NSF Undertakes Re-Design of Research Facilities Survey
January 18, 2002 - The expert advisory committee for the National Science Foundation's
(NSF) Survey of Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities met Jan.
15 and 16 to discuss ways to re-design the biennial
survey of the nation's facility needs for science.
The congressionally mandated and widely read survey provides the federal
government its most authoritative information on the status of research
space and facilities supporting scientific research at American universities
and private research institutions, with particular attention to institutions
for biomedical research. The survey reports, among other items, data
on newly constructed and renovated laboratory space and its financing.
The survey has demonstrated a persisting need for new research facilities,
especially in fields of biological and medical science. The survey was
recently cited by an NIH working group that has advised a significant
increase in federal funding for new construction [see
Washington Highlights, Dec. 14, 2001].
The NSF's 12-member expert advisory panel is chaired by Robert Simha,
an affiliate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and includes
a university chief financial officer, director of physical plant, provost
for research, and facilities planner among other specialists. Representing
academic medicine on the panel are M. Roy Wilson, M.D., Dean of Creighton
University School of Medicine, and Sandra Harris-Hooker, Assistant Dean
for Research and Development at Morehouse School of Medicine.
The panel reviewed a number of changes that the survey has undergone
since its inception in 1986. Perhaps the most significant (and recent)
change has been to move from a sample of research institutions to a
census of all research performing institutions receiving federal funds
of $150,000 or more annually. The threshold criteria has itself been
increased from $50,000 per year, although some panel members expressed
concern that the cutoff may exclude a class of smaller institutions
that are increasingly important to national science.
In discussing how to create a more effective survey, the panel agreed
that it must resolve a paradox. On one hand, a relatively brief collection
of specific and standard indicators (e.g., net assignable square feet)
may improve the institutional response rate and increase the objectivity
and comparability of the data. On the other hand, as noted by Judy Vaitukaitis,
M.D., Director of NIH's National Center for Research Resources, and
several members of the panel, policy makers need to understand the needs
of increasingly diverse and complex research facilities. Facilities
for the study of functional genomics, for example, entail markedly more
sophistication (and expense) than traditional wet laboratories. Such
differences are not measured by the square foot.
Similarly, the panel addressed whether the survey should seek to measure
the use of instrumentation, levels of shared use across disciplines
and among neighboring institutions, or the increasing co-dependence
of research facilities on information technology. They agreed that a
survey that is more useful to the responding institutions themselves
will achieve a higher rate of compliance than one reporting only national
aggregates. The NSF survey re-design team will conduct site visits at
several institutions and will reconvene the expert panel in June 2002.
Information:
Stephen Heinig, Senior Research Fellow
AAMC Biomedical Health Sciences Research
sheinig@aamc.org
(202) 828-0488
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