The NSF is an independent US government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering through programmes which invest over $3.3 billion per year in almost 20,000 research and education projects. Their mission is to promote the progress of science to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defence. The Foundation accounts for about 20% of federal support to academic institutions for basic research, and for about 30% of fundamental research in engineering. The NSF supports all the sciences except medicine, which is supported by the NIH. The NIH has a budget four times that of the NSF purely focused on medicine and health.

Each year, the NSF receives approximately 30,000 new or renewal support proposals for research, graduate and post-doctoral fellowships, and education projects. It makes approximately 9,000 new awards each year. These typically go to universities, colleges, academic consortia, non-profit organisations and small businesses.

The agency operates no laboratories itself but does support National Research Centres, certain oceanographic vessels, and Antarctic research stations. The foundation also supports co-operative research between universities, and US participation in international scientific efforts.

The highest structural level is the Directorates which comprise:

• Biology
• Computer and Information Sciences,
• Crosscutting Programs,
• Education,
• Engineering,
• Geosciences,
• Maths and Physical Sciences (MPS)
• Social Behavioural Sciences.
• And a smaller Office for Polar Research

The Engineering Directorate is broken into the following divisions, of which the first two and the last are the major funding sources for chemical engineering:

• Bioengineering and Environmental Systems (BES)
• Chemical and Transport Systems Design (CTS)
• Civil and Mechanical Engineering
• Nanostructure and Industrial Innovation
• Electrical and Communication Systems
• Engineering Education and Centres.

Chemical engineers also get funding through materials centres funded through the MPS directorate (materials division).

The three divisions which were covered specifically in our visit were the Bioengineering and Environmental Systems, the Chemical and Transport Systems, and Engineering Education and Centres. These are the principle sources for grants for chemical engineering. NSF contributes about one-third of chemical engineering research funding

The met with:

• Gary Pohlein: Director of Chemical And Transport Systems Division,

• Fred Heinekin: Director of Biochemical Engineering and Environmental systems,

• Geoff Prentice: a rotator, who maintains his research and remains department Chair at his home University.

The NSF has 130-150 people who are ‘rotators’, and will shortly return to their regular academic posts; in addition, there are 104 people who are career NSF ‘staffers’. The NSF tries to have a rotator and a staffer in each programme. The programme directors, including staffers, tend to be specialists of the fields in which they work, and attend conferences and run workshops. The NSF also has a committee of visitors to look at the NSF processes for oversight; this is made up of outside people.

This exists for some areas where co-funding is useful, for example an NSF/EPA initiative has just been completed. This also helps NSF investigators to get time on specialised equipment run by NIST and NIH laboratories.

There is a government committee on science which the NIH and the NSF co-chair with representatives from twelve agencies (NIH, DoE, DoD, ONR etc). Other joint groups exist in bioremediation, infrastructure, biotechnology etc.

The NSF has total budget of about $3.7 billion, with the engineering directorate receiving about 12% ($300m). Other agencies, such as the NIH and NASA have larger total budgets, and the DoD does more engineering research than anyone else. Of this money, $10m goes to the BES division, and $35m to the CTS division (of which 90% goes to chemical engineers). The ratio of responsive mode to directed research is about 10:1 (in BES).

Although at a much smaller total commitment than for undirected research, the NSF will continue to fund initiatives and engineering centres which are far more directed in their nature.

Some opinions expressed by the interviewees included:

• Chemical engineers are more prepared to learn another discipline than biologists, hence more chemical engineers are getting biology-type funding.
• On the relationship between academics and the NSF – "they are the most fundamental of the funding agencies; mission-oriented agencies such as ONR and NASA want a widget".
• In unsolicited proposals the NSF does not push for multidisciplinarity, but reviewers do.
• NSF programme directors get together to co-fund projects. Typically, $100K per year for up to three years tends to be ceiling on individual funding.

Referees are primarily looking for intellectual merit, broad impact, but most notably, and differently from EPSRC, student involvement (including undergraduate). The basis of decisions is mainly on the science and engineering argument, and not industrial relevance; the industrialists are asked whether it is a new idea, and not whether it is useful for their industry. Even though industrialists tend to be thinking in a more short-term way, industrial reviewers tend to come from the more academically-oriented people in their organisations.

The final report is assessed in two ways: internally by the NSF, and by publications in refereed journals. Reviewers are looking for publications in the quality journals. The NSF are not concerned about changes in direction during a grant, and do not regard grants to be contracts with list of deliverables. Principle investigators have the freedom to move into others areas if the research leads that way. However, renewal proposals need to have new ideas building on earlier work. The inclination is to favour work which makes leaps in understanding, rather than incremental work.

