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Friday, April 4, 1997

03:38:09 PM EST

Board of Contributing Editors/John O. Harney

BankBosto-ns recent repon on the economic impact ofthe Mas.sachusets Institute ofTechnology is enough to give
Bay Staters aheady feeling reminiscent ofthe
'mrracle'80s lfcompaniesfoundedbyMlTgraduatesandfaculty'formedanindependent"orrtry,therelortn&ed,thatcountry-re"trnotogit-wouldboasttheworld,s
24th largest economy.

r\txrut lhe (lmc lhat repon s'as .issued, howevc'r, the nonprofir New [:ngland Board of l{igher Education (NEBHE) was
combing rhrough some much more sobering
numbers about the six-statL. region's scientific future.

f:ach ;'ear, NEBI{E pulls together reams of data on technologrcal research fundrng and other indicators of New
England's higher education health, and each year, the board
is compelled ro note that things are not what they used to be.

I'rue thoughNewEnglandisho.1etoonly-5pc'rcentoftheti.S.population.theregion's$1.8billioninuniversityresearchanddevelopmenrex.rndrturesrepresented
ll'6 pcrcc.nt of thc [.'.S. total in 1994, the last year for which da(a are available. Yes,-New England campuses haveiaptured
l2 percent oi th. p",.nt" awarded to U.S.
hrgher c-ducation institutions over the past three years. And-undoubtedly, R&D performed in-the regions unrversity ,,green,,
taUs *itt yield medical breakthroughs,
lc'chnoloeic..s and the high-speed computer networks of the future.

thc[-S total in1983to8.6percentin1991.Thatl5percentdropinsharer.pies.rr,hundredsofnullion.ofdollarslositoNewringluia!.;u,.henterprise.

'lle rea'sons lbr the slippage varv. First, New England is old. 'fhe regron's edge in research was bound to give
way as newer parts of the country - and their newer research
univr.rsrties - maturc,d and caplured more proponiona(e shres of R&D.

S"condl1" New England exhibit-s a sort of cockiness that no*'costs dearly with funders who are rurned
on not only by ment and reputatron, but also by enthusrasm. The
mo'st high-profile case occurred in 1990, when the National Science Foundation awarded
a multinullion-dollar Nadonal High Magnetic Field Laboratory ro Florida State
('nrVersity' over MIT. It wasn't that the MIT researchers weren't
supenor, but that Floridians were excited about the lab aad willing to invest some of their own money in
rr. 1}lc- pcoplc of Massachusett-s, forthe most parl, couldn! have carcd less.

Moreovc'r. the (''ommonwealth of Massachusetts, like the rest of the New England states, has been no(onously
stingy in its supporr of scienrific research. In 1994,
B.'acon IIill providcd just one penny of every dollar invested in academic reseirch in the sure.

-fhis
low state investment has been artributed_ro New England's-hrstory of snaring more rhan its share of federal research
funding, much of it in suppon of defense
r!'search at MIT and a few ciher institutions. But with thJ end of the cota war an'd the political and
intellectual development of the Sunbelt, New England,s share of
lcdcral research suppon is plummeting.

Neu' England's share of fcderal R&D obligations - research money awarded by federal agenoes such
as the Departmenr of Defense, NASA and the National Institutes for
Ilealth - dropped from 12.2 percenr in 1984 ro 9.5 percc.nt in 1994.

the feds provide 67 cents of every dollar New England uruversities spend on R&D, compared with 60
:S!l]l' cents nationally - a very significanr difference in the
quc'3t lo halance the fedcral budget. To make malters worse, not a single New linglander sits
on the 46member U.S. Ilouse Committee on Science.

Who urll prck up the'slack? Indu.stry is too narrow in outl<xrk to sufpon basrc research whose commercial payoffs
are decades away. It seerns dlat likc so many orher
rr'sponslhilitics tha( oncc rc.srded in Washington. the burdcn of scientrfic ieadership wrll fall upon the states. *itt tt. New
England states be ready to carch ir?

John o' ltantev is lhe etecu.ti.ve editor of Cornection:

New Englatd's-lounul of Higher Flucatiot and Economic Developmtnr. Comcction b the quarterlv jounrul ol
rhe Nev Enghnd Boart! of tlighrr Educltiin?G""rilt*"
The Board
). of Corurlbuing Mitors b u4rted on Tuesdays and rhursdtys.