GOVERNMENT-UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY RESEARCH ROUNDTABLE: HOME PAGE: Stresses on Research and Education at Colleges and Universities: Phase II of a Grass Roots Inquiry

Report of an Inquiry Conducted Jointly by the National Science Board
and the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable

The National Science Board is composed of 24 members who represent the leadership of U.S. science and engineering. They are appointed by the President to oversee the National Science Foundation and to monitor the health of science in the Nation.

The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable is sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences and of Engineering and by the Institute of Medicine. Its mission is to foster strong American science by promoting effective working relationships among the leaders of the three primary research sectors.

The purpose of this report is to contribute to discussions of the challenges and choices facing the U.S. academic enterprise in an era when frontier knowledge and highly trained scientists and engineers are increasingly seen as prerequisites for societal well-being. The views expressed in this report are those of the study participants, and do not represent official policy statements of the National Science Board or of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable and its sponsoring organizations.

The vitality and the diversity of American higher education and academic research have been a great national asset for decades. In recent years, however, the appropriate scope and balance of activities of colleges and universities, and of the roles and responsibilities of faculty and administrators at those institutions, have become the subject of public discussion. Today, there is broad consensus that the academic community is under stress as a result of changes in local, national, and international environments. The pressures for change on campus -- in a time of restricted resources -- have intensified. There are questions about which changes are necessary to alleviate these pressures, and about how best to go about implementing change. Moreover, the relative costs and benefits to society of changes proposed are the subjects of animated and often intense debate in public forums and private discussions in many forums across the county.

The country has a direct stake in the continuing strength of the academic enterprise. As the number and interests of stakeholders have proliferated and grown more varied, provocative media converge has probed questions about the way faculty spend their time, and the way colleges and universities spend public resources. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, the former governor of New Jersey and current president of Drew University, Thomas Kean, stated that at "no other time in history has the possession of knowledge been so strong an indicator of economic wealth. It used to be that colleges and universities graduated people to manage capital. Now, we look to them to create capital. The health and vitality of colleges and universities cannot be separated from the health and vitality of our economy and society." In this context, and with so much at stake, the public desires better understanding of the use and the stewardship of their investments in our system of higher education and academic research.

To illuminate the major sources of stress affecting the academic research and education community, and to identify possible remedies to specific concerns, the National Science Board (NSB) and the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (the Research Roundtable) jointly sponsored a series of meetings and discussions on campuses around the country, and they hosted two major convocations in Washington to disseminate the results of those campus debates. The present report reviews this activity, recapping the outcome of the first series of meetings and synthesis study conducted in 1993 For details, see "Stresses on Research and Education at Colleges and Universities: Institutional and Sponsoring Agency Responses," Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, Washington, D.C., July 1994., and presenting results from a recent (1996-97) replication of this effort. Interested readers seeking more detail on this work, including a list of the participating institutions and the agenda of the final convocation held at the National Academy of Sciences in February, 1997, should consult our website at: www.nas2.guirr.guircon.

In 1993, thirteen academic institutions convened structured sessions on their campuses that included both faculty and administrators. This inquiry captured the perspectives of members of the science and engineering community at the grass-roots on the nature and sources of significant stress affecting institutions of higher education, and it elicited their views on remedies to those concerns. Discussions held at the thirteen institutions in this first phase revealed a host of factors contributing to tensions in science and engineering research and education on campuses across the country. These included:

a lack of understanding by the public of the role of research -- at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels -- within the mission of colleges and universities;
poor communication between those who do research and those who support them, both at the federal level and within their home institutions;
inadequate communication between university faculty and administrators, and a concomitant degradation in the feeling of community on campus; and
decline in the quality of the partnership between the federal government and research universities.

At a December 1993 national meeting in Washington, culminating this first series of campus dialogues, academic participants exchanged views with representatives of the federal research-sponsoring agencies, Congressional staff, and interested professional and philanthropic groups. Discussion underscored rising tensions resulting from an array of new pressures and changes, including new constituencies and an increasingly complex set of objectives and responsibilities. These have exacerbated divisions among faculty and administrators, undermined the trust that once marked the partnership between government and the academic community, and weakened support for academic research.