The NSF considers collaboration to be extremely important. In the 1980s there was reluctance from engineering and biology researchers to work together, but now collaboration is seen to be very good between these parties. So what made the difference? The key factor is perhaps no great surprise, it is thought that the money available to encourage people to collaborate changed the approach of academics to their work. Further, there were more opportunities for funding for collaborative work than solo grants. It was found that groups applying for funding were not always in same institution.

An important question is how the NSF handled the peer review culture where bioengineering proposals were refereed by biologists. A report on assessment in biotechnology noted a need to have cross-disciplinary approach from referees in this area. Programme directors were careful to pick referees, sympathetic to cross-disciplinary activity, who understand the different cultures involved.

Industry-university collaborations have increased over the last few years with assistance from a number of programmes, an example of the approach is the ‘career’ award. The NSF matches industrial contributions made to a ‘career’ award holder. These funds are considered so useful, that departments will tend to help young staff get the industrial support, and thus promote early interaction between the academic and industry. This appears to pay off later in a greater number of grants to academics from industry than in the UK, even though UK academics are more likely to have industrial experience.

There is no sympathy in Congress for Government funding of research for corporate welfare. Industrial researchers get funded through contracts with mission lead agencies.

The achievements of Nobel prize-winners influence government reviews of the success of the NSF (at the level of ‘how many Nobel prize winners are coming from NSF funding’?) As a result of a huge overall deficit in spending, there is now an accountability programme. Top researchers think that this is going to ruin the fundamental sciences and engineering.

The reviewers expect both a research and educational component (50/50). Young academic staff are expected to be innovative researchers, and so by the same token, they are expected to be innovative teachers. Awards are four years in duration, with a $400K base, plus the NSF will match funds from industry (or other sources) to $25,000 p.a. This programme is promoted as part of the education directorate, and exemplifies the NSF’s approach to inclusivity in education.

This is a fellowship programme for a few tens of people with grants for graduate students. It is highly competitive, and universities try to poach those who get the grants.

In engineering, there are more graduate students than post doctoral fellows. These did not seem to continue as short-term funded career researchers.

CTS funds research which contributes to the knowledge base of a large number of industrial manufacturing processes, and also to some natural processes which involve the transformation and transport, of matter and energy. The transformation processes may be chemical, biological, physical, or some combination of these. The industrial processes involve a wide range of technological pursuits, and are found in such industries or areas as aerospace, electronics, chemicals, recovery of natural resources, the environment, petroleum, biochemicals, materials, food, and power generation.

CTS supports research which involves the development of fundamental engineering principles: process control and optimisation strategies, mathematical models, and experimental techniques. There is an emphasis on projects which have the potential for innovation and broad application in areas such as the environment, materials, and chemical processing. These principles are also applied to naturally occurring systems such as rivers and lakes, coastline areas, and the atmosphere, (especially in populated areas). Special emphasis is on environmentally benign chemical and materials processing.

Research support is available in the CTS division through the following activities:

Chemical Reaction Processes - supports fundamental and applied research on rates and mechanisms of important classes of catalysed and uncatalysed chemical reactions as they relate to:

• the design, production, and application of catalysts, chemical processes, and specialised materials
• chemical phenomena occurring at or near solid surfaces and interfaces
• electrochemical and photochemical processes of engineering significance or with commercial potential
• the design and optimisation of complex chemical processes
• dynamic modelling and control of process systems and individual process units
• reactive processing of polymers, ceramics, and thin films
• interactions between chemical reactions and transport processes in reactive systems and the use of this information in the design of complex chemical reactors

Interfacial, Transport, and Separation Processes -- supports research in areas related to interfacial phenomena, mass transport phenomena, separation science, and phase equilibrium thermodynamics. Research in these areas supports various aspects of engineering technology, with the major focus on chemical and material processing and bioprocess engineering. Research conducted in this programme also contributes to the division's emphasis on the impact of basic knowledge on physicochemical hazardous waste treatment and avoidance.

The programme provides support for new theories and approaches which determine the thermodynamic properties of fluids and fluid mixtures in biological systems (and other fluids with complex molecules). Separations research is directed at many areas, with a special emphasis on bioprocessing and all forms of chromatographic, membrane, and special affinity separations.

Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems -- supports fundamental and applied research on mechanisms and phenomena which govern single and multiphase fluid flow, particle formation and transport, various multiphase processes, nanostructures, and fluid and solid system interaction. Research is sought which contributes to improving the basic understanding, design, predictability, efficiency, and control of existing systems. Such systems involve the dynamics of fluids and particulates, and the innovative uses of fluids and particulates in materials development, manufacturing, biotechnology, and the environment.

Thermal Systems — supports fundamental research in two major areas: (1) thermal transport and thermal processing and (2) combustion and thermal plasmas. Projects should seek a basic understanding at the microscopic and macroscopic levels of thermal phenomena underlying the production of energy, synthesis and processing of materials, cooling and heating of equipment, and biological systems and the interaction of industrial processes with the environment. Higher priority goes to those projects that deal with problems on the cutting edge of technology while developing human resources in engineering.

There are three programme areas:

Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology: supports research which links the expertise of engineering with the life sciences in order to provide a fundamental basis for the economic manufacturing of substances of biological origin. Projects are supported which utilise biological micro-organisms for the transformation of organic raw materials (biomass) into useful products.

The areas of specialisation include:

• Upstream processing
• Tissue engineering - recent advances in the study of growth, both at the macroscopic tissue level and at the microscopic cellular level, have set the stage for the development of practical applications of tissue engineering. Controlled synthesis of living tissue, therefore, appears to be a promising endeavour where engineering approaches provide possible short and long term applications involving a wide spectrum of tissues, including, but not limited to, skin, bone, blood vessels, liver cells, pancreatic islet cells, cartilage, nerve cells, bone marrow, and blood components.
• Downstream Processing
• Metabolic engineering - measurement and control of in-vivo metabolic fluxes is one key component of metabolic engineering. Metabolic control analysis of pathway groups or networks is another. Development of in-vivo techniques to accomplish this measurement and control is critical.
• Process monitoring, design, optimisation, and control
• The security and quality of the United States food supply

Biomedical Engineering and Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities - supports fundamental engineering research which has the potential to contribute to improved healthcare and the reduction of healthcare costs. Other areas include models and tools for understanding biological systems.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: fundamental improvements in deriving information from cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems; the extraction of useful information from complex biomedical signals; new approaches to the design of structures and materials for eventual medical use; and new methods of controlling living systems

Areas of specialisation include much research on mechanical aids and robotics, but of more interest to chemical engineers are:

• technology for non-invasive diagnostics: research to expand understanding of the function of living systems from the molecular to the physiological level. This includes the constitutive database, necessary to implement integrative models of these systems.
• integrative mathematical models for biological complexity from the gene to the organ and beyond, as a theoretical framework for biological design.
• the use of hybrid technologies as functional interfaces between tissues and artificial systems.
• exploratory investigations of nanoscale and microscale biological, chemical and physical phenomena for the development of new healthcare technologies for minimally invasive applications in medical diagnosis and therapy.

The main theme for this division is the support of sustainable development and research with the goal of applying engineering principles to:

• reduce adverse effects of solid, liquid, and gaseous discharges into land.
• the study of fresh and ocean waters, and air which result from human activity and impair the value of those resources. This programme also supports research on innovative biological, chemical, and physical processes used alone, or as components or engineered systems, to restore the usefulness of polluted land, water, and air resources.
• the use of ionising radiation in improving the treatability of wastes, and accelerating the biodegradability of biologically refractory residues from other physical, chemical and biological treatment processes.
• issues regarding management of residues derived from processing of wastewaters.
• advanced oxidation technologies, including ozonation, radiation, photolysis, non-thermal plasmas, ionising radiation, electrohydraulic cavitation, sonolysis, and supercritical oxidation for destruction of organic substances.
• industrial ecology, which aims to allow industry to adopt the cyclical laws of a natural ecosystem in order to incorporate environmental concerns in the design and manufacture of products and the processing of materials.
• sensors and instrumentation to monitor environmental processes for control and feedback. Models which address problems such as recycling, material recovery, disassembly, remanufacturing, life-cycle analysis and pollution prevention.
• to technology for minimising or eliminating point source, and non-point source pollution. This includes recovery, recycling, and re-use technology as well as materials for containment of pollutants.
• ocean systems.

This division concerns itself with two themes: education matters specifically oriented to engineering, and the handling of generic engineering research centres.

The engineering centres are described in detail in the ‘Funding’ section of the main report. It is this division which administers the applications and their evaluation, as well as making the original proposal calls. The education part of this division runs programmes separate to the Education Directorate. The Education Directorate considers engineering, but in the wider context (even at undergraduate level).

