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3 The Current Context
Pages 35-46

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From page 35...
... While a counterfactual analysis designed to isolate the effects of six decades of support is impossible to conduct, the previous chapter traces the impact of five scientific endeavors undergirding the world as we know it today, enriched by transformative scientific discoveries in the geographical sciences. Today's call for increased support for transformative research is being made not only because of the practice it represents (e.g., how science is conducted; see Chapter 1)
From page 36...
... research enterprise, and in Chapter 2 the committee documented the history of transformation in five areas of the geographical sciences. From this perspective, the committee sees a new call for transformative research as potentially countering the threat that these four challenges pose, through a systematic effort to rejuvenate a historic legacy.
From page 37...
... RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING LEVELS IN DECLINE The Federal Perspective Calls for increasing the nation's emphasis on transformative research activities, such as that from the National Science Board (NSB, 2007) , are occurring simultaneously with an evident recent decline in federal funding for R&D, both in dollar terms and in percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
From page 38...
... Although the geographical sciences have been effective at garnering support through collaboration with other disciplines, the fact remains that at NSF the "home" program lies within the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences. In past eras, federal-level retrenchment typically initiated reactions by universities, government research centers, and nonprofit research enterprises to shore up funding sources and reprogram activities to fill gaps in funding (Douglass, 2010)
From page 39...
... THE CURRENT CONTEXT 39 Figure 3.3 Trends in federal research by discipline, FY1970–FY2012, in billions of constant FY2014 dollars. SOURCE: AAAS; http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/Disc_0.jpg.
From page 40...
... While the public concern about the affordability of higher education highlights the plight of undergraduates, the national research enterprise is fundamentally dependent on graduate students to fill classrooms, perform teaching duties, and staff research programs. Hence there is a link between an affordable undergraduate education and a pool of undergraduate candidates able to matriculate through graduate school.
From page 41...
... Figure 3.7 Trends in first-time graduate enrollment by Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, fall 2003 to fall 2013. NOTE: RU/H: Research Univer sities/high research activity; RU/VH: Research Universities/very high research activity.
From page 42...
... . COMPETITION IN THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR R&D AND HIGHER EDUCATION Knowledgeable observers suggest that the United States is entering an era in which the economic stimuli accompanying prior investments in discovery are diminishing -- an era that has been termed technological statis (The Economist, 2013a)
From page 43...
... . Examples from China, India, and South Korea suggest countries of the Global South are applying lessons from macroeconomics, targeted industrial investment, venture financing, and human capital formation to forge inimitable expressions of autonomous innovation.
From page 44...
... The acts of problem identification and specification are growing in complexity as the scale and scope of challenges encompass far-reaching dimensionality. Reducing the spread of threats, such as the Ebola virus, necessitates boundary spanning as a core competency and starting condition; neither time nor resources are sufficient to wait out a process of scientific discovery advancing through stages of the unknown to the known.
From page 45...
... Today, national governments are operating beyond their geographic borders in pursuit of national economic development objectives, including market and commodity resource domination. The growing number and scale of multibillion dollar sovereign wealth funds of countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, financed either from foreign exchange flows earned through the sale of goods and services or from petroleum dollar–denominated revenues received from high-priced barrels of oil, are erecting new patterns of relations that are challenging post-war era institutions such as the World Bank; arrangements emplaced after an era of global conflict and aimed with the goal of global stability and widespread progress.


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