The basic message from this grass-roots initiative was that the compact between the federal government, the public, and the major colleges and universities on research and education has eroded. As the number and interests of different constituencies with a stake in the system have diversified over several decades, they have also drifted apart without adequate means for communicating and resolving differences. Common objectives and national goals too often have been obscured. The resulting mistrust among the many stakeholders in the academic enterprise, combined with poor communication among major parties to the discussion, has had many manifestations, including a trend toward growing administrative burden from federal funding agencies and oversimplified exposes in the popular media concerned with the fiscal dealings of academe. The loss of trust has hampered consensus-building regarding the goals and objectives of a national science policy.

At the same time, experience with this project affirmed that leaders of colleges and universities and of federal agencies are more fully engaged in self-scrutiny than is commonly recognized, and that all parties are responding to the real and perceived shortcomings of their own institutions. It was clear that individual institutions and collectives of colleges and universities can do much to improve their own situations, and reports from individual campuses in Phase Two indicated growth of better communication mechanisms, some started as a result of this activity. Moreover, there was evidence that federal and state cooperation can facilitate positive change. Above all, participants in the study testified that the opportunity to convene -- both on campus, and in Washington -- provided an invaluable occasion to exchange information, to check perceptions and misperceptions, and to begin to reestablish the trust essential to the fundamental partnership between universities and the public. That trust has been the foundation of the vitality of the U.S. higher education and research enterprise.

To achieve maximum value from the insights of the original phase of study, and to foster a broader sense of ownership in the effort to reestablish trust between academic institutions and their federal partners, the NSB and the Roundtable decided in 1996 to invite a second cohort of institutions to engage in another series of campus conversations. This extension of the initial study retained the grass-roots, campus-based approach that was the foundation of the initial work. Twelve of fifteen invited institutions joined in this undertaking. Officials at each of these schools organized discussions among faculty and administrators, separately and jointly, to address a set of questions concerning stresses and trends on their campuses, in the federally-sponsored research environment, and in institutional relationships with their local government, business, and civic communities. For a copy of the background materials and questions provided to each institution, together with a list of participating institutions and related information, please visit our website at: www.nas2.guirr.guircon. Following the campus-based discussions, representatives from each of the participating institutions summarized the deliberations in written reports, and those reports formed the basis of the substantive agenda developed for a national convocation held in Washington in February, 1997.

The value of the original campus dialogues was underscored by the willingness of

every one of the original cohort of institutions to take part in the replication of the study; representatives of all of those institutions attended the second national convocation in Washington. Prior to that meeting, several of the original participants repeated the process of convening discussions among faculty members and administrators on their campuses; others chose to report instead on changes they had observed locally in the wake of their original activities. At the second convocation, then, some or the original cohort described the impact of their participation. One, for example, had launched a campus-wide effort to standardize and automate administration, to train staff to facilitate this process, and to engage faculty groups in designing new ways to streamline and to digitize the proposal preparation process. Another member of cohort I had created a competition among research units for limited academic investment resources. A third school focused on building an infrastructure -- through anonymous suggestion boxes and other open forums -- that encouraged faculty participation in campus decision-making, including decisions about goals for graduate enrollment and about the role of research in the institutional mission.

As in the first phase of study, the main objective of the replication phase was to catalyze discussion of difficulties on college and university campuses across the nation, and to open opportunities for real changes, and to highlight effective practices in meeting challenges. Additionally, both the National Academy Complex and the National Science Board wanted to encourage national dialogue among all parties with interests in the academic enterprise, in hopes of reviving or recasting the compact between the federal government and universities.

Reports from the participating institutions, which explored a myriad of stresses felt on individual campuses and related responses by members of the academic community, identified three major areas of interest, including aspects of:

These three themes provided the structure for the second national convocation of participating institutions. A number of the campus reports leading to these themes are posted on the website of the Research Roundtable.

During the open session with members of the Washington science policy community, rapporteurs from the preceding day described problems related to these themes and outlined alternative strategies for remedial or catalytic action their groups had identified. A number of invited speakers added their perspectives to the record, and all present representatives of the academic institutions and of the federal government, of Congress, of interested philanthropic foundations and scientific societies -- engaged in discussions on strategies to ensure the continued vitality of the nation’s research and education enterprise.

The following three sections of this report summarize the leading ideas generated by participants under each of the three themes. The fourth section outlines additional issues discussed, including certain concerns expressed by keynote speakers and members of the convocation audience. The report concludes with a brief discussion of next steps in the ongoing effort to rebuild consensus about the future of the U.S. academic enterprise.

