[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING BACK THE U.S. RESEARCH
ENTERPRISE: COVID IMPACTS AND RECOVERY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 25, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-2
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
43-446PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
JERRY McNERNEY, California PETE SESSIONS, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois MIKE GARCIA, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
DON BEYER, Virginia YOUNG KIM, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAY OBERNOLTE, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DAN KILDEE, Michigan VACANCY
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
February 25, 2021
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Witnesses:
Dr. Sudip Parikh, Chief Executive Officer, American Association
for the Advancement of Science
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Dr. Christopher Keane, Vice President for Research, Washington
State University
Oral Statement............................................... 25
Written Statement............................................ 27
Dr. Felice J. Levine, Executive Director, American Educational
Research Association
Oral Statement............................................... 45
Written Statement............................................ 47
Mr. Thomas Quaadman, Executive Vice President, Center for Capital
Markets Competitiveness, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Oral Statement............................................... 53
Written Statement............................................ 55
Discussion....................................................... 68
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Sudip Parikh, Chief Executive Officer, American Association
for the Advancement of Science................................. 112
Dr. Christopher Keane, Vice President for Research, Washington
State University............................................... 116
Dr. Felice J. Levine, Executive Director, American Educational
Research Association........................................... 127
Mr. Thomas Quaadman, Executive Vice President, Center for Capital
Markets Competitiveness, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.............. 132
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives
``Issue Brief: U.S. R&D Community Pandemic Recovery
Lagging,'' American Physical Society....................... 142
Letter submitted by Representative Bill Posey, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 147
BUILDING BACK THE U.S.
RESEARCH ENTERPRISE:
COVID IMPACTS AND RECOVERY
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2021
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., via
Webex, Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee]
presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. And without objection, the Chair is
authorized to declare recess at any time.
Pursuant to House Resolution 8, today, the Committee is
meeting virtually. I want to announce a couple of reminders to
the Members about the conduct of the remote hearing. First,
Members should keep their video feed on as long as they are
present in the hearing, and Members are responsible for their
own microphones. Please keep your microphones muted until you
are speaking. And finally, if Members have documents they wish
to submit for the record, please email them to the Committee
Clerk, whose email address was circulated prior to the meeting.
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing. I want to
thank our distinguished panel for joining us today and remind
them that there are probably two of the names that I'll get a
little bit mixed because I'm from Waco, Texas, and I only speak
Waco English. But I want to thank our distinguished panel for
joining us today.
This week our Nation passed yet another heart-wrenching
milestone. More than a half million of our friends, neighbors,
family members, frontline workers, and fellow citizens have
succumbed to COVID-19 since the disease first touched our
shores a little more than a year ago. Even as vaccines are
being administered around the country, help has come too late
for them and for the more than 2,000 Americans who continue to
die each passing day. Those numbers are staggering, yet we must
remember it would have been even worse if not for the
sacrifices that Americans have been making to bring this virus
under control.
The necessary mitigation measures undertaken by
individuals and by businesses, institutions, and organizations
of all types have created enormous disruptions to every sector
of American life, including agriculture, manufacturing,
hospitality, education, sports, transportation, and health care
as we have attempted to slow this deadly spread of the virus.
Scientific research has not been spared.
We are here today to discuss the state of the U.S.
research enterprise one year into this pandemic, and to explore
what is needed to get things back on track. For my colleagues
who are new to the Committee, let me say a few words about the
critical role research plays in our society. For decades,
federally funded research has generated new ideas and spurred
breakthrough innovations, which fuel our economy and create
jobs, inspire new generations of young people to pursue
science, improve public health and education, and keep us a
step ahead of our global competitors. Our research system is
the envy of the world, and many nations have tried hard to
emulate it.
In this hearing we will examine the ways in which the
pandemic has slowed the pace of research and innovation and
reversed hard-earned gains in expanding our STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and math) workforce. I am deeply
concerned about the long-term consequences for the American
people if we don't make these investments necessary to address
the needs of our science agencies, universities, researchers,
and students.
Even before the pandemic, years of stagnant funding
dramatically eroded our standing as the leader in science and
innovation with countries like China nipping at our heels. It
is not enough to recover simply to maintain the status quo. We
must grow the research enterprise so that we can boldly tackle
the urgent challenges ahead of us.
For these reasons, I did not hesitate to join my
bipartisan colleagues in the House in cosponsoring the RISE
Act. I was also pleased to be joined by Ranking Member Lucas in
reintroducing the Supporting Early Career Researchers Act,
which is focused specifically on keeping the best and brightest
in research careers that they have already worked so hard for.
I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will continue
to join me in advocating for their passage and the real funding
for those two bills.
In that regard, I look forward to learning from the expert
panel about the specific challenges and needs one year into the
pandemic, including any recommendations for updating these
bills. Well, we have a lot to consider today, and I again want
to thank our witnesses for appearing with us today.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing. I want to
thank our distinguished panel for joining us today. This week
our Nation passed yet another heart wrenching milestone. More
than half a million of our friends, neighbors, family members,
front-line workers, and fellow citizens have succumbed to
COVID-19 since the disease first touched our shores a little
over one year ago. Even as vaccines are being administered
around the country, help has come too late for them and the
more than two thousand Americans who continue to die with each
passing day.
Those numbers are staggering, yet we must remember it would
have been even worse if not for the sacrifices Americans have
been making to bring the virus under control. The necessary
mitigation measures undertaken by individuals and by
businesses, institutions, and organizations of all types have
created enormous disruptions to every sector of American life,
including agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality, education,
sports, transportation, and health care as we have attempted to
slow the deadly spread of the virus. Scientific research has
not been spared.
