GOVERNMENT

NSF Funding for Chemical Research in Serious Trouble

Study shows agency support for organic chemistry, other basic research at universities is stagnant, affecting future supply of chemists

A special committee set up by the National Science Foundation this year has reported that funding for chemistry research is in deep trou­ble. Although the study was under­taken originally to look at problems specific to organic chemistry, it soon became obvious that all branches of the science face serious problems.

The panel was cochaired by Clay­ton H. Heathcock and Robert G. Bergman, both professors of chem­istry at the University of California, Berkeley. Nine other chemistry pro­fessors from several areas served on the panel as well. The tenor of the report is that NSF support for aca-

Bergman: fund buffer disappearing

demie basic chemical research, de­spite agency funding increases, is stagnant, and that this is having far-reaching effects, especially on the development of future chemists.

According to Edward F. Hayes, director of NSF's chemistry division, the organic chemistry community's concern began last year. The divi­sion was considering a reorganiza­tion and, through accident and co­incidence, representation for organ­ic chemistry on its advisory panel was at a historically low level. At about the same time, a rumor was circulating that NSF was greatly di­minishing its support for organic chemistry. This prompted Heathcock and Bergman to write to Hayes in an effort to find out what was hap­pening. When the chemistry divi­sion advisers met last fall, they de­cided that these concerns needed an answer and asked them to head up a committee formed to investi­gate the matter.

The 11 members of the panel met for several days with NSF staff mem­bers and looked carefully into how the grant funding process was being handled. In addition, they conduct­ed two surveys. One survey, accord­ing to Heathcock, queried organic chemists at 60 universities. More than 50 responses were received. The panel also wrote to all the schools listed in the American Chemical Society Directory of Grad­uate Research asking for informa­tion on faculty vacancies.

"At the very beginning of our meetings, maybe even before, we decided that the problem was prob­ably far beyond just affecting or­ganic chemistry," Heathcock says. "So a lot of our conclusions are about chemistry in general."

Still, organic chemistry funding was the main focus, and the com­mittee turned up some surprising

Heathcock: astonished by vacancies

data. From its survey, it discovered that NSF provides only about 25% or less of the total organic chemis­try research funding at universities. However, 45% of total basic research funding is supplied by NSF. The panel points to two reasons for this discrepancy. One is that organic chemistry has received a large amount of funds that have gone into instrumentation grants. More important, organic chemistry gen­erally has more "other support" than most chemical disciplines, the ma­jority of which comes from the Na­tional Institutes of Health.

"NIH has supported organic chem­istry more than other areas in the past," Heathcock says. It has be­lieved that organic chemistry, espe­cially organic synthesis, was an integral part of medical research. But the success rate for proposals from organic chemists is dropping, and the problem is particularly bad for physical organic chemists.

"After the 1970s," Bergman says,

May 25, 1987 C&EN 17

Government

"NIH began pulling out of funding physical organic chemistry in a ma­jor way. And when the NSF funds were tightened, these chemists didn't have the buffer left that the synthetic organic chemists have."

The panel did not fault the NSF grant process, although many of the university chemists surveyed com­plained that the quality of the re­views necessary to get an NSF grant has become almost impossibly high. Hayes believes the report says that what the foundation is doing is rea­sonable. "We have been doing the same things for the past two or three years that we have been doing for the past decade," Hayes says.

The survey of organic chemists' experiences with NSF told an im­portant story. Heathcock explains that he and Bergman asked one or­ganic chemist at each of the schools to talk over the problem of funding with his or her colleagues. "All of us were absolutely blown away by the unanimity and discouragement expressed. We were not prepared for the emotions in these com­ments," Heathcock says.

Bitterness and discouragement were expressed among investigators who have had grants discontinued for reasons they don't understand and scientists who have just given up even trying to get a grant from NSF. In addition, there is a general perception that NSF and its review­ers expect more research than is warranted, given the size of the grant awarded.

