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This essay understands the relation between politics and science in terms of the public/private and basic/applied distinctions. When policy makers speak of capturing the benefits of public research today, they tend to be talking about market returns rather than social returns. In essence, the social contract between science and society has become an economic contract, and public science has been discursively repositioned as a partner in the national system of innovation and the knowledge-based economy. When the state becomes a partner with academy and industry in the privatization of research, does it make sense to maintain distinctions between public and private, basic and applied? Are they differences that make no difference? If the distinctions collapse or are abandoned, what is lost? What do the concepts mean today in terms of science policy and scientific practice? In this essay, the author addresses these questions through her research into Canadian science policy and Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program.

US government proposals to cut the scientific budget of the ISS are placed within the historical context of the US space program. The author divides this into three phases--early days to the end of Apollo, the Shuttle era, and the Space Station era--and shows that all of these have suffered from decisions to reduce scientific capabilities. Even without cuts, it is unlikely that the Station can produce scientific outcomes that are commensurate with the investment that has taken place and it is imperative that policy makers learn from the lost opportunities of the two earlier phases if greater disappointment is to be avoided.

Issues related to both recruitment and retention of women and minorities in science have been of continuing concern to the scientific community (e.g., Science publishes annual issues on women and [...]

The US and Western Europe have done little to alleviate the financial hardship of scientists from former Soviet Union or to dissuade military scientists from selling their expertise abroad. Between June 1992 and August 1993, the American Physical Society organized a program to provide financial assistance to physicists in the former Soviet Union but the success of the program is still to be assessed.

Rapid structural and institutional changes in the former Soviet Union have disrupted the Russian physics establishment which is now struggling to maintain programs and keep institutes open in the face of severe financial constraints and high inflation. The study discusses the status of science and researchers in the Soviet Union in the post-Stalin era, the impact of Gorbachev's reforms, the present status of science and the ways institutions and scientist have adopted to survive in the face of economic crisis.

Scientists have to relate their research with the socio-economic problems of the country to justify the support that science and technology has been receiving in a changing political and economical situations. However, the Clinton administration continues its support for scientific research and it has allocated $71.4 billion for research, a 3.3% raise over the previous year. Health research has received a 3% rise, environmental technologies received a 7% increase and the budget for energy conservation rose by 45%.

In 1990 the nation's 32,000 grant-making foundations gave away $8.7 billion, of which an estimated $435 million, or 5%, went to science and engineering. (The share was higher for the [...]

The United Kingdom's science sector eagerly received the government's proposed science budget hike. Science funding will be augmented by roughly $2.3 bil over the next three fiscal years starting 1998. A huge slice of the budget has been pledged for the Wellcome Trust.

Congress has approved a 1997 budget which is greater than that predicted. Science and technology research and development appropriations reached $74 billion representing a 4.1% increase compared to the $71 billion for 1996.

The dwindling government funds for science and technology research has prompted National Science Foundation director Neal Lane, Dept. of Energy deputy secretary Charles B. Curtis and Pres. Clinton's science adviser John H. Gibbons to urge scientists to pressure Congress for more funds.

With funding for life and no teaching requirements, top Max Planck researchers are in an enviable position. But tight budgets and a new generation may bring reforms in the system [...]

First, the good news. The 1996 budget request that President Clinton sent to Congress this week includes a 7.6% boost for research programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF); a [...]

Science won record increases last year, but a new president, a slowing economy, and stiff competition could make an encore difficult Science funding advocates are still breathless from the success [...]

Gabriel Aeppli has spent decades probing the nanostructure of materials, but today it is financial woes that are on his mind. As director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology, Aeppli [...]

Russia's Minister of Science and Technology Mikhail Kirpichnikov outlined his plans to continue to support science and technology with federal funds. The budget for science in the year 2000 has been set at 15.9 billion rubles.

In the foreword of a soon-to-be published volume, whose chapters were written by 40 leading scientists about their years in the intramural NIH laboratories, Dr. Lewis Thomas has written (1): [...]

The 105th Congress has raised the visibility of science in several bills, although none have yet been passed. Efforts have been made to increase funding for research and development, following the introduction of S. 124, the National Research Investment Act of 1997, broadly calling for a doubling in funding for several agencies. S. 2217 the Federal Research Investment Act aims to double R&D funding over 12 years, and includes the Interior and Transportation departments to the list of agencies.

A geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia suggests that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) should be more like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funding the best research, rather than research on economically useful plants. Support for research and development at the USDA has fallen to $1.2 billion, and support for basic research has also fallen.