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Science Policy

Academy study of chemistry gets under way The first wide-ranging study of chemistry in 18 years is under way and is quickly picking up a head of steam. A committee of 26 of the dis­cipline's best and brightest is in place, task force assignments have been made, the general outline of the study has been agreed upon, and a tight time schedule has been set. The goal is to publish an interim report by next October, in time to influence federal funding for R&D in the fiscal 1985 budget. A final report will follow in 1984.

The study is a project of the Na­tional Academy of Sciences' Com­mittee on Chemical Sciences. It will cost about $500,000. The committee actually doing the study—officially dubbed the Committee to Survey Opportunities in the Chemical Sci­ences—is chaired by George C. Pi-mentel, a former deputy director of the National Science Foundation who

now is back at the University of Cal­ifornia, Berkeley.

The functions of the new study are to:

• Display the array of exciting challenges in chemistry today.

• Enhance chemists' awareness of opportunities to address societal needs.

• Enhance societal awareness of its dependence on chemistry for re­sponse to its needs and for ameliora­tion of its problems.

• Strengthen the base for science policy decisions including funding priorities within and among disci­plines.

• Consider the human and mate­rial resources needed to exploit the rich opportunities in chemistry both in advancing human knowledge and in increasing human well-being.

The new study follows a 1965 NAS report entitled "Chemistry: Oppor-

Pimentel's committee represents many interests Overall committee chairman

1 George C. Pimentel Task Force 1

Allen J. Barda

William P. Slichter3

Fred Basolo Gerhart Friedlander Harry B. Gray

Task Force II John 1. Brauman3

Alan Schriesheima

Hans G. Elias David A. Evans Howard E. Simmons Jr. George M. Whitesides

Task Force III Ralph F. Hirschmann3

Christopher T. Walsh3

Josef Fried Koji Nakanishi Earl R. Stadtman

Task Force IV Vladimir Haensel3

Rudolph A. Marcus3

Harry G. Drickamer Isabella L. Karle Fred W. McLafferty

Task Force V John Birely3

Gabor A. Somorjai3

Mostafa A. El-Sayed William A. Lester Jr.

Executive secretary William Spindel

a Task Force cochairman.

University of California, Berkeley 1

University of Texas, Austin 1 Bell Laboratories Northwestern University Brookhaven National Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Stanford University 1 Exxon Research University Michigan Molecular Institute California Institute of Technology Du Pont Harvard University

Merck, Sharp & Dohme Research Labs Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Chicago Columbia University National Institutes of Health

UOP (retired) California Institute of Technology University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Naval Research Laboratory Cornell University

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory 1 University of California, Berkeley University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Berkeley

National Research Council 1

38 C&ENDec. 13, 1982

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Science Policy

tunities and Needs." This is usually known as the Westheimer Report after its chairman, Frank H. West­heimer of Harvard University.

It is not inconceivable that some of the findings and recommendations of the new report will be similar to those of the Westheimer Report. George B. Kistiakowsky, then chairman of the parent NAS committee, wrote in a transmittal letter in the Westheimer Report, "Chemistry, while central to the missions of virtually all federal agencies, is not the focal point of the mission of any one of them. Thus, agency support for chemistry per se is insufficient relative to the opportu­nities and needs described in this re­port. In view of the present low level of funding, we consider the recom­mendations of the report concerning future funding of chemical research as well justified and conservative."

The new study has been started with seed money from the American Chemical Society, $20,000, and NAS, $17,000. ACS is contributing another $80,000. Ideally, NAS would like the funding to come about equally from federal and nonfederal sources. The National Science Foundation, De­partment of Energy, and the National Bureau of Standards have reacted positively to proposals for support. According to Pimentel, prospects for raising the full amount of $500,000 are quite good, but it will not be easy. ACS provided about 75% of the funds for the Westheimer Report.

Pimentel explains that the study committee has risen to its potentially unwieldly size of 26 due to the neces­sity of achieving various balances— between academic and nonacademic chemists, among the various subdis­ciplines, and among geographic areas.

As finally constituted, the com­mittee consists of 16 academics, five chemists with industrial back­grounds, four from government lab­oratories, and one from a nonprofit institution. By discipline, nine are physical chemists, eight are organic chemists, seven represent other sub-disciplines of chemistry, and two are chemical engineers. Of the academics, eight are from California schools, four from the East Coast, and four from the rest of the country. In total, the group also is a judicious balance of the wise and the opinionated.

Overall it is a very distinguished group. All have Ph.D. degrees, almost all from the most prestigious institu­tions. Sixteen are members of NAS. All are members of ACS. All currently work in the U.S., although nine are

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Science Policy

foreign born. The average age of the group is 54.

The committee will do almost all of its work through five task forces, each consisting of four to six committee members. Each will produce reports on a number of selected and loosely related subjects which then will be melded into an overall report by a group made up of Pimentel plus at least one representative of each task force.

The task forces do not correspond directly with the traditional subdis­ciplines of chemistry—although they do have such a "coloration," accord­ing to Pimentel. These subgroups have been arranged to match the topics the committee wishes to cover with the available expertise. Each group will work pretty much on its own and be free to coopt whatever extra intellectual resources it feels it needs. As Pimentel puts it, "We want to reach out to get the people who are actually in the trenches doing the science."

Task Force I, which has an inor­ganic tinge, will tackle high-temper­ature chemistry and combustion, chemistry and the environment, synthetic inorganic chemistry and inorganic minerals, nuclear chemis­try, electrochemistry and corrosion, and analytical chemistry. Task Force II has an organic leaning and will look into, among other things, supra-molecular synthesis, organic materi­als, polymers, physical organic and physical inorganic chemistry, and organic energy sources. Task Force III is oriented toward the life sciences. Task Force IV is generally involved with physical chemistry. And Task Force V will be heavily involved in the revolution in instrumentation.

Each task force will be asked to address five aspects of the topics within its bailiwick—what they mean in terms of pushing back the intel­lectual frontiers, how they represent opportunities to respond to present and future societal needs, the tech­niques and facilities involved, their interaction with other academic fields, and the human and institu­tional resources needed to exploit their potential.

The new report will not examine chemical education as a separate topic. However, education likely will be touched upon at least in the dis­cussions of the resources needed to exploit various opportunities for chemistry. ACS is in the early stages of planning a study of chemistry ed­ucation that could be completed in time to augment any influence the

Pimentel: addressing scientific illiteracy

NAS report may have on the fiscal 1985 budget.

When asked how his committee of chemists will be able to produce a re­port—undoubtedly one recom­mending higher federal funding for basic chemical research—that is not perceived as self-serving and which will have credibility with decision makers and the public, Pimentel ad­mits it will be very difficult. But he adds that it will be a lot less difficult for chemistry than for other disci­plines.

According to Pimentel, chemistry has two things going for it—its intel­lectual position as a central science and its potential for responding quite directly to societal needs. As Pimentel explains, "NAS recently produced an excellent survey of astronomy and astrophysics that basically says two things—there are some exciting op­portunities for us to learn more about the universe, and we need a lot more money to do that." Chemistry can claim some equally exciting intellec­tual opportunities, particularly in the life sciences, as well as offer immedi­ate application to all the problems of society—nutrition, shelter, health, energy, and the like. Technology, especially chemistry, he says, offers solutions, not more problems.

Pimentel predicts that one of the major messages from the new study will be that social benefit should have higher priority than it does now in the making of science policy decisions and that chemistry can bring such social benefits while remaining in the forefront as an intellectual disci­pline.

Michael Hey lin, Washington