The most striking difference between the USA and the UK is the vast array of funding sources available to academics in the US. These are vehicles that can produce quite large sums of money for the discipline and are used by all the good departments. The second major difference is that the money is raised to support the work of Ph.D. students, who are the prime research workers, rather than post-doctoral research officers. They are not paid much more than UK research assistants, but their prospects on gaining the degree are considerably better. The third difference of note is the substantial funds made available to academics starting their research career. The best of these new appointments will obtain more than $1M over their first five to six years (pre-tenure) in research support, funded evenly between their university and other sources, whilst even the average over all departments is about $250k.

There are many sources of funds within the Federal (Governmental) departments and agencies open to chemical engineers. These include: the Department of Defence (DoD), the Department of Energy (DoE), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Army Research Office (ARO), the Department of Commerce (DoC), Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Airforce Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This list is not exhaustive. About half of the chemical engineering funding from the above goes through the NSF. The others are mission-oriented agencies, which are independent of one another, and they will fund research which has relevance to the interests of that agency. Such work may well be quite fundamental in nature, and not necessarily applied. The NIST Advanced Technology Programme is slightly different in that it aims to take a science or technology deemed to be of national importance, with high potential but carrying a high risk of failure, from scientific knowledge already available, to a stage where it is industrially exploitable.

More generally, our survey indicates that the distribution of research income for US academics is spread in a fairly even fashion between NSF, Government agencies, and other sources (Figure F.1.). Whereas Figure F.2. demonstrates that UK chemical engineering funding is dominated by the Research Councils; the overseas contribution is mostly from the European Union. It is important to note, that although the overall proportion of funding coming from Government sources is similar in both the US and the UK, the numerous agencies provide the majority of this in the US. This spreads the risk of shifting funding fashions, and is generally considered to be a sign of a healthy system; there is the added advantage of making researchers more independent.

Significant too is that fact that US industry invests proportionally twice as much as UK industry does. This, we would argue, is at least in part, because they are tackling problems which are important to the emerging and rapidly growing industries of the future, as well as the traditional process industries.

The plethora of funding agencies, in a sense, compete to fund research, and are inclusive rather than exclusive in terms of what they consider relevant and appropriate work. This contrasts with the UK which set up a special ‘boundary commission’ to decide which research could be funded by BBSRC, and which by EPSRC, NERC etc. In the USA, it is believed that in a similar situation if either agency could fund the project (because it was relevant to their interests), then either one would do so - and possibly both for a large programme. Agencies would make their own decisions on spending their money, and much of the decision making is in-house (even much of the reviewing in mission oriented agencies with their own laboratories).

The table below shows the grants currently in place in two institutions, spanning the range of our survey in terms of NRC ranking. The sums are divided by agency type (this is no guide to their ‘average’ annual income). The efficiency column relates the money awarded per grant to the average awarded of all grants to that institution. This suggests that industrial money is available in small quantities in Minnesota (though not so in Pittsburgh). The difference could be that several industries separately contribute small amounts to a larger consortium type activity. The table show the widely spread sources of funds, the very significant role of mission oriented agencies, and the high level of funding achieved by good US chemical engineering departments. The performance of Pittsburgh is strongly influenced by its bioengineering programme funded by the NIH.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the largest single source, is the equivalent of the UK Research Councils (combined), and supports 30% of fundamental engineering research in the USA. The NSF has a mission to support science and science education in general, which stretches from kindergarten through to education research and Nobel Prize winning work. In the chemical engineering community, it has three major roles: these are ‘responsive mode’ grants to Principal Investigators, ‘Centre’ grants to large groups of investigators (generally regionally distributed), and support grants to individuals via NSF Fellowships to students and CAREER awards to starting academics.

The NSF has several Directorates, one being the Engineering Directorate, which is split into broad divisions. Funds for chemical engineers come mainly from the ‘Chemical and Transport Systems’, and the ‘Bioengineering and Environmental Systems’ divisions. Within these divisions, support is afforded through a number of separate programmes or activities. The inclusivity concept is demonstrated in their separate programmes, for example, bio-processing and biotechnology work is explicitly mentioned as being supportable by three programme activities out of four in the Chemical and Transport Systems division, namely: Interfacial, Transport and Separation Processes; Fluid Particulate and Hydraulic Systems; and Thermal Systems. Moreover, it is mentioned in all three programme activities in the Bioengineering and Environmental Systems division. The NSF is eclectic, and tries to support as many investigators as possible, and tending to restrict the number of grants any individual investigator can hold to one from any division. The NSF supplies funding mainly for responsive-mode, single investigator, projects, which are funds acquired through the submission of a proposal that goes to peer review by up to eight reviewers. The reviewers’ ratings are sent back to the NSF programme manager, who will classify the proposals and fund those for which he or she has money (the budget is decided at a higher level). The programme manager thus has considerable authority and discretion to judge between grants at the margin because the weighting of the different reviewers and their selection lies in the manager’s hands. Refereeing panels are used for initiatives and special programmes and often include very recently appointed young faculty.