We are here today to discuss the state of the U.S. research
enterprise one year into this pandemic, and to explore what is
needed to get things back on track. For my colleagues who are
new to the Committee, let me say a few words about the critical
role research plays in our society. For decades, federally
funded research has generated new ideas and spurred
breakthrough innovations which fuel our economy and create
jobs, inspire new generations of young people to pursue
science, improve public health and education, and keep us a
step ahead of our global competitors. Our research system is
the envy of the world, and many nations have tried hard to
emulate it.
In this hearing we will examine the ways in which the
pandemic has slowed the pace of research and innovation and
reversed hard-earned gains in expanding our STEM workforce. I
am deeply concerned about the long-term consequences for the
American people if we don't make the investments necessary to
address the needs of our science agencies, universities,
researchers, and students. Even before the pandemic, years of
stagnant funding dramatically eroded our standing as the leader
in science and innovation, with countries like China nipping at
our heels. It is not enough to recover simply to maintain the
status quo-we must grow the research enterprise so we can
boldly tackle the urgent challenges ahead of us.
For those reasons, I did not hesitate to join my bipartisan
colleagues in the House in cosponsoring the RISE Act. I was
also pleased to be joined by Ranking Member Lucas in re-
introducing the Supporting Early Career Researchers Act, which
is focused specifically on keeping the best and brightest in
research careers that they have already worked so hard for. I
hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will continue to
join me in advocating for their passage and for real funding
for those two bills. In that regard, I look forward to learning
from the expert panel about the specific challenges and needs
one year into the pandemic, including any recommendations for
updating those bills.
Well, we have a lot to consider today, and I again want to
thank our witnesses for appearing before us today.
I now yield to Ranking Member Lucas for his opening
statement.
Chairwoman Johnson. Before I recognize Mr. Lucas for the--
his opening remarks, I'd like to present for the record a
report from the American Physical Society entitled ``Issue
Brief: The U.S. R&D Community Pandemic Recovery Lagging.''
Thank you. And now I will ask for Mr. Lucas for his
opening statement.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, both for being a
pleasure to work with and for holding this hearing. I believe
that today's topics, restarting American research, is one of
the most important issues we face at this moment. In September
we heard from students and academics about the far-reaching
impacts of COVID shutdowns. Those problems are only getting
worse as Congress continues to ignore this problem in COVID
relief bills. American research universities support nearly 7
million jobs, and hundreds of thousands of those are directly
supported by research funding. As research funding dries, those
jobs are threatened.
The research itself is also suffering. When COVID hit,
labs across the country had to close or dramatically limit
their operations to provide for safe social distancing. It's
estimated we're losing between 20 and 40 percent of our
research output, which we absolutely cannot afford if we want
to keep pace with China.
The Chinese Communist Party is determined to overtake us
in the industries of the future, areas of science and
technology that will drive economic growth and national
security in the years to come. The longer our research remains
stalled, the more likely it is we'll fall behind our foreign
adversaries on technologies like artificial intelligence,
quantum information sciences and advanced manufacturing. The
consequences of that would be devastating.
In addition to our loss of research, we're facing the loss
of our researchers. Graduate students and post-docs are
particularly vulnerable to lab closures right now. Research
interruptions make it difficult to complete their studies and
graduate on time. And universities have instituted hiring
freezes, making it difficult to find work. Our STEM pipeline
and future competitiveness could be irreparably damaged if we
don't act quickly.
Unfortunately, we can't just flip a switch and restart the
research work that's been halted by the pandemic. There's a
cost involved in getting back up and running. Scientists need
to cultivate new samples; field researchers need to reacquire
equipment, permits, and tools; and labs need to figure out how
to safely use and sterilize expensive and delicate equipment.
For a time, research will cost more and take longer to
conduct. We need to plan for that. But our science progress is
worth that investment. That's why I was so disappointed that in
the $4 trillion in COVID spending that Congress has already
passed, not one cent has gone to research itself. In the
massive and partisan $1.9 trillion budget reconciliation
proposal being considered this week, billions and billions of
dollars are going to special interests that already have $1
trillion in unspent funding sitting in the Treasury from
previous COVID packages. And yet in all that spending, only
$600 million was allocated to helping the research industry
recover from the pandemic. That's less than half a percent.
We've relied on American science and scientists to combat
COVID, but we're not giving them the funding they need to
resume the work that's been stopped by the pandemic. We need to
act now.
I'm a proud cosponsor of the RISE Act, which would invest
$25 billion in restarting American research. It provides the
funding needed for researchers to complete work that was halted
due to the pandemic. And it will allow Federal science agencies
to make awards to research universities, independent
institutions, and national laboratories.
I'm also proud of the Supporting Early Career Researchers
Act Chairwoman Johnson and I reintroduced at the start of this
Congress. This bill creates a new postdoctoral fellowship
program at the National Science Foundation to help support
early career researchers.
Both of these bills enjoy strong bipartisan support, which
is why I'm hopeful that we can move forward on them sooner
rather than later. In the meantime, I'd like to thank our
witnesses for being here today. I'm looking forward to learning
more about the challenges facing our research industry and to
hear your ideas about how we can support American scientists
and technology.
And with that, Madam Chair, again, thank you. And I yield
back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this hearing. I
believe that today's topic--restarting American research--is
one of the most important issues we face at this moment. In
September we heard from students and academics about the far-
ranging impacts of COVID shutdowns. Those problems are only
getting worse as Congress continues to ignore this problem in
COVID relief bills.