Heathcock says they also were unprepared for the huge number of vacancies waiting to be filled on chemistry faculties. They estimate about 390 vacancies existed at the beginning of this academic year, and about 165 of those are chronic va­cancies, most at the senior level. "The number of vacancies was astonishing," Heathcock says.

One of the biggest fears of chem­ists is that they are becoming in­creasingly dependent on mission-oriented agencies for funds. "Four agencies—NSF, NIH, the Depart­ment of Energy, and the Depart­ment of Defense—provide about 90% of the federal funding for aca­demic research," Heathcock says. Most of this funding does not sup­port pure basic research. "One dan­

ger we see is that NSF director [Erich] Bloch is moving NSF more and more toward mission-directed research," Heathcock says.

This move is not viewed favor­ably by the scientists on the com­mittee. They strongly urge more support for the traditional single investigator type of research that has served U.S. chemistry so well. "Mission-oriented research is not the best way to make significant dis­coveries," Heathcock says.

Heathcock, Bergman, and Hayes are all concerned about the impact that changes in the pattern of fed­eral funding for basic research are having on the future supply of sci­entists. The feeling that there is a tremendous waste of human re­sources runs through the panel's re­port. The lack of faculty members and intense disillusionment with the federal grant system mean that many talented people are probably turn­ing from chemistry to other fields.

There are some specific things the panel believes could be done to im-

Experts have advised the Environ­mental Protection Agency that the barrier to commercializing alterna­tives to the current batch of trou­blesome chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is neither technical nor environmen­tal. Rather, they claim the lack of a market for these higher priced chemicals is what is stalling their introduction.

The experts from the U.S. and several other countries recommend that governments of the world fashion incentives for the more rapid commercialization of these new chemicals. The CFCs currently used—CFC-11, CFC-12, and CFC-113—are fully halogenated and long-lived, and are implicated in the de­struction of Earth's protective strat­ospheric ozone layer. The most promising alternatives are the less halogenated CFC-134A and CFC-123.

The panel of experts, chaired by Richard J. Lagow from the Univer­sity of Texas, Austin, says that those two most promising chemicals could be produced by a variety of tech­nologies available worldwide. In other words, there would be no mo-

prove the situation. These include re-establishing a large graduate fel­lowship program so that students could study with the professors they choose, not just with ones who have the grants to afford the student; pro­viding more money to single inves­tigators and not to science centers of as yet undetermined value; and making the young investigator pro­gram more realistically reflect the relative size of each science. Heath-cock says the chemistry division awards only 8% of the young inves­tigator proposals, whereas other, smaller branches of science have suc­cess rates as high as 40%.

The panel's report was taken se­riously by the NSF chemistry divi­sion advisory board, Heathcock says, and it adopted the executive sum­mary as its formal opinion. Board chairman Mark S. Wrighton of Mas­sachusetts Institute of Technology promised to take the report's con­cerns to director Bloch on behalf of the committee.

David Hanson, Washington

nopoly. CFC-134A and CFC-123 could be produced and priced com­petitively. And with proper incen­tives, they could be on the market within six years.

Representatives from the automo­tive and refrigeration industries told the panel they would prefer that CFC-134A be substituted for CFC-12 currently used in refrigeration. CFC-12 now costs about 60 to 70 cents per lb in bulk quantities. Du Pont estimates that its CFC-134A would sell for $2.00 to $4.00 per lb in bulk quantities (at 1987 dollars). This substitution would require few­er changes in the refrigeration equipment, and would be feasible for these two industries.

However, representatives from the rigid foam insulation industry fear that they could not afford ma­jor price increases for the CFC-11 substitute, CFC-123. Today, CFC-11 costs about 60 cents per lb in bulk quantities. Du Pont estimates that once full-scale production is under way, CFC-123 would cost from $1.25 to $2.50 per lb in bulk quantities.

Lois Ember, Washington

Lack of market stalls new chlorofluorocarbons

18 May 25, 1987 C&EN