The programme managers are of two types: the ‘rotator’, and the NSF ‘staffer’. The rotator comes from academia, being seconded for a short period, typically two years, and who will then return to their department on completion of their term. Some even continue their university work whilst at the NSF. They are specialists in the field and can make judgements, but do not stay long enough to make great differences to the overall policy of provision of grants in a particular field.

Staffers on the other hand, stay a long time, are also specialists, and not generalists, but make a considerable difference to the way funds are awarded in a field. The best ones are reflecting lead opinion in the discipline, whilst some may be opinion leaders. Pete Mayfield in the 1970's had a great influence in directing NSF spending towards enzyme engineering, for example. Others use their influence lightly but are able to take effective action in the selection of referees, and indeed the deselection of obstructive or overly negative referees. This flexibility is extremely important for multidisciplinary proposals if that was felt to be important for a truly fair hearing. For example, in the case of biochemical engineering, they can ensure that biologist reviewers are those who understand that the design-oriented approach to research is as valid as the hypothesis-testing one.

The UK Research Councils programme managers are generalists as is the norm in the civil service. The achievements of US funding policy using the specialist approach might well be considered more effective. This is certainly true for engineering. It may not be something the Research Councils want to change. However it is a significant difference between the two systems, and US chemical engineers have certainly fared well by the specialised community connection of the NSF programme managers.

So far, we have discussed some of the opportunities, which exist for individuals and small-scale collaborations. The NSF also has major investments in large-scale centres of excellence. These exist to draw together in one place a critical mass of support and expertise in a particular area, and to enhance multidisciplinary approaches to the types of scientific and engineering based problems associated with that area of research. An example being the Biochemical Engineering Research Centre hosted by MIT, which the Engineering Directorate of the NSF funded for ten years. There are only a small number of such centres, with the principle aims being to promote long-term research and to integrate research with education. Another group of centres is the industry/university or ‘State/Industry/University Co-operative Research Centres’. These have a priming grant from the NSF, and then aim to have a self-supporting research programme funded by a combination of university, industry and state government. The University of Minnesota is home to the Biological Process Technology Institute, which receives funds from all of these sources.

There are currently 24 ‘Materials Research Science and Engineering Centres’ (MRSEC) many of which are hosted by, or have significant contributions from, a chemical engineering department (e.g. Texas). These have grants of up to $2m per year for 10 years and are locally administered, involve several institutions and departments, which enables the required critical mass to be assembled to make a truly significant contribution to a major area. In addition, the MRSECs have ensured that simply administered and reviewed blue-sky starter grants are possible; which have been particularly valuable for young staff at the start of the careers. The support afforded to young staff has not just been in terms of finance, but also the readily available opportunities for local collaboration. Indeed, for all staff, these centres have been a rich source of multidisciplinary opportunities affording levels of collaboration not previously found to be possible, and consequently, the outputs of these centres has been prodigious. It has been shown that subsequent to the start-up period it is possible to support a large centre on contract money, so that its use as a teaching resource is almost wholly subsidised (for example, Texas microelectronics materials Centre).

In the UK context, there are IRCs which have a similar purpose and remit, but these seem not to have stimulated inter-institution and blue sky research in the same way. Neither have they been seen to particularly result in the inclusion of more and more people under the umbrella of the centres’ activity. In reviewing one IRC, we were struck by the way in which it isolated its activity from even that of the same researchers being funded by other means. We got the distinct impression that the US centres made significant efforts to include more people, and to initiate novel work from their funds which was not pre-planned in the original proposal. The UK IRCs seem to justify all of their activity in terms of the original detailed plans.

There are clear advantages to stimulating interdisciplinary, work but there seems to be a danger if it is tied to specified deliverables rather than an expectation simply to produce unspecified, but published, first-rate science. Perhaps the UK centres are overly reviewed against highly detailed programmes and objectives, or believe that this will be the case. The UK model leads to funds being locked in to one or two centres, which siphon money away from other groups, rather than stimulating the development of additional funds and activity elsewhere.