American research universities support nearly 7 million
jobs, and hundreds of thousands of those are directly supported
by research funding. As research funding dries up, those jobs
are threatened.
The research itself is also suffering. When COVID hit, labs
across the country had to close or dramatically limit their
operations to provide for safe social distancing. It's
estimated that we're losing between 20 and 40 percent of our
research output, which we absolutely cannot afford if we want
to keep pace with China.
The Chinese Communist Party is determined to overtake us in
the industries of the future-areas of science and technology
that will drive economic growth and national security in the
years to come. The longer our research remains stalled, the
more likely it is that we'll fall behind our foreign
adversaries on technologies like artificial intelligence,
quantum information sciences, advanced manufacturing. The
consequences of that would be devastating.
In addition to our loss of research, we're facing the loss
of our researchers. Graduate students and post-docs are
particularly vulnerable to lab closures right now. Research
interruptions make it difficult to complete their studies and
graduate on time. And universities have instituted hiring
freezes, making it difficult to find work. Our STEM pipeline
and future competitiveness could be irreparably damaged if we
don't act quickly.
Unfortunately, we can't just flip a switch and restart the
research work that's been halted by the pandemic. There's a
cost involved in getting back up and running. Scientists need
to cultivate new samples, field researchers need to reacquire
equipment, permits, and tools, and labs need to figure out how
to safely use and sterilize expensive and delicate equipment.
For a time, research will cost more and take longer to
conduct, and we need to plan for that. But our scientific
progress is worth that investment. That's why I'm so
disappointed that in the $4 trillion in COVID spending that
Congress has already passed, not one cent has gone to research
relief.
In the massive and partisan $1.9 trillion budget
reconciliation proposal being considered this week, billions
and billions of dollars are going to special interests that
already have $1 trillion in unspent funding sitting in the
Treasury from previous COVID packages. And yet in all that
spending, only $600 million was allocated to helping the
research industry recover from the pandemic. That's less than
half a percent.
We've relied on American science and scientists to combat
COVID, but we're not giving them the funding they need to
resume the work that's been stopped by the pandemic.
We need to act now.
I'm a proud cosponsor of the RISE Act, which would invest
$25 billion in restarting American research. It provides the
funding needed for researchers to complete work that was halted
due to the pandemic. And it will allow federal science agencies
to make awards to research universities, independent
institutions, and national laboratories.
I'm also proud of the Supporting Early-Career Researchers
Act Chairwoman Johnson and I re-introduced at the start of this
Congress. This bill creates a new postdoctoral fellowship
program at the National Science foundation to help support
early career researchers.
Both of these bills enjoy strong bipartisan support, which
is why I'm hopeful that we can move forward on them sooner
rather than later. In the meantime, I'd like to thank our
witnesses for being here today. I'm looking forward to learning
more about the challenges facing our research industry, and
hear your ideas about how we can support American science and
technology.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Johnson. Our first witness, Dr. Sudip Parikh,
is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science--we call it AAAS--and the Executive
Publisher of the Science family of journals, a position he has
held since January 2020. Prior to his current position with
AAAS, Dr. Parikh served as Senior Vice President and Managing
Director at DIA Global, the General Manager of the Health and
Consumer Solutions Business Unit and Vice President at
Battelle.
Our next witness, Dr. Christopher Keane, Dr. Keane is Vice
President of Research (VPR) and professor of physics at
Washington State University (WSU) where he has served since
2014. Prior to his positions there, he served in multiple
leadership positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Nuclear
Security Administration. Dr. Keane is also Chair of the
Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU)
Council on Research Executive Committee.
Our third witness, Dr. Felice Levine. Dr. Levine is
Executive Director of the American Educational Research
Association (AERA). Her work focuses on research and science
policy issues, the scientific and academic workforce, and
diversity and inclusion in higher education. Dr. Levine is
engaged in a multi-method study of the impact of COVID-19 on
early career education researchers and doctoral students.
Our next witness, Mr. Thomas Quaadman, Mr. Quaadman is
Executive Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center
for Capital Markets Competitiveness, the Chamber Technology
Engagement Center, and the Global Innovation Policy Center. In
his role with the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness,
he works to create and execute legislative, regulatory, and
judicial strategies to reform the financial regulatory system
and support policies for efficient capital markets.
Our witnesses should know that you will each have 5
minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will
be included in the record for the hearing. And when you have
completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions,
and each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We
will now start with Dr. Parikh.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SUDIP PARIKH,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
Dr. Parikh. Thank you. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member
Lucas, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. As the CEO (chief executive
officer) of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, or AAAS, and the Executive Publisher of Science
magazine, I have the privilege of representing 120,000
scientists and engineers from every discipline, from
agriculture and artificial intelligence (AI) to x-ray
crystallography and zoology, who work tirelessly to advance
science and serve society for the benefit of all.
And here's what they tell me. It seems strange to say it
during a pandemic, but we live in wondrous times. The pace of
discovery and innovation has never been faster. We've seen,
we've seen the methane-covered mountains of Pluto. We have felt
the gravitational ripples caused by colliding black holes. We
have detailed extensive changes to our climate and environment.
We've advanced quantum computing to the brink of broader
utility and the creation of jobs and harnessed gene editing to
potentially cure sickle-cell anemia and other diseases, not to
mention the thrill of landing a rover on Mars in high-
resolution no less.
Despite failures in our public health response to the
pandemic, the biomedical research enterprise has never worked
more quickly to understand and address COVID-19. The record-
shattering number of submissions to the journal Science and
other peer-reviewed publications for COVID, it speaks volumes
about the speed and intensity with which researchers are
responding to this crisis. And they haven't stopped in other
areas either.
