National Research Initiative A Vital Competitive Grants Program in Food, Fiber, and Natural-Resources Research (2000) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 15-20
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Equally impressive advances are occurring in information technology, providing the opportunity to increase productivity, minimize environmental impacts, and fundamentally alter decision-making. New discoveries and their applications are changing how business is done in the global food and fiber marketplace.
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· Genomic studies of agricultural crops, plant pests, and beneficial microbes. The National Research Council's Committee on Evaluating the National Research Initiative believes that merit-based peer-reviewed research on such issues can have profoundly beneficial effects in the United States and the developing world.
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acknowledged the historical strength of US food and fiber research but found that "far too much of the research is of low scientific quality" and that "agricultural research is suffering from an inadequate interaction with the basic disciplines that underlie it." Reasons for those deficiencies included the findings that "grossly inadequate support was given to the basic sciences that underpin agriculture" and that there was "inadequate opportunity for a free flow of ideas from the scientist to the funding source." The National Research Council report (NRC, 1972) contained 20 recommendations to remedy those and other deficiencies in the food and fiber research enterprise, among them that USDA seek a greatly increased level of appropriations for a competitive grants program, which should include support of basic research in the sciences (biological, physical, social)
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by expanding the competitive grants program into the new National Research Initiative, authorized to spend up to $500 million within 5 years (relevant sections of 1990 FACTA are reproduced in appendix A)
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A more detailed description and analysis of NRI's organization are provided in chapter 6. The NRI program description is drafted each year by the chief scientist and scientific staff; it is guided by the authorizing legislation and appropriation level and based on user-workshop reports, advisory committees, suggestions from panel members, and priority-setting documents, such as OTA and National Research Council reports (see chapter 4 for a more detailed discussion of priority-setting at the NRI)
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Specifically, USDA asked the Research Council to: perform a retrospective assessment of the quality and value of research funded by the program; determine whether the science and technology priorities in the major NRI programs are defined appropriately; assess how NRI activities complement other USDA programs, those of other federal agencies, and state programs in the private sector; and recorurnend the nature and content of changes for the future. The Research Council appointed a 14-member committee in early 1998 to carry out this study.
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