In the US, most funding programmes are for three years, with the majority of staff tending to hold only one individual NSF grant as sole ‘principal investigator’ (PI) at a time (with possibly an overlap of successive grants). This was usually from a single NSF division. The application process was excessively cumbersome compared to the UK with very long proposals. It was also highly competitive with success rates quoted as being as low as 40 out of 697. The evaluation of a completed project is guided by published output, regardless of the initial objectives. In the UK, it is perceived by some that the practice of reviewing against initial objectives promotes inflexibility, though in fact it is possible to change objectives with justification. In the US they felt that driving evaluation to looking at published paper output was a more productive approach for grants as opposed to contracts. This ability to judge whether a grant was used properly in a flexible way was considered very important by both the academic recipients, and the NSF paymasters. Grants are genuinely grants in the US, they are not contracts - evaluation is judged by the quality of outcomes, and not against predetermined objectives. In this way, new ideas could be reacted to, and capitalised upon rapidly, which was cited as one of the reasons for the success of US academics in breaking into new areas and remaining at the forefront of those areas. Good publications lead to increased grant success later on.

The efficacy of this area of grant giving is intimately connected with the function and operational style of the NSF programme managers, and the approach and ethos of reviewers in other awarding bodies.

The role of industry in funding academic research is also very different in the USA. Science is considered very important to industry, and their association with programmes is often highly beneficial for both parties. They tend not to receive research grants from government, more usually they are contracted. Congress seems to take a diametrically opposite view to the UK Parliament, in that it does not want public money being spent to support industry directly (with a small number of exceptions, mainly in the small business area and the Advanced Technology programme). When industry involved their contributions are phased unevenly. For example, there is a three-phase government-wide Small Business Initiative (SBI) which supports small firms to develop new products. More than 30% of the money is to be spent in universities, with $100k available for a one-year feasibility study. Phase two is $300k, and in phase three the companies are to be self-sufficient. Until phase three no matching funds are sought. Some of the agencies concerned with more fundamental research, such as the NIH, have trouble spending their quota on such projects - which is supposed to amount to 2.5% of their total budgets.

This is an NSF matching-fund programme, but even here the requirements are quite modest. In fact there is no requirement to match funds which are wholly used within an academic institution for research. It is required that industry participates, and that the output is used by industry. A 50% matching fund requirement is specified but only for work carried out within the industry establishment and when the work lasts beyond three months.

This programme also follows the inclusivity principle. The objectives are to support industry-academia interactions, but the precise vehicles are open to definition by the proposers. It is envisaged that these will include academics spending time in industry, or senior industrialists spending time in academia. This programme suggests that a number of distinct academic units can be sponsored to carry out industry-initiated multidisciplinary research. The programme made $30 million of awards in 1998 and this is expected to rise in 1999.

Industry does of course fund major research programmes in the universities under confidentiality arrangements. The US also has favourable charity tax laws which encourage unrestricted donations. This means that industry will give sums of $5-45k as ex-gratia donations to universities, departments or research consortia with ‘no strings attached’ agreements (as such they avoid university overheads). Many US academics say that industry is not as forthcoming as they would like, however, US industry does have a strong record of giving these gifts. At least half of the departments, which we visited, had at least one consortium, whilst in the UK though there are examples (e.g. Imperial, Newcastle) they are rarer. Such gifts allow staff to support students in their final years, to undertake exploratory work, to support undergraduates in research, or to be used to top-up current research grants. Industry looks upon these small gifts as an investment to ensure a good supply of students to the general recruitment pool, and as a way of building good relationships with academia. Such gifts are not seen as, or expected to be, a cheap way of buying up research ideas; they are, however, both tax efficient, and research efficient. It is considered that this approach helps to keep both the best minds serving industry and academics as professional chemical engineers, once they have qualified and finished their degrees.

Typically, a university research group will organise an industrial consortium to support a research programme. Sometimes industry asks that a portion of the money be spent on research which tackles their general interests as a group. Such influence may come about through their role on the management board. A consortium will perhaps supply $500k per year - from a group of 20-30 industrialists. There is evidence that forming a small centre of expertise attracts industrial interest, though there had mixed long-term outcomes. Several senior and experienced Professors commented that the UK has already gone much too far along the route of industrially applicable research, and that they would not like to see the US follow suit.

In addition to research council funding, the dual nature of the UK funding system directly affects the ability of chemical engineering departments to recruit the best staff. Industry in its recruitment policies also indirectly affects the university research environment because salaries, which they offer even after a first degree, significantly exceed those of academia, partly because average chemical engineering salaries in industry are higher than nearly all other disciplines. The relatively high salaries received by Ph.Ds over first degrees in US industry and academia may be part of the attraction to first class students to undertake Ph.Ds. Another attraction could be the excitement of the interdisciplinary research areas. In contrast to most other western countries, which are now having considerable difficulty recruiting first class research students in chemical engineering, the USA is doing reasonably well. The high quality of the graduate students is a strong motivator mentioned by academics at the top schools. Elsewhere in the system it may be much worse but even the top schools in the UK cite difficulties with quality.