But we also live in uncertain times. Multiple intersecting
challenges have the potential to become global crises. The
COVID-19 pandemic is not going to be the last time that science
is essential to society's triumph over existential threats.
Addressing future public health concerns like Alzheimer's,
climate change, food and water insecurity, and other
challenges, some of which aren't even emerged yet, will require
addressing short-term funding challenges and long-term support
for science.
But we can't do things the way we've always done them
either. The cadence of emerging crises and the pace of
discoveries requires permanent elevation of scientific advisors
to the front ranks of policymaking. And at the same time, we
need to more fully engage diverse communities with an
intentional emphasis on those that have been ignored,
marginalized, or harmed by scientific advancement.
Today's hearing is incredibly timely. We are at an
inflection point. As I said, we live in wondrous times for
discovery, but that's a lagging indicator of previous
investment. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and slow erosion
of investment, our Nation's universities and laboratories, the
foundation of our innovation ecosystem, have faced an eroding
capacity to nurture ideas, discoveries, and, most importantly,
a highly skilled, diverse pool of STEM talent. And this is
happening just as our global competitors are pouring investment
into the sciences. What we do now could determine who benefits
from scientific discovery in the form of better jobs and
improved health.
Scientists and engineers have risen to the challenge of
COVID-19, but this success has come at a price. Lab workers
have been forced to work in shifts, and this limited lab time
has slowed research. Lab budgets have been strained by the need
to extend salaries. With needed safety measures in place, human
subjects research has been particularly challenging. And field
expeditions have been canceled or curtailed.
Early career researchers have been hit especially hard.
For undergraduates in STEM, summer research programs were
widely canceled, creating challenges in applying and
progressing to grad school. For graduate students and
postdoctoral researchers, job searches were suspended, leaving
them in incredibly precarious positions of waiting for the job
market to return.
Mental health has also been a continued concern. For women
and underrepresented minorities in STEM, the pandemic has just
further exacerbated already existing disparities. One recent
survey found that female scientists and scientists with young
dependents reported that their ability to devote time to the
research has been substantially affected. Another found that
students of color at research universities, as well as low-
income and working-class students, were more likely to
experience anxiety and depression, food and housing insecurity,
and much higher rates of financial hardship.
Science involves problem-solving and collaboration. Every
time a research project is shuttered or delayed or a promising
scientist drops out of the workforce, it raises the question
what discovery or development that could have made us safer,
led to better jobs, or healed the sick has been lost?
This is the time to act. The wisdom and foresight of
Congress in investing in science and engineering (S&E) has
enabled America's global leadership. I look forward to
discussing with you how we can ensure a future where the
descendants of Native Americans, pilgrims, enslaved peoples,
Ellis Island arrivals, and everybody else working together can
come together to address the coming crises and build a better
future for all Americans. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Parikh follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Dr. Christopher
Keane.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CHRISTOPHER KEANE,
VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH,
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Keane. OK. Good morning. Chairman Johnson, Ranking
Member--Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today before the Committee regarding the contribution of the
Nation's universities to building back the U.S. research
enterprise and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. My name is
Christopher Keane, and I'm Vice President for Research at
Washington State University. In my capacity as VPR at WSU, I
serve as Chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant
Universities Council on Research.
I want to highlight the work that WSU and our fellow
public and land-grant institutions are doing to support our
public health and economy during the pandemic, the impact the
pandemic has had on our research enterprise, and the role
Congress can play in mitigating the challenges research
institutions across the country face.
The Nation's public and land-grant universities, echoing
the last speaker, indeed, have risen to the challenge in the
campaign against the coronavirus. This includes conducting
research relevant to COVID-19, testing, support of campus and
community vaccination efforts, and other activities needed to
return students to school and support the safe resumption of
university programs while ensuring the health of our
communities.
Working with local, State, and national public health
officials, industry, and other organizations, universities are
making adjustments to meet the needs of our students,
researchers, and communities. For example, WSU's Washington
State Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (WADDL) has been
modified to conduct CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement
Amendments)-certified--that's the FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) approval process--testing for the SARS-CoV-2
virus. To date, WADDL has processed over 67,000 samples from
surrounding residents, including about 25,000 samples from WSU
faculty, students, and staff. WSU has provided cold storage for
vaccines and is also partnering in the delivery of over 12,000
doses to residents in eastern Washington.
The university has continued to face severe impacts right
now, including delays and disruptions to undergraduate and
postgraduate education, revenue losses, and increased
operational costs; amplification of gender, racial, and other
previously existing inequities; disruption of the flow of
talent, infrastructure impacts; food and housing insecurity,
unfortunately; lack of childcare, and other factors. These
impacts directly undermine our ability to support the
fundamental research that drives innovation. Indeed, economists
estimate innovation provides 50 percent of annual U.S. GDP
(gross domestic product) growth.
One story, at WSU Vancouver, one of our assistant
professors recently shared this tale, quote, ``At the start of
the pandemic, my children and I were targeted with racial slurs
just because we were Asian American, and we didn't cause the
pandemic. Add to that the emotional stress I have from
homeschooling my special-needs child, and I just don't have the
energy or ability to produce research papers. After many months
of non-productivity, I finally chose to give up sleeping. I now
regularly have resumed some sleeping, only getting 2 or 3 hours
a night just so I can keep writing papers and stay on track for
my career.'' That's a real story, and there's numerous others.
WSU and the Nation's academic community are grateful for
the Federal assistance provided by Congress over the past year.
