support themselves and their families and found other jobs. When the laboratory finally received full funding two years later, they needed to start from the beginning and train the new technicians they hired, recruit new students and postdoctoral fellows and reestablish infrastructure. The field they were working in suffered as a result finding it hard to keep up with the new methods that had developed in the time they lost. Over the past fifty years I have noted that fewer USA scientists publish articles in world class scientific journals. Many more scientists from China and other countries are published in leading journals than fifty years ago. Without federal commitment to funding fundamental science we could lose our scientific leadership to the determent of our country and our society. This is a wake-up call. Do we really want to slow down our scientific leadership and thus our economy? Make no mistake, it is the scientist, not the businessman who is the real driver in the necessary discovery and innovation that supports prosperity. Capitalism needs the innovation and discoveries that only fundamental science can provide.
References:
1 National Science Foundation data acessed November 1, 2024
2. Bush V. Science: The Endless Frontier. 1945. [December 2013]. http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm accessed November 1, 2024
3. https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/history accessed November 2, 2024
4. Committee on Assessing the Value of Research in Advancing National Goals; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council; Celeste RF, Griswold A, Straf ML, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2014 Oct 28.
5. https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2024/02/21/fy-2023-by-the-numbers-extramural-grant-investments-in-research/ accessed November 1, 2024