In a speech yesterday to the National Academy of Sciences (full text here), US President Barack Obama made a bold and unquestionable commitment to funding for science, promising to devote 3% of GDP (roughly $420-billion) for science and technology research funding. This “largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history” represents a stark contrast with the cuts to research funding budgets the Harper government announced in the most recent budget. The plan by President Obama represents a comprehensive commitment to American innovation and suggests his administration believes that scientific and technical advances will help compensate for the loss of the traditional manufacturing and industrial economy.
While the Canadian Conservative government’s science and technology strategy is explicit about funding relevant and marketable research, Obama recognizes the unpredictable value of basic research:
The fact is, an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.
That’s why the private sector under-invests in basic science – and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research. Because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.
In addition to funding for research in the stimulus packages already passed in the US, Obama pledges to double the budgets of the key granting agencies, adds $6-billion to the NIH for cancer research, adds funds for agencies funding research into clean energy, and creates a new “high-risk high-reward” funding agency (ARPA-E) for energy research, among other investments.
Perhaps more telling of his administration’s commitment to placing science at the centre of the American economy, Obama announced the creation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which will advise him on strategies to nurture scientific innovation. It will include John Holdren (his top science adviser), Harold Varmus (former head of NIH and Nobel laureate), Eric Lander (former head of Human Genome Project), Eric Schmidt (Google CEO), and Craig Mundie (Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer), among others. The council comprises a total of 21 leading scientists, including three Nobel laureates, from private and public organizations. The Canadian government, by contrast, eliminated the position of National Science Adviser earlier this year (Canada does have a science council, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, but it does not seem to be particularly active, being related to only five government news releases since its founding two years ago).
Obama rejects the view by some that research spending is a luxury, especially in economically tough times:
At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been.
But maybe there’s hope for Canadian researchers after all – maybe we can convince the US to fund Canadian science!
We also need to work with our friends around the world. Science, technology, and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost-effectively when insights, costs, and risks are shared; and so many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character… That is why my administration is ramping up participation in – and our commitment to – international science and technology cooperation across the many areas where it is clearly in our interest to do so.
As part of the comprehensive plan to encourage science in the US economy, Obama also spelled out a plan to increase science and math education at the primary and secondary levels. Furthermore, he pledged to triple the number of NIH graduate student fellowships, again outpacing his Canadian counterparts.
Obama employed his lauded rhetorical skills to inspire his nation’s renewed commitment to science. He invoked the space program – the last major scientific project around which Americans rallied, and which provided countless societal benefits – and he described the intangible benefits to society, not just of the products of research, but the process itself:
As you know, scientific discovery takes far more than the occasional flash of brilliance – as important as that can be. Usually, it takes time, hard work, patience; it takes training; often, it requires the support of a nation.
But it holds a promise like no other area of human endeavor…
Yes, scientific innovation offers us the chance to achieve prosperity. It has offered us benefits that have improved our health and our lives – often improvements we take too easily for granted. But it also gives us something more.
At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work – to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.
We are reminded that with each new discovery and the new power it brings, comes new responsibility; that the fragility and the sheer specialness of life requires us to move past our differences, to address our common problems, to endure and continue humanity’s strivings for a better world.
As President Kennedy said when he addressed the National Academy of Sciences more than 45 years ago: “The challenge, in short, may be our salvation.”
Given the Obamamania we observed in Canada during the US election, perhaps his stirring words and public commitment to science and research will have positive effects north of the border. Here’s hoping so.
Rob Annan United States