As Congress considers additional stimulus and recovery funding,
I urge the Committee to pass the RISE Act that will provide $25
billion to Federal research agencies to support projects at
independent research institutions, public laboratories, and
universities throughout the country. The funding would also
support early career researchers and graduate students,
researchers and disciplines not fully covered such as human
subject research and field work and vital facilities.
Making full use of all our national talent is critical to
recovery, advancing the U.S. research enterprise, and remaining
competitive globally. China's current annual R&D (research and
development) expenditure growth exceeds that of the United
States by roughly $60 billion, which in fact is double the
total request for the RISE Act. So even if all the RISE Act
funding were applied to federally funded research--and there
are many other costs as well, of course--China would remain on
a path to exceed U.S. R&D expenditures in the near future,
ultimately threatening our position as the world leader in an
innovation economy.
We also need to encourage students to follow a career path
in research, and I urge the Committee to support the Early
Career Researchers Act. This will provide the financial support
necessary for young researchers to be hired who may be
otherwise lost to our national enterprise due to the current
crisis.
On behalf of the Nation's public and land-grant
universities, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today
and express our thanks for the support provided by the
Committee and Congress. The resources you have provided are
allowing our research universities to meet the challenges of
COVID-19. The pandemic, however, has emphasized and in many
cases amplified many of the existing shortfalls I have
outlined. I urge the Committee to support the RISE Act to
advance the research enterprise at our universities and the
fundamental research and new ideas it drives, allowing the U.S.
innovation economy to flourish and better the lives of all
Americans.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I
look forward to answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Keane follows:]
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Chairwoman Johnson. Sorry I didn't unmute. Thank you very
much for your testimony. Dr. Levine.
TESTIMONY OF DR. FELICE J. LEVINE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
Dr. Levine. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Johnson,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee. I
appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.
As we reach the 1-year mark of COVID-19 hitting the United
States with full force, the disruptions to the lives of early
career scholars and doctoral students in higher education
institutions have proven to be drastic, persistent, and far-
reaching. The harsh conditions are taking their toll on
research progress, research, researchers, and academic careers,
as my colleagues have just also addressed. It also exacerbated
gender and racial inequities that may have long-lasting effects
on future generations of researchers.
Almost at the onset of the pandemic, scholars of the
American Educational Research Association and the Spencer
Foundation determined that it was essential to use our research
expertise to gather information about the experiences and needs
of early career scholars and doctoral students. We decided to
undertake two studies, the Focus--the COVID-19 Focus Group
Study, and the COVID-19 Impact Survey. The Focus Group Study
report was just released in late January and is based on
systematic study of 12 focus groups of early career scholars
and doctoral students. We were able to hear their voices. The
survey is a national study of some 6,000 doctoral students and
early career scholars engaged in education research. The data
collection just ended several weeks ago, and data analysis is
about to begin.
Today, I share just a handful of topline findings and
facts that are prototypical of our results, along with other
studies noted in my written testimony. They convey a reality
that those committed to scientific progress, U.S. science
leadership, inclusive scientific literacy, and diverse
workforce must confront.
First, we learned from our focus groups that scholars are
facing research derailments and delays, uncertainties, and
ambiguities. This finding is consistent with our survey data.
Approximately 70 percent of both early career scholars and
doctoral students said COVID-19 had substantially slowed
progress on critical research tasks, 45 percent of the doctoral
students reporting extending their doctoral completion day as
one indicator of the impact of those delays.
Second, systemic racism in particular after the killing of
George Floyd has led to a dual pandemic and added professional
pressures for scholars of color. They are experiencing not only
emotional distress and exhaustion compounded by being asked to
take on more work to help their institutions address these
issues. And we need to understand how to strike a balance in
that arena.
Third, scholars, especially women, face uncertainties and
barriers to research productivity while juggling family and
home. This theme was dominant in both focus groups and the
survey. Seventy percent of female doctoral students and 74
percent of female scholars with childcare responsibilities
reported a significant increase due to COVID-19 of these
responsibilities.
Fourth, researchers are increasingly concerned about their
employment status and careers. Our survey data show that nearly
24 percent or a quarter had already reported experiences of
reduction or loss of income due to COVID-19.
Fifth, scientific progress, as we know, depends upon three
C's and a lot of A's of course, cumulative knowledge,
collaboration, and connection. Yet another dominant focus group
theme and survey result is a loss of opportunities for
collegial exchange. Forty-six percent of the doctoral students
and 57 percent of the early career scholars reported a great
deal of loss, and over 80 percent of both groups referred to
the absence of that kind of exchange and interaction as
affecting and shaping their careers.
However stark these data are, findings like these are
helpful for the work that you are doing. Together, we have an
opportunity to do better. AERA and our peer associations
strongly support the RISE Act. It would provide a much-needed
infusion of funds to address the cost of disruptions to
research grants, provide financial support and flexibility for
researchers, and help cover expenses to ramp research back up.
AERA also strongly endorses the Supporting Early Career
Researchers Act for all the reasons set forth by the Members
and also from my colleagues. It will establish a new National
Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship program to help early
career researchers in the STEM pipeline in flexible and
appropriate and essential ways.
We are at a pivotal time to support the next generation of
researchers and the research enterprise that relies on them.
The risk to their futures and to our country that reaps the
benefits from science are far too great to miss this
opportunity.
Thank you, and I look forward to participating in the
question-and-answer session that follows.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Levine follows:]
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Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Your testimony
was very complete. Mr. Thomas Quaadman.