Academic representatives agreed that this is a time of change for all institutions in society, and that our system of colleges and universities is not immune to this force. As campuses struggle with many challenges -- e.g., cutting costs, raising revenues, capitalizing on new technologies -- in an environment in which residence-based education is being questioned, and in which "non-traditional" students have become the norm, pressure for change has become more urgent than ever before. Participants expressed confidence that the academic system will rise to these challenges, but they also expressed concern about the cost of accommodating the central mission of the university -- the drive to create new knowledge and to prepare students for a vast array of productive careers -- to the pressures of new and largely market-driven forces. As institutions become more nimble -- as they partner in new ways and raise revenues from new sources, and so invite a variety of new obligations -- they must implement new strategies to ensure continued adherence to core values and critical functions. They must also hold fast to those approaches that work.

The challenge -- to strive to become more efficient and more responsive to societal needs -- must be met while protecting the unique strengths of our nation’s network of colleges and universities. Among the many strengths of the present system to be preserved and protected is the essential association between research and graduate education; as one participant stated, "To ask which is more important is to ask which blade of scissors does the cutting." Similarly, U.S. colleges and universities are magnets for human talent, and it will be essential to preserve this attractive power. In the future economy, the present system that aggregates human capital from around the globe will be ever more important.

According to participants, the federal government plays a critical role in graduate education by enabling the integration of teaching and research. It is essential that government continue in that role by providing opportunities for research experiences and by continuing to support the personal collaborations that occur between students and teachers in the laboratory -- at all levels of learning within the university.

Additionally, panelists agreed that a key element of the historical strength of this country’s system of higher education is the diversity and heterogeneity within and across institutions. This heterogeneity has been fundamental at all levels within the system, from the level of individual institutions with divergent goals, to that of competing and collaborating principal investigators, and to the student body. Participants argued that the federal government must recognize and support diversity at the institutional level by supporting programs -- both research and teaching -- to leverage institutional strengths.

Throughout their discussions, participants placed great emphasis on the role and responsibility of institutional leaders to articulate a vision for changes within their own campus communities. Promoting the integration of research and teaching, and emphasizing the importance of the latter in local campus promotion and reward structures, are crucial concepts on which deans, provosts, and presidents need to speak out. Encouraging faculty to better communicate the excitement and findings of science to the interested public -- by supporting and rewarding public outreach through web technology, engagement in K-12 education, and other transparent means of communicating with the public -- was another area in which leadership was called for.

Finally, panelists identified several programs they felt are particularly effective in reducing stresses and in supporting desirable changes. These included: the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP); the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU); multi-year allocations for research support; and electronic interfaces for uniform and efficient communication with sponsors.

Participants prefaced their examination of the academic research enterprise by noting that the principal purpose is the creation of new knowledge, and they pointed out that one cannot foresee which specific grants or lines of investigation endeavors will "pay off" in terms of practical utility. Panelists asserted, however, that the research enterprise is performing strongly and effectively. They acknowledged certain trends they felt might be undermining the optimal functioning of the research system, and they explored these on two levels: first, according to what universities can do to redress inefficiencies, and second, according to what sponsoring agencies and foundations might do.

Universities need to find ways to stop the erosion of scholarship caused by reliance on mechanical quality measures, and the accumulation of administrative and regulatory requirements that are unrelated to quality or stewardship. Two specific approaches to reform were: (1) focus the tenure and promotion policies on real measures of excellence. in part by reducing emphasis on numbers of publications, and putting more stress on measures of impact and recognition; and (2) create more flexible communication, recognition, and fiscal support structures to overcome departmental and disciplinary barriers to multidisciplinary research and scholarship.

According to participants, research-sponsoring agencies and foundations, too, can enhance the impact of their investments in a variety of ways. These include: (1) eliminating discontinuities in funding by supporting bridging and sustaining grant mechanisms; (2) more equitably recognizing teamwork by crediting all senior investigators with the status of Principal Investigator; (3) devoting increased funding for startup programs and for high-risk research; (4) ensuring stable and reliable cost-sharing (especially for facilities and maintenance), perhaps by eliminating the $150M cap on tax-free bond issues by private universities, an important financing tool for research and education facilities; and (5) continuing efforts to ease the regulatory and reporting tasks required of individual investigators, especially by delegating responsibility for regulatory compliance to some local level (as is now done in the area of animal care) and by increasing use of electronic data submission and supervision.