The mission of this division is summed up by the introduction on their web page:

"This Division seeks to stimulate new paradigms in engineering research and education that will speed technological innovation and improve the quality and diversity of engineering graduates and the technical workforce."

Some examples of the type of education programmes being organised are:

• an engineering research centre for bioengineering educational technology,
• engineering education coalitions – this is a programme to "…stimulate bold, innovative, and comprehensive models for systemic reform of undergraduate engineering education and to increase the retention of students, especially women and those minorities underrepresented in engineering."
• research experiences for undergraduates awards (described in the ‘Undergraduate Matters’ section)
• the ‘Career’ (described in ‘Academic Staff Matters’) , and ‘Presidential Early Career’ awards (‘Funding’)

Within the MPS, there are activities which are relevant to chemical engineering, and we will briefly discuss these below. This is not a complete description of the activities of the MPS.

In February 1995, the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) established the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) to help facilitate and support opportunities that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. This would enable the MPS respond to proposals from the community that, because of the multi-investigator or multidisciplinary nature of the activity, did not readily fit the pre-existing program structure.

OMA works with the five MPS Divisions - Astronomical Sciences, Chemistry, Materials Research, Mathematical Sciences and Physics - to respond more effectively to the excellence and creativity of the MPS communities. The OMA provides a focal point in the Directorate for partnerships, with other agencies, industry, national laboratories, state and local governments, international organisations. The OMA also seeds cross-cutting research in areas of particular promise, and supports innovative experiments in education which could lead to new paradigms in graduate and undergraduate education in the mathematical and physical sciences, particularly in multidisciplinary settings.

The OMA is open to creative ideas from all segments of the MPS community, ranging from individual investigators to centres. It especially encourages initiatives by multi-investigator, multidisciplinary teams pursuing problems on a scale that exceeds the capacity of individual investigators. The OMA is particularly receptive to projects incorporating education and research training experiences which contribute to a diverse, high quality workforce with technical and professional skills. It is hoped that this will lead people towards career path flexibility, and an appetite for lifelong learning appropriate to the dynamic, global scientific and technological enterprise of the 21^st century.

In addition to encouraging creative proposals from the community, the OMA can help NSF divisions identify areas of research and education which are seen as particularly timely and promising. These areas are identified through various means, including interactions of the divisions with their communities via workshops and conferences; through interactive partnerships between MPS and other parts of the NSF; and through interactions between MPS and other agencies.

There are three areas which the OMA expects to emphasise in 1999/2000 for co-investment with MPS divisions:

• The development of next-generation instrumentation to enable fundamental advances within disciplines and across disciplinary boundaries. Holistic, intelligent instruments which integrate sensing, computation, modelling and informatics are of high priority.
• Innovations in education, particularly at the graduate and undergraduate levels, which broaden the backgrounds, and strengthen the technical, professional, and personal skills of graduates. Research-based activities which produce scientists who are well prepared for a broad spectrum of career opportunities, are to be encouraged.

Activities which provide assessable models for education and training are especially useful. Specific reference is made to the innovative use of information technologies in education, and to the opportunities for the MPS communities in the preparation and continued professional development of K-12 teachers. Activities which draw upon the collective synergy afforded by group grants, and by centres and facilities, are often well positioned to make important contributions to educational innovation.

The MPS interface with biological sciences offers extraordinary opportunities for mathematical and physical scientists to utilise their expertise in addressing significant research and instrumentation challenges in the bio-science and biomedical areas. Recently, the NSF and the NIH announced the NSF ‘Scholars-in-Residence’ at the NIH, as a partnership to enable investigators in the mathematical, engineering, and physical sciences to develop research collaborations within the intramural research environment at the NIH. This experiment is designed to help bridge the interests of the research communities served by the MPS and engineering directorates.

GOALI can be thought of as both a ‘brokerage of information’, and a ‘venture capital bank’. It is a chance for academics to get help in starting up projects with industrial help. The programme has a total budget of $9m p.a. and can support salary, equipment, academic summer salary, postdocs, and undergraduate summer jobs.

The over-riding factor for GOALI is that all of the projects must have an educational element (including undergraduates). So students must be involved in the research, whether this be throughout term-time, or in vacations. The students may be with the member of academic staff whilst he/she is in the industrial setting, or in the university lab (or both). The proposal is funded for five years, so the graduate students especially, will have the chance to spend time in both industry and academia.