TESTIMONY OF MR. THOMAS QUAADMAN,
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,
CENTER FOR CAPITAL MARKETS COMPETITIVENESS,
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Mr. Quaadman. Good morning, Chair Johnson, Ranking Member
Lucas, and Members of the Science, Space, and Technology
Committee. Thank you for your bipartisan leadership on key
research and development initiatives and for the opportunity to
discuss the role R&D is playing in fighting the COVID-19 virus
and how R&D can help the American economy keep its leading edge
in an increasingly competitive international marketplace.
R&D is a wide-ranging process that advances the strategic
interests of the United States, improves the health and well-
being of all Americans, and gives our consumers access to high-
quality products that allows them to enjoy the highest standard
of living in a global economy.
As you know, there are three areas of research: Basic
research, which is theoretical in nature; applied research,
which is directed at a specific aim; and development, which is
used to create new products or improve existing products.
The American R&D infrastructure revolves around three
pillars made up of the Federal Government, academia, and the
private sector. Generally, the Federal Government, often
working through academia, tends to focus on basic research, the
business community leads on development, and all three play
significant roles in applied research.
Intellectual property (IP) rights provide a basis for
collaboration and technology transfer among all three. This
infrastructure thrives as a result of long-standing and strong
bipartisan support from Congress, including funding and the
passage of key bills last year. Other long-standing laws such
as the Bayh-Dole Act and the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act
make the U.S. intellectual property system the most reliable in
the world. These bipartisan initiatives have made the United
States the global leader in R&D since the start of World War
II.
While we know many past accomplishments, America's R&D
leadership has been on full display in the effort to combat
COVID-19. Pfizer and Moderna developed and deployed highly
effective vaccines in less than a year, and Johnson & Johnson
will soon follow suit. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are
based on new technology called mRNA that allows a person's RNA
to be programmed to produce vaccines. This treatment can be
revolutionary in treating other diseases such as cancers and
chronic conditions that impact millions of Americans. MRNA was
based upon decades of academic and private sector R&D.
Artificial intelligence shaved off months if not years of
research to narrow the scope for researchers to target other
drugs that can be used to treat and prevent COVID-19. This took
an all-nation approach. There have been over 1,100 clinical
trials in all 50 States covering over 410 congressional
districts.
While we must still defeat the pandemic, the tools are
coming online to do so. This would not have been possible
without the long-term R&D efforts by life sciences companies or
the short-term laser-focus bipartisanship in the Federal
Government, academia, and the private sector.
Despite these successes, America's global R&D leadership
is in peril. Currently, 70 percent of spending in the United
States is performed by the private sector. In the mid-1960's 70
percent was undertaken by the Federal Government. Federal
Government R&D spending has fallen to 2.8 percent of the
budget, its lowest point in 60 years, and has gone down
consistently since the 2008 financial crisis. China has been
closing the gap rapidly. Since 2000, U.S. R&D spending has
grown by 4.3 percent annually while Chinese spending has grown
by 17 percent annually.
A key factor of future competitiveness is R&D intensity or
the share of R&D spending to the economy. Currently the United
States ranks 10th. We believe there are concrete bipartisan
steps that can reverse these negative trends and maintain
America's leadership in research and development. This can be
done by enacting and passing the RISE Act to mitigate the
impact of COVID-19 on our national research enterprise and lay
the foundation for future discoveries and innovation, ensure
that recently enacted R&D legislation including the National
Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act, CHIPS for America Act,
and the Energy Act of 2020 are fully implemented and funded.
Increase funding for the Technology Modernization Fund and
other programs in order to digitally transform government.
Modernizing government platforms will enable greater real-time
collaboration and strengthen the Federal Government's research
capacity. Identify additional opportunities to reverse the
decline in Federal investments in R&D with a focus on basic
research, maintain the ability of private companies to
immediately deduct R&D expenses, enable the private sector R&D
investment to a recommitment to the patent system. These steps
will be critical for the United States to remain a leader in
areas such as semiconductors while establishing a commanding
position in areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum
computing. In doing so, we can recover from the impacts of the
pandemic and lay the foundation for the United States to lead
the industries of tomorrow. I'm happy to take any questions you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Quaadman follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. We've had
fantastic testimony. And let me just say that many of the
questions that I've had you have touched on. We know this,
we'll now begin our questioning, and I'll yield myself 5
minutes.
The COVID-19 crisis has affected research across the
board, but some disciplines have been harder hit than others.
Experimental researchers have had limited access to their
laboratory equipment and have experienced a larger disruption
of their work than researchers working on theoretical science
and computing. Perhaps more importantly, the STEM pipeline has
been harmed by this crisis. Graduate student training and
mentoring has suffered from limited access to library space,
laboratory space, collaborators, and field sites. We are seeing
elevated rates of anxiety and depression among graduate
students, particularly among marginalized groups.
Undergraduates aren't getting the hands-on research experience
that inspired them to pursue STEM as a career, and universities
are instituting hiring freezes to save money, which has
resulted in a 70 percent drop in the faculty job market.
As a result, some early career researchers are facing the
difficult decision to leave research in order to support their
families. Women researchers have taken on the majority of the
additional childcare responsibilities that have arisen due to
the pandemic, and this has resulted in slower research progress
for women compared with their male counterparts, which
threatens to widen the gender gap in STEM faculty
representation, reversing years of incremental progress.
A recent Council on Government Relations model estimated
that research output dropped by 20 to 40 percent since March of
2020. The study estimates that the financial impact is tens of
billions of dollars across the research enterprise.
