by T. M. Georges. "So now we see scientists whining in the journals about 'the present climate of budget cutting in Washington,' and a coalition of 23 scientific organizations calling for a 7% across-the-board increase in research funding for fiscal 1998, as though we were experiencing some kind of temporary political aberration. As though cold war levels of funding for science might miraculously return, if only the politicians would come to their senses! Like the cargo cults, they don't understand the underlying cause of their predicament: The cold war was the aberration, a funding 'bump' for many branches of science."

Boston Globe, January 23, 2006. "After years of steady support for science funding and a spurt in health sciences research over the last decade that drew many young people into research labs, federal funds are now flat or declining in many areas."

by Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn, The Atlantic Monthly, March, 2000. "Commercially sponsored research is putting at risk the paramount value of higher education -- disinterested inquiry. Even more alarming, the authors argue, universities themselves are behaving more and more like for-profit companies."

"The funding outlook for the federal research and development (R ) portfolio looks just a little brighter going into the August congressional recess than it did a month ago, and brighter still than when the fiscal year (FY) 2006 budget request was released in February. Because of Senate-proposed increases for biomedical R at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and congressional agreement on modest increases for environmental research in July, the federal R investment appears headed toward modest increases next year despite tough budget conditions."

The National Academy's prescription for improving the allocation of federal research funds.

"Judging from what a trio of well-connected Congressional aides told a gathering of student loan officials Monday, higher education administrators are right to be worried about what’s around the corner in the budget for the 2007 fiscal year."

NIH cuts NRSA postdocs?

July 14, 2006: "...the age at which researchers typically get their first major grant has gone up by about 8 years within a single generation of scientists. As he puts it, 'the biomedical community in the United States lives with the prospect of relying on an aging cohort of researchers to direct its research projects.' Weinberg argues that this is an impending disaster, because many of the key advances come from dynamic and energetic researchers at the start of their careers."

CNet News.com, June 10, 2004. "The federal government needs to double the budget of the National Science Foundation and encourage corporate research with financial incentives, according to Intel CEO Craig Barrett."

by Ed David, Notices of the AMS, March 1995. "The next eight or nine years will be a sobering experience. But on the other hand the good intentions of the federal government and some others--state government, in part, and to some degree industry--are comforting. Can they now perform what they have laid out as policy?" (requires Adobe Acrobat)

NSF Issue Brief 99-303. "This report describes and compares venture capital trends in the U.S. and Europe over the span of a decade."