The GOALI initiative aims to synergise university-industry partnerships by making funds available to support an eclectic mix of industry-university linkages. The initiative is in its 6^th year, and has spent about $30m so far. Special interest is focused on affording the opportunity for:

• Staff, postdoctoral fellows and students to conduct research and gain experience with production processes in an industrial setting.
• Industrial scientists and engineers to bring industry's perspective and integrative skills to academe, and,
• Interdisciplinary university-industry teams to conduct long-term projects.

The targets are high-risk/high-gain research with a focus on fundamental topics that would not have been undertaken by industry, and new approaches to solving generic problems. It is hoped that it will lead to development of innovative collaborative industry-university educational programs, and, direct transfer of new knowledge between academia and industry. Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) proposals may be considered, particularly for visits to industry for high-risk, high return projects, or special temporary opportunities.

When staff visit industry for intervals longer than one month, industry must provide 50% of the salary during the visit. Whilst industry participation in the research and education projects is required, the industrial partners are not required to match NSF research award funds for projects performed in universities. A co-investigator or co-advisor from industry is required for all projects.

Opportunities are available for long-term collaborative industry-university projects for individuals or small groups. These research and education projects are jointly designed and implemented by university and industry engineers and scientists. The principal investigators and their students are encouraged to perform their research partially at the industrial sites.

Furthermore, encouragement is given for interdisciplinary research and educational projects of two or three staff from different academic units to interact with one or more industrial partners in ‘virtual industry-university groups’ or networks.

The strong NSF attitude of inclusivity runs through the Education Directorate too. The NSF sees as one of its major rôles, the promotion of science educational activities and teaching-research from kindergarten through to early career support for academics.

The directorate, whose budget is in the range of $650m a year, and is organised into seven areas:.

• Elementary and secondary education
• Undergraduate education
• Postgraduate education
• Human resources development

• Systemic reforms
• Education and research evaluation and communication
• Informal learning

The directorate has about 50% of the programmes in education although they have about 80% of the budget. They conduct research into effective ways of education in science and engineering. Some of the programmes they operate are discussed below.

One of the major programme is the ‘Teacher Enhancement’ workshops, where teachers come together over 6-12 weeks to learn about new teaching methods. It is the largest programme within the NSF at approximately $100m. The overall objective is to improve teacher quality with particular emphasis on leadership. The current emphasis is on grade 7-12 science so the programme must therefore be in that area, and cover all teachers. The NSF remains a major force in the development of curriculum material.

The NSF also has a programme of ‘informal’ science education – for example for TV, and other communications media. The budget is about $250k - $1m per grant (TV programme grants can be larger), but these programmes are difficult to monitor and it is hard to evaluate their impact.

Something like 80-90% of pupils from suburban schools go on to higher education; though this figure drops to less than 50% for the urban and rural schools. Education is generally very highly respected in the US, particularly among the middle, and upper middle classes. Approximately 10% (or less) of US children are educated in private schools.

Overall numbers are declining in science, engineering, and social sciences. This suggests that a change is needed in engineering education (and other sciences) which leads to a technical awareness being imparted to students in other disciplines. It is considered in both the UK and the US to be particularly important for legislators to have a sound understanding of science and engineering in order to pass laws concerned with scientific issues. This is particularly important given the rapidly growing high technology industries which are likely to be breaking new ethical and technical ground. Thus, science and engineering must reach out to them at the undergraduate level.

The driving force for the NSF is described in their review of undergraduate science education (NSF, 1996) as:

The NSF sponsor research into experimental teaching approaches, evaluation, and how to overcome the barriers to the adoption of better techniques which have been discovered. There are now significant studies funded to consider the modularisation of engineering courses with common initial courses. Data is available which indicates that true integrated team teaching is highly effective, but currently departmental costs per course are increased using this method. Other programmes in place are developing computer assisted learning (CAL) packages and techniques (and their evaluation).

Another problem is ensuring that first degree graduates have the maturity required by medium and small firms. A graduate must have a good overall engineering background to ask the appropriate questions, and have the skills to find and interpret required information fast. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) have moved towards what they call ABET2000, which is an outcome based accreditation and therefore gives increased flexibility in how engineering programmes prepare students.

Harry Blount, John Bradley, Janis Earl, Joyce Evans, Norman Fontenberry, Fred Heinekin, Conrad Katzenmeyer, Gary Pohlein, Geoff Prentice, Mike Roco, Gerhart Slazenger, and Larry Sutter.