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Investing in High-Risk, High-Reward Research

Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Time: 02:00 PM Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building

Opening Statement By Chairman Daniel Lipinski

Good afternoon and welcome to this Research and Science Education Subcommittee hearing on high-risk, high-reward research. Before I start, it is important to make clear that ‘high-risk, high-reward’ research is also known by many other names including ‘high-risk, high-payoff,’ ‘transformative,’ ‘pioneering,’ and even ‘high-risk, transformative’ research. There is neither a distinct definition for each of those terms nor a common definition for all of them. We chose ‘high-risk, high-reward’ because it is the term used by the ARISE Committee – that is the Advancing Research in Science and Engineering Committee – whose report we will be discussing today. 

Three years ago in the now famous Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, a distinguished National Academies committee recommended that each federal research agency set aside 8 percent of its budget for ‘high-risk, high-payoff’ (their term of choice) research. Not long after that, the National Science Board recommended that the National Science Foundation establish a ‘transformative’ research initiative. 

Both of those reports reflected a growing consensus in the research community that the peer-review system has become too conservative in its funding decisions and that even the brightest and most creative scientists and engineers are not bothering to submit more ambitious proposals. But both reports were also short on details. That same year we were working on the America COMPETES Act, a bill that essentially took every recommendation of the Gathering Storm report within the Science and Technology Committee’s jurisdiction and translated it into law. That is, every recommendation except the one to set aside 8 percent at every research agency for high-risk research. We all agreed there was an unmet need, and the Senate even made a commendable attempt to implement that recommendation in their bill, but during conference we all agreed to put off implementing this recommendation until we could better answer these questions:

  1. What exactly is high-risk research?
  2. Why 8 percent?
  3. Why a set-aside as opposed to reforming the peer-review system?
  4. Does this really make sense for every federal research agency?
  5. Does this make sense for federal agencies at all?
As we look ahead to our 2010 reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act and how we can address high-risk research in that bill, we turn to the distinguished panelists before us today and to their many expert colleagues in the community to help us answer these questions.
 
My colleagues and I up here on the dais also have a political challenge. Whatever your choice of words or definitions, high-risk research means more failures in the short term, and “funding for failures” is not easy to justify in an era of ballooning deficits. It is hard enough to secure sustainable funding increases for basic research, and it is all-too-easy to cut science in appropriations battles. [As the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee chair once said in response to concerns about cuts to the DOE Office of Science, “floods kill people.”]
 
Therefore, I worry even more about the risks of creating a discretionary pot of funding that a priori assumes a large failure rate. I say that to remind us all of the political context that surrounds our discussions this afternoon, and I certainly welcome any thoughts Dr. Lane may have on that topic given his many years of experience in Washington.
 
I thank the witnesses for being here this afternoon and I look forward to your testimony.

Witnesses

Panel

0 - Dr. James Collins
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences National Science Foundation (NSF) National Science Foundation (NSF)
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0 - Dr. Neal Lane
Malcolm Gillis University Professor and Senior Fellow James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Rice University James A. Baker III Institute for Public Pol
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0 - Dr. Richard McCullough
Professor of Chemistry and Vice President of Research Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University
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0 - Dr. Gerald Rubin
Vice President and Director Janelia Farm Research Campus Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Janelia Farm Research Campus Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HH
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