Finally, panelists asserted that there needs to be broader recognition that a primary vehicle of technology and knowledge transfer from universities to industrial R&D is the preparation and matriculation of essential human resources. The federal government can support this mode of knowledge transfer by providing consistent and coherent guidance about public expectations about and appropriate interactions between universities and industry.

Turning to the education function of the university system, panelists once again emphasized the necessity of better integrating research and education as one of the primary challenges before us. They suggested some ways academic institutions can support this synergistic combination, and other ways for the federal agencies to contribute to this goal. The objective of such efforts is the continued development of human resources, including a community of life-long learners, teachers at all levels, and civic leaders and community volunteers, as well as the scientific and technical workforce.

University approaches to this goal include identifying ways to develop and to differentiate rewards for teaching by offering increases in salary, sabbaticals, and recognition in promotion and tenure for excellent teaching. This includes: (1) recognizing and rewarding faculty who see their research as part of their teaching, and who participate in undergraduate research programs and community college and K-12 curriculum development; (2) providing resources for improving teaching and teaching materials; and (3) offering incentives and rewards for effectively communicating the passion and process of science to the public.

Federal agencies can catalyze the integration of research and teaching to enhance the development of human resources by: (1) providing support for teaching in awarding research grants; (2) allowing teaching time on postdoctoral support fellowships; (3) developing grant programs for teaching in key areas; (4) facilitating graduate and undergraduate student employment on research projects; and (5) developing and expanding programs to support flexible use of instrumentation and equipment in the learning enterprise ( as well as in the research enterprise). The NSF's Recognition Awards for the Integration of Research and Education (RAIRE) illustrates the way agencies might offer to support education through research.

Beyond these broad areas of concern, several additional themes arose repeatedly throughout the convocation. These cut across conversations spanned several of the above themes. For example, while they focused their concerns for the educational mission in their breakout reports, panelists repeated throughout the convocation a new emphasis and an urgency involving education. They called for a restructuring of institutional, state, and federal reward systems to recognize teaching in a manner more in balance with rewards for research excellence. A related theme emerged from concern that as a consequence of the changes taking place in society broadly, there is a need to rethink the way we are preparing a generation of students whose career paths likely will look very different from those of their mentors. A constructive approach to this issue is to provide students with a wider range of research experiences -- perhaps by offering research practicum in corporate or national labs, or by creating multi-authored dissertation tracks to the Ph.D.

Just as there was new energy apparent in discussions of the importance of education in the academic system, so there was a new and more compelling debate than in the previous convocation about "human resource" concerns, generally. This concern encompassed specific issues of student diversity, equity and access, and higher education's obligation to reach out and bolster pre-college math and science education. Also at issue was the continued attrition of highly qualified students throughout the course of advanced education. As one spokesperson put it, "We must worry about...misguided attempts to get more for the buck" such as increasing demands on faculty time to such an extent that the resulting stress discourages gifted students from pursuing advanced education and careers in science or engineering.

Participants in the audience and members of the Guidance Group spent significant time considering ways to better communicate the value and importance of research and education to the tax-paying public -- parents in particular -- and the media. Parts of this discussion emphasized the need for more public outreach both by institutions and by individual faculty, while others touched on the responsibilities of the system to society as a whole. Included in this call for a more effective interface with society outside of campus was recognition that government funders, faculty, and the public must better understand the complexity and the necessity of the indirect costs as a component of research grants.

Similarly, this appeal for improved public communication called for the entire continuum of institutions of higher education -- community colleges, four-year institutions, the comprehensive colleges, and the major research universities -- to engage in discussion of common goals and interdependencies. Further, participants recognized that the obligation to communicate with a growing range of customers springs from the success of the academic enterprise in all its functions, including the development of human capital, the creation of knowledge, and the impact of the application of this knowledge on the Nation's economy and on people's lives. As higher education has grown in importance to society generally, the obligation of those who comprise the education community to speak out in areas where there is clear authority to do so -- such as in the area of workforce training needs over the next thirty years -- has become more important and more pressing.

