Readme

Research Funding: Get Worried

  • March 2005
  • By TR Staff and Freelance Writers

Current cuts in basic-research support could not come at a worse time.

   

Funding for science and technology research in the United States is in trouble. For years, spending by the federal government, particu­larly through the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been critical to supporting the basic research that often leads to innovative technologies and the startup of innovative companies. But as our special report "Follow the Money" explains, sharp cutbacks in the 2005 federal budget for non-­defense-­related research is creating an inhospitable climate for the emergence of new technologies.

One of the most troubling aspects of this crisis in federal funding is that it has gained so little attention from the general public and from the financial community, which has long benefited from federally supported R&D. Leading figures in the U.S. research community, such as Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and 2004 president of the Ameri­can Association for the Advancement of Science, have been vocal and energetic in warning about basic research's funding woes. But it seems that few outside the university research community are listening, or care.

 

To read the entire article you must log in:

Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.

Username or REGISTER
Password  
   
 
Advertisement

MAGAZINE

Can We Build Tomorrow's Breakthroughs?

Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.

Videos

Meet 2011 TR35 Winner Jesse Robbins

More

Technology Review Lists

TR50

Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:

SpaceX

Cellular Dynamics International

Geron

Suntech

More

Advertisement

Facebook

Advertisement