Physical science research received a number of boosts over the past week. In one area, the National Science Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Dept. of Defense to support research grants that are of interest to national security. Funding for these projects would be handled on a case-by-case basis through the NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate. In other words, the research would be based on topics such as religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and cultural change. The research would not be classified and the current three-year program could be extended if the results are positive.
In another area, President Bush signed off on the $2.4 billion supplemental war funding bill which included about $400 million in tacked on funding for science programs, many of which were short-changed in the FY2008 funding fracas in January. What this means is that the NIH received an extra $150 million and the DOE's Office of Science, NASA, and the NSF each received about $62 million. Fermilab was allocated about $30 million of this funding and announced it would suspend its plans to lay off about 140 of its staff due to budget constraints.
And in still another area, the ongoing FY2009 Federal Budget committee negotiations revealed that would reinstate increases for the physical sciences that were proposed in the American Competitiveness Initiative several years ago. Those proposals had fallen prey to budgetary constraints for the past two budgetary sessions and were likely to see that trend continued in FY2009 unless some very aggressive plans were made. In the past two weeks, the Senate Appropriations Committee drafted a spending bill that matches the Bush Administration's request for a 12.5% increase for NSF funding.
It is indeed encouraging to see all of these actions, and in particular all of them occurring at the same time. Let's hope that the current Congressional actions are followed though to similar final spending bills, which are about six or more months away from passage.