Finally, discussion at the convocation revealed new vigor and heightened interest in the pervasive impact of information and communication technology, and of interactive media, on the role and the physical realities of universities, classroom instruction, and publication. Panelists agreed that coming changes that are being driven by the information and communications revolution will be rapid, fundamental, pervasive, and unpredictable. Some even emphasized that these technologies will change the very essence of the academic enterprise. If the university is envisioned as an information generating and information disseminating system -- if everything we do, from scholarship to information storage and retrieval in libraries to teaching, has to do with the creation, transmission, or storage of information -- then it follows that new technologies that redefine the nature of the research record, and the avenues for creating and modifying it, will change fundamentally the very essence of universities themselves.

Just as libraries and laboratories are evolving, and as the boundaries between institutions and individuals are becoming more malleable, the demands of a “digital generation” will elicit new forms of active learning to replace traditional approaches to teaching. As new sources of competition emerge, and as the various functions of the university are unbundled, a global knowledge industry is emerging that raises critical questions for institutions of higher education and research, at least as we have come to know them in this century.

While specific concerns attend the traditional functions of the university, more global and potentially revolutionary issues now challenge the very nature of the enterprise. Examples of continuing concerns noted by participants included the inordinate burden faculty face in the form of ever-increasing paperwork requirements that accompany federal research support. As they have stated for some years, faculty continue to labor under the burden of disincentives for multidisciplinary research, and they struggle with the challenge of submitting more proposals for fewer successes, all while battling to get free to devote more time to teaching. These "old" pressures have intensified as competition for scarce resources has increased, as federal laboratories have come to be viewed as potential competitors, and as out-year projections for federal research budgets have called even status quo scenarios into question.

At the same time, several new and emerging challenges are moving to the forefront of public debate, adding to the stress felt on campuses across the country. These challenges stem from a set of heightened expectations by the public and from the pressures of an ever-more crowded field of competitors. As the constraints of physical distance and of time diminish in the wake of new communication technologies, new approaches to learning, scholarship, and research are requiring a new level of openness and creativity for the academician. As federal expenditures increasingly must be justified by reference to national missions and priorities, and as funding for academic research must compete with other compelling programs, stewards of colleges and universities must express their requests for support in terms of national investments, rather than in the language of entitlements. As the public reacts against institutions it perceives to be elitist, new approaches to serving that part of the population not destined for graduate degrees must be undertaken.

If they are to survive in this rapidly evolving environment, colleges and universities need to approach challenges as opportunities. This grass-roots inquiry identified numerous challenges and participants explored attendant opportunities. Three issues of profound consequence that have emerged full force since the first phase of this initiative was completed are:

the revolutionary impact of information and knowledge technology on teaching and research, including many major transformations present or impending in the nature of the research record, distance learning, mentoring, human resources development, publishing and copyright, and intellectual property;
consideration of university and departmental restructuring, with related questions about tenure policies, retirement and intellectual renewal, and the role of faculty, presidents, and board members in related decision-making; and
the need for the university sector as a whole to take responsibility for issues in education and especially for preparation of the future workforce.

In view of both these continuing and these newly emerging sources of stress and opportunity, one simple, constructive step appeared preeminent during the convocation. As many have suggested before, there is an ever greater need to institutionalize a national forum much like that represented in this study, to bring together university and government representatives on a continuing basis to review activities and progress on specific policies, programs, and strategies. Such a forum, or symposium, must avoid the lobbying-like quality of special interest organizations. Rather, such a gathering must be structured to identify broad themes of change in the environment and practices of academe, and focusing on constructive approaches to them at the local level, and disseminating information about best practices already underway to other institutions and to the public.

The second phase of the “Stresses” process reported here represents a modest attempt to create such a forum, but institutionalizing this process could provide an opportunity to help maintain strong communication on campus and from campus to research support agencies. A standing forum is important to convey the spirit of good will and reform that characterizes much of the senior leadership at research agencies and university campuses to all levels of administration implementing federal and campus programs. It is important, also, to assist leaders of individual institutions to minimize divisiveness on campus and harness the creative potential of their many constituents, including faculty, students, and community.

Allison A. Rosenberg, Associate Director, Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable; National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine
Wanda London, Research Associate, Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable
Marta Cehelsky, Executive Director, National Science Board
Jean Pomeroy, Policy Analyst, National Science Board