Scientific manpower : hearing before the Subcommittee on Science of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, first session, July 31, 1991.

  • United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Subcommittee on Science
Date:
1991
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scientific manpower : hearing before the Subcommittee on Science of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, first session, July 31, 1991. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    need these data to look at our social problems; how to correct our social problems. And that to me is a principal problem with our sample size base, women and minorities—how they might become more involved in science and engineering careers, knowing more about the career bases, what they’ve done, how well they’re doing in their jobs, how well they like jobs in science and engineering. These are things that need to be conveyed, but we just simply don’t have the sample base in our current designs to convey that kind of information. Mr. E.uis. I would like to comment. It’s very difficult to come up with cogent, short summaries of what ought to be done. I agree if somebody ought to do it, it seems to me that there—one thing that could be done and isn’t being done, at least not enough as far as I can tell—there are a bunch of different efforts underway that bear on these matters at NSF, just within the one agency. One does get the impression that the people at Policy Research and Analysis, Science Resource Studies, and the Division of Engineering Infrastructure all probably need to speak i each other more often and make better use of each other’s ef- orts. The work on input/output modeling done up at N.Y.U. was spon- sored by Engineering Infrastructure. It doesn’t seem to have been fed into the stuff that was done at SRS, which was using similar methods and coming up with conclusions that no one can believe. Something is happening to the data between the time that it goes into the model that SRS runs and the time that it comes out. I mean there is no other way to account for the fact that they are coming up with information that says that the population of engi- neers increased by three times the number of degrees in two years flat. I don’t want—people simply do not believe that. This does NSF no good. So there should be more coordination within the agency and also within the establishment on a wider level that deals with this government-wide. That is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census, and other people. There probably isn't enough coordination. : As far as feeling that the system is sound, it’s very difficult to have any one word applied to the system. Parts of it are sound. Parts of it probably need attention. I can’t do better than that in a short response. Mr. Boucuer. Unfortunately, that short response will have to be it for the moment. We have about 10 minutes remaining now to answer a call to the House. I will ask this panel if they will stay in place for the time it takes us to vote and return. Mr. Browder does have some questions to propound, and I have a couple of follow-up questions, as well. , The subcommittee stands in recess for approximately 10 minutes. [after recess] Mr. Boucuer. The subcommittee will come to order. Mr. Browder has not returned. He did, however, leave with the Chair a question that he would like to have propounded to this panel, and the Chair will ask that question for him. There obviously will be less defense spending over time. And as we scale back expenditures for the Department of Defense, that may well have some effect on the base of scientists, and/or engi-