What I would like you to help us focus on is while the
CARES Act provided some funding for science agencies, it fell
well short of the need and was focused specifically on COVID
research. And likewise, the funding being considered as part of
the current reconciliation package is focused on COVID-related
research. The bill text should be published probably very soon,
but the RISE Act will help, I think, tremendously.
But what I'd like each of you to point out, we've got all
the problems on the table and all the concerns. Please give us
some direct recommendations that we can utilize and make sure
that we don't deteriorate this enterprise anymore. I can start
wherever you'd like. Dr.--yes. Is Dr. Levine still----
Dr. Levine. Yes, I'm here. I can----
Chairwoman Johnson. OK.
Dr. Levine. I can start first. Yes, I can. You know, I
think you have [inaudible] joined the research community in
your command of exactly what we seek for supporting the
research enterprise from high-energy physics to education
research from field sites and studies to experimental studies
in the social and behavioral sciences. And the money and the
support for flexible funding is really imperative. Not only do
we need to widen the net of those who can receive particularly
early career flexible kinds of grants, for example, those that
were part of the National Science Foundation Career-Life
Balance (CLB) supplemental funding offered ways of
supplementing for the kinds of things that researchers have
lost. They may need childcare support. They indeed may need
some additional counseling. They may need bandwidth to do some
of the social networking worldwide that has been limited.
The one thing I would say as a concrete recommendation
while I praise CLB, it is a supplement. Now, were this kind of
initiative also to be able to be an early career funding
mechanism, you would really be able to widen the scope of
scientists across fields of science. Every field of science has
taken a hit. And that has also affected building capacity in
scientific fields. If I can say for one moment, the deep
commitment of this Committee for science education and capacity
building at the K-12 level, at the undergraduate level. We need
to ensure the talent pool is there to be able to do that
teaching across levels of education. They are doing it multi-
fold in the past year since the onset of COVID-19.
But we hear reports that for those who are teaching, for
example, in universities and colleges in more rural locations
where the bandwidth may be for their students, that the
students ride and sit in a car with the children in the
backseat, and they are trying to do online learning. So this
has wide-ranging opportunities for this Committee to grapple
with in a way that not only advances the enterprise of science
but also the next generation of scientists. And that's why I
mentioned science literacy. You need to have those skills to
develop a modern workforce.
Dr. Keane. Yes, Chairwoman Johnson, if I could add into
that, this is Chris Keane, thank you for your great summary of
the situation, by the way. It was very helpful. Just a couple
things.
Again, I support the RISE Act, but in thinking about
financial relief, I think it's important to bear in mind there
are sort of three issues. First, there's direct--relieving
direct costs of the pandemic, which tend to squeeze budgets for
hiring and everything else.
Secondly, there's the 20 to 40 percent you mentioned,
which really has to do with the cost of delay for existing
projects and displacement of our researchers. Just getting that
work done and making up for that loss of productivity in the
short term is vital so we don't lose much of our workforce as a
result of this crisis.
And then the third component of relief is basically the
longer-term investment in the R&D enterprise. Again, I would
just point out as a stat that, you know, the $25 billion
proposed in the RISE Act is less than half the gain that China
is making on our [inaudible] expenditure figure every year. And
so when you add up those three areas, direct relief from the
pandemic, you know, addressing the 20-40 percent impact on our
researchers, as well as the long-term issue of enhancing
research expenditures and funding generally, it's a big
request. We really appreciate your help on this.
And just one other point I'd mention we haven't covered
yet, the--with respect to diversity and inclusion needing the
full benefit of our talents in the United States, that's vital.
One thing we need is more data to support that actually, and I
believe the STEM Opportunity Act if I recall correctly calls
for collecting that data, so I'd urge you, via that act or some
other means, to increase the amount of data that we collect on
diversity, inclusion, and equity so we can better assess our
situation. Thank you.
Mr. Quaadman. Chair Johnson, if I could just quickly add
as well, you know, we fully support the RISE Act, which is
important to address human capital issues, also fully agree as
well in terms of the need to help increase Federal research
dollars, particularly around basic research.
Additionally, we also think it is very important that we
also engage in things like IT (information technology)
modernization within the government, which is one of the things
the pandemic has shown is how we have a great need for IT
modernization.
And just lastly, the bipartisan leadership that you and
Congressman Lucas and this Committee have shown last year in
the passage of the artificial intelligence legislation, as well
as the America Energy Act, and other legislation, those need to
be fully funded and implemented for us to start to deal with
some of the longer-range issues as well.
Chairwoman Johnson. Well, thank you very much. My time has
really expired. I've enjoyed your input and want more, but I've
got to now ask Mr. Lucas if he'll do his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair. As we've heard today,
Mr. Quaadman, the impacts of the COVID pandemic will be
particularly detrimental to basic research. And given the
fundamental role basic research plays in facilitating applied
and developmental research and subsequently new and improved
products and services it creates, the losses will likely limit
industries' future capacity to innovate and commercialize
innovation stemming from scientific advances. Can you discuss
how this threat is impacting industry and may impact the United
States' future economic competitiveness?
Mr. Quaadman. Yes. Thank you, Ranking Member Lucas. This
is all to do with America's long-standing competitiveness. We
have both China and the European Union, which are greatly
increasing their research funding as a means to dislodge
American global leadership. While our competitors have also
faced some of the constraints because of COVID-19, we really
need to address some of the issues in terms of funding. We also
need to address other ancillary issues such as the ability to
[inaudible] R&D expensing by the private sector so that we can
continue to grow the private-sector role in this as well.
