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
Catalogue details

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.

    132/176 (page 128)
    Number two priority, I would still have to say is the survey in the sampling. Even though it’s very expensive, we still try to allo- cate as much money as we can to get large samples. Modeling comes number three. We feel if you don’t have good data, you can’t—there’s no point in modeling. And I will tell. you that in SRS a very small portion of our budget, well under 1 per- cent, is actually spent on modeling. Well, that brings me to your other area of concern. And that is the estimates of future demand for scientists and engineers. We produce some of the data you would need. for that kind of analysis, but not all of it. For example, a complete analysis of the future market for scientists and engineers would also require—besides our data—sources on the economic environment, industrial growth, de- fense spending, technology, wage rates, and so forth. There was some attention in the early panel to the numbers coming out of NSF some years ago about shortfalls in engineers and scientists, and I just want to remind you SRS was not the source of that particular set of numbers. We just don’t do much kind of modeling. And, indeed, that wasn’t—that was a very—that was a study that was done a couple of years ago somewhere else in the Foundation. But we do agree this is a vital topic, the outlook in modeling for engineers. And mainly we look to the research com- munity for work on it. As Professor Dauffenbach indicated in his testimony, SRS has funded small amounts of money for modeling supply and demand for engineers. I want to let you know, however, that another part of NSF, the Directorate for Biological, Behavioral, and Social Sciences—that is the part that is much more involved in grant making than we are—does have a new initiative aimed at improving the methods for estimating the supply and demand of engineers and scientists. They have had their competition for research grants, and it is likely that a number of awards will be made within the next month or so. Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me mention a matter that was not raised in your testimony—in your letter to Dr. Massey. SRS has re- cently found itself in the unaccustomed position of being the sub- ject of press coverage on its management operations contracts. We at NSF are committed to establishing SRS as a first rate Federal statistical agency. This is our goal. We are committed to our re- sponsibility to be an independent, authoritative source of accurate and useful data on science and engineering. This is also the objec- tive of our work on the personnel data system discussed today. And it applies equally to the numerous other data collection programs in SRS who are management operations contracting and personnel practices, that serve as the foundation of our work. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for your interest in these matters. This concludes my statement. And as I indicated, I have provided a very detailed. statement of how we're dealing with the recommendations of the Committee on Na- tional Statistics. Thank you. [The prepared statement, plus attachment of Mr. Kenneth Brown follows. ]