The US academic will find a hard working and pressured environment. The pressure comes from a number of sources (see Academic Staff Matters). One of the greatest pressures is the need to continue obtaining support for Ph.D. students, which may be as much as $40,000 per head per year in a top private school. Roughly 4-6 students would be normal for such an academic to have to support (ranges from 3 to 23). In addition the academic at most US Universities is expected to provide their own summer salary for two months, and pay the overhead on top of that. Thus, the US academic is seeking funding on a large scale. Whereas a UK academic in a strong university might expect to raise on average £80,000 a year, the US academic will be looking for $350,000 (£220,000) a year. It must be said that a number of interviewees commented that the level of fees having to be found by academics was becoming too high given the funding circumstances. In addition NSF report that only 40 applications out of 697 were successful in chemical engineering. It is in this context that we see the early career awards that are made available for the new academics by the NSF.

The NSF supports new academics in a number of ways. One such way is the ‘Career Award’ - a prestigious competitive award made to an individual based on their pedigree and performance as a postgraduate and postdoctoral worker. The sum awarded is substantial - $100K per year for four years, is in addition to any other funds given by the university as a start-up package, and recipients are still able to apply for funding through all the usual channels. The money is intended to give the most talented researchers a real flying start in their career, and ensures that these people will be able to develop a truly innovative programme of research. In part, it also takes some of the pressure off for finding continuation funds for their first cohort of students. There are many instances of recipients being highly motivated by the Career Award to start an entirely new field of research, which were often highly multidisciplinary. The award can be made to those in the first one, two, or three years of their post (and before tenure). It may be supplemented by industrial money, which the NSF matches (to a ceiling). There are 20 academics a year who are upgraded from the Career award to a ‘Presidential Early Career Award’ (PECASE), which guarantees a payment of $500k over five years. The programme is an outgrowth of the earlier PYI (‘Presidential Young Investigator’) Award and the system appears to be continuously changing in detail, but the principle has remained in place for nearly 20 years. The awards remain highly prestigious and affect a persons whole career.

As has been described elsewhere in this report, the NSF offers support to young staff in a variety of ways: though centres (above), by automatically inviting new academic staff onto committees and panels (Academic Staff Matters), and through ‘Career Awards’. The US academic community considers that this process of induction to be very important for the professional development of new academic staff. Many times we were told "How can you be expected to learn how to write good grant applications if you are not exposed to the review process?" Many young staff commented on how useful and found it, and on how much they had learned from all of the process open to them at the start of their careers, and how this had helped them substantially in developing as a leading scientist

This initial support given by starter grants is very useful but has to be built on if the academic is to take their place amongst the large number of highly successful researchers in US academia. Even $1M over five years only supports a modest number of Ph.D. students and sustaining a large group requires continuous efforts raising funds. Furthermore, the goal for new staff members should be to focus on new science for several years ahead whilst they are at their most productive and innovative. The requirement for a CASE studentship might be counter-productive as it leads too early to research focussed on short-term objectives.

Blue-sky (fundamental) funding for individuals is nominally through the NSF responsive mode, with referees seeking novelty and innovation rather than incremental advances. Such advances are promoted by the culture, which expects the deliverables to be publications or patents, but not specified outcomes that are pre-specified in research proposals. Evaluation of deliverables is a useful management tool, but is dangerous when used for blue-sky research. The concept of evaluation against objectives for responsive-mode grants was considered antithetical to blue-sky research by many interviewees.

There is also an NSF ‘Small Exploratory Research Grant’ programme. This allows programme managers to provide some funding of approx. $100k to get work going under a two-year feasibility study. Often UK feasibility studies are of one year duration, which may measure the feasibility, but if the project is successful, means that there is a break in the research before further funding can be obtained. This disruptive hiatus would be prevented by some ability to maintain funds for successful projects for a second year whilst the full grant proposal is prepared and reviewed.

There are numerous charitable foundations in the US, for example: the Whitaker Foundation, the Dreyfus Foundation, the Shell Oil Foundation, and the Packard Foundation. Another well-used charity is the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) which is funded by the major oil companies and administered by the American Chemical Society (ACS). Further funding opportunities arise from State finance initiatives and endowments, which are usually for spending in a flexible manner, with significant sums for facilities and infrastructure. University alumni are used effectively for fund raising, and this general-purpose money can be also used for infrastructure and start-up packages