But I would just raise one last point as well. The country
that leads in innovation is the country that also sets the
rules and builds the products that are based upon that
innovation. That is the traditional role the United States has
played, and that is not a role that we would want to cede to
other countries that may not share the same values that we do
in terms of coming up with those rules.
Mr. Lucas. Continuing with you, Mr. Quaadman, on February
2nd the Executive Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce,
Neil Bradley sent a letter to President Biden and Members of
Congress. And in this letter he warned against the use of
reconciliation to pass the American Rescue Plan and stated,
``Such an approach will certainly make it more difficult to
reach bipartisan agreement on other policy priorities.'' Can
you elaborate on why the majority's budget reconciliation
process has been so detrimental in any progress toward
bipartisan solutions for American families, businesses, and
communities?
Mr. Quaadman. Yes, thank you for that question, Ranking
Member Lucas. First off, the four COVID relief bills that have
passed before this legislation were bipartisan in nature. We
believe that, you know, with the Democratic view of relief
being broad-based and for Republican views that it be more
targeted and temporary, that a synthesis of those views will
lead to better legislation.
Additionally, we don't think that the political well
should be poisoned where we have to deal with other important
pieces of legislation that are going to have to be bipartisan
in nature such as infrastructure.
The last point I would say with the reconciliation
process, what the reconciliation process does is it creates the
dollar figure, and then the policy needs to follow that dollar
figure. We would rather see that we come up with what the right
policies are and then determine what the dollar figure is after
that.
Mr. Lucas. Dr. Keane, in essentially my last question, in
your written testimony you highlighted the important role land-
grant institutions have played in working in close
collaboration with local, State, and national public health
authorities officials to ramp up COVID testing. And I will
acknowledge I'm especially excited to hear about the great work
Oklahoma State University did in developing testing capacity
for both its campus and the State of Oklahoma. Can you please
discuss the mission of land-grant institutions and how it
becomes even more important when facing this pandemic or
pandemics of this type in the future?
Dr. Keane. Thank you, Ranking Member Lucas, for that very
nice question. Yes, I completely agree with you that the
mission of our land grants is just--its importance has been
highlighted by this pandemic. As you know, that mission is
threefold: teaching, research, and service. And never have they
been more important. And in fact on the teaching side our
faculty and staff have risen to that challenge despite rising
enrollments and getting used to the virtual world, extra
[inaudible]. They have risen to the challenge and continue to
educate our students.
In the research world we've heard about, as you discussed,
the things we've done in testing as a service that's provided
to our local communities, and that's been very important. For
example, here in Washington State the WSU, our testing facility
is looking at the community in terms of supporting the spread
of disease and the community understanding that, but also we're
directly testing wastewater from our elementary schools, which
supports the ability of our schools to open in fact. So there's
a direct community benefit there.
And finally, in service, the third part of our mission
through extension, that's a huge part of what we do here in
Washington State, at Oklahoma State, and many other land
grants. We have a presence in every county where we aid our
citizens every day and numerous other programs in that area.
So all in all, the pandemic has just highlighted this
critical mission of service, research, and teaching at the land
grants in numerous ways. The APLU has a particular report on
this subject. There's more information and numerous specific
examples on their website [inaudible] and our other land-grant
institutions, so thank you for the opportunity to express the
importance of these institutions.
Mr. Lucas. And probably it's underappreciated how
important President Lincoln's signature on the Morrill Act in--
--
Dr. Keane. Yes.
Mr. Lucas. --1862 and the ability for non-wealthy
Americans, average Americans scattered around to begin the
availability of a public education. Thank you, Doctor. I yield
back, Madam Chair.
Staff. Ms. Stevens is next.
Ms. Stevens. Great, thank you. This has been a very
thorough hearing so far, and the testimonies have been
absolutely tremendous.
I represent Michigan, and we've seen this at Oakland
University with 59 percent of Oakland University's research
labs being operational, 25 percent face-to-face, and the
impacts at the university level. Tom, in particular, I
appreciated your testimony where you touched on the collective
R&D efforts coming from the Federal Government, the Federal
Government corporations, as well as from universities. And we
know we're continuing [inaudible], right? We funded the NSF,
you know, as a government and appropriated it, and we certainly
also appreciate the Chamber's support of the American rescue
package and the triage work that we need to do to continue to
save lives and bring our economy back. Thank you for your
partnership there.
Dr. Parikh, I would love to talk with you. You have a--
just a fabulous background, and we so appreciate your
leadership of AAAS. You know, we love the publication. I get it
every week. Your testimony was quite thorough. One of the
things I'd love to drill down on with you is regarding what
we're actually talking about here, which is our basic R&D
spend, right, in terms of what's being lost with the
applications. Have you at all taken a look at the TRL, the
technology readiness levels, particularly as we're in that, you
know, early stage of technology readiness and that as we move
forward to application? Because we do the basic R&D, and we
know we're losing it. You know, we love your formula. You know,
if we've got a formula down on the percentage, but have you at
all taken a look at the technology readiness levels at all in
terms of the impacts of COVID-19?
Dr. Parikh. We haven't specifically, but we have a team
that can do that kind of analysis. I'd be happy to come back to
you with that. What we have--when you think about it, it's--in
its simplest form, it's a conveyor belt, right? And so as this
thing--as we have things that are moving from basic research,
through development, through applied, through product, when we
have this disruption that is COVID-19, it's the same thing with
people. What ends up happening is you get a logjam in that
conveyor belt. Yes, we have the funding for next year. You
might ask, well, why can't we just use the funding from next
year to continue this work? You can except there are students
that are piling up behind the students that are currently here.
There are products piling up, there are technologies piling up,
and we've got