National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the federal government, created by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (Pub. L. 81-597). The agency is responsible for promoting the progress of science and advancing the nation's health, prosperity, welfare, and security by supporting research and education in all fields of science and engineering. It is also responsible for monitoring the status of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise and for collecting and analyzing data that support the formulation of national policy.

By statute, NSF consists of the National Science Board and the director. These twenty-five eminent scientists, engineers, and administrators are appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The board is responsible for establishing NSF's policies and is mandated to advise the president and the U.S. Congress on policy matters related to science and engineering research and education. The director, who is a member of the board ex officio, is responsible for directing the programs of the agency.

Unique among federal agencies, NSF is devoted to strengthening the overall health of the science and engineering enterprise. Other federal agencies support research and education related to their specific missions, such as energy or defense. NSF's mission is to support scientific inquiry in all fields, encourage emerging areas of research, and help ensure an adequate supply of scientists, engineers, and science and engineering educators. In any year, more than 200,000 people receive support through NSF programs and activities nationwide, and millions more benefit from NSF investments in education and other areas.

With a budget of $4.7 billion for fiscal year 2002, NSF accounts for 4 percent of the total annual federal expenditure on research and development and 23 percent of federal support for all basic research performed at academic institutions. NSF provides more than a third of all federal funding in the physical sciences and about 50 percent in environmental sciences and engineering. In some fields, NSF provides the preponderant support: approximately two-thirds in mathematics and computer science research and nearly 100 percent in anthropology.

Scope of Programs

NSF investments act as a catalyst to expand new knowledge. NSF supports cutting-edge research and education in the core disciplines, ranging from mathematics, the physical and life sciences, and engineering to the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Its investments support three goals: to provide the nation with the necessary

• people–developing a diverse, internationally competitive, and globally engaged work force of scientists, engineers, and well-prepared citizens;
• ideas–enabling discovery across the frontiers of science and engineering, connected to learning, innovation, and service to society; and
• tools–providing broadly accessible research and education tools.

NSF is organized into directorates and offices, which support research and education in the various fields and administer grants to lead researchers and institutions. The directorates include biological sciences; computer and information science and engineering; education and human resources; engineering; geosciences; mathematical and physical sciences; and social, behavioral, and economic sciences.

In addition to support for core fields, NSF funds interdisciplinary research teams and centers, such as its science and technology centers, which encourage the integration of research and education. NSF also provides grants to small businesses through its Small Business Innovation Research Program to encourage them to focus on important science, engineering, and education problems and opportunities with potential for commercial and public benefit.

Partnerships among academic institutions, industry, and government entities are integral to the way NSF implements its mission. Partnerships foster the use of new knowledge to stimulate innovation that will create new wealth and benefit the public. Some major programs are the Engineering Research Centers, Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Since its beginning, NSF has recognized that the conduct of science is intrinsically global, and the agency has encouraged international cooperation. NSF supports cooperative international activities, such as research collaborations, data sharing, and international partnerships in large-scale research facilities.

Although NSF itself operates no laboratories or research facilities, it provides funding for large, multiuser, state-of-the-art facilities, such as the Laser Interferometer Gravity Wave Observatory, the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, the International Gemini Observatory, and the Terascale Computing Facility. NSF also is the designated federal manager of the U.S. Antarctic Program.

Within NSF's broad portfolio, a few opportunities emerge that are so revolutionary that they promise to reshape science and engineering and ultimately change the way people think and live. Typically, these opportunities cross disciplinary boundaries, encompass the full range of NSF programs, and require coordination with other federal agencies. NSF investments that evolved into high-performance computing exemplify this type of emerging opportunity.

Priority areas that NSF has selected for increased attention during the early years of the twenty-first century are:

• information technology research: support for the people who will create new knowledge, and an upgrade of computational infrastructures;
• nanoscale science and engineering: research and technology at the confluence of the smallest human-made devices and the largest molecules of living systems;
• biocomplexity in the environment: the dynamic web of often-surprising interrelationships that arise when components of the global ecosystem interact; and
• learning for the twenty-first century: building and sustaining a competent, diverse work force and integrating research and education to produce that work force.

Involvement with the External Scientific Community

Researchers and educators in all fifty states and the U.S. territories receive NSF support through competitively awarded grants and cooperative agreements. More than 2,000 colleges, universities, academic consortia, pre-kindergarten through grade twelve (pre-K–12) school systems, small businesses, nonprofit institutions, informal science organizations, and other research institutions receive such support.

Funding decisions are made through the process of competitive merit review, in which expert evaluation by external peer reviewers contributes to recommendations by NSF program managers. Each year, NSF receives approximately 30,000 proposals, solicits reviews from approximately 50,000 scientists and engineers, and funds approximately 10,000 proposals. Reviewers evaluate proposals according to two criteria:

• the intellectual merit of the proposed activity: the importance of the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields; the extent to which the proposed activity explores creative, original concepts; and
• the broader impacts of the proposed activity: how well the activity promotes teaching, training, and learning; how well it broadens the participation of underrepresented groups; and the extent of benefits to U.S. society.

In addition to the use of external reviewers, NSF recruits outstanding scientists, engineers, and mathematicians to serve on advisory committees or to join the NSF staff for short periods through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act and the Visiting Scientists, Engineers and Educators programs. Through these mechanisms, NSF involves thousands of working scientists in evaluating emerging opportunities for new knowledge and ensures its access to cutting-edge ideas in all fields of science and engineering.

Support for Education

NSF's support for research is highly integrated with its investment in science and engineering education. Thousands of students at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels contribute to research activities at their education institutions and benefit from involvement with them. In addition, each year NSF provides graduate research fellowships to approximately 900 outstanding graduate students in science, mathematics, and engineering. To provide teaching experience for graduate students and strengthen pre-K–12 education, NSF provides graduate teaching fellowships to graduate students who assist teachers with the content of their mathematics and science classes. NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeships help prepare doctoral candidates for a broad spectrum of career opportunities in education. Through its Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, NSF provides funding to educational institutions to increase the research and development competitiveness of twenty-one states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Although the integration of research and education is most obvious at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, NSF also funds pre-K–12 science and mathematics education in state, urban, and rural school systems and invests in comprehensive reform of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. NSF supports the development of high-quality instructional materials, teacher enhancement, and the use of learning technologies in the classroom. Its funding encourages educational systems to prepare all students–not just STEM majors–for the demands of a highly technological society.

NSF's systemic initiatives in education have catalyzed change in the teaching of mathematics and science by cultivating partnerships between local school systems and other organizations involved in education. Each partnership addresses curriculum, professional development, assessment, policies, resources, stakeholder support, evaluation, and improved student performance as the ultimate goal of any reform effort. As of 2001 NSF had encouraged experiments in comprehensive reform in twenty-six states, fifty-eight urban school districts, and twenty-eight rural initiatives in regions usually composed of more than one state. In the 1999/2000 school year, NSF systemic initiatives affected 227,000 teachers in 11,900 schools with approximately 4.6 million students.

In fiscal year 2002 NSF began implementing the Math and Science Partnerships program, which provides funds for states and local school districts to join with institutions of higher education in strengthening mathematics and science education. The goals are to improve mathematics and science standards, provide teachers with mathematics and science training, and create innovative ways to reach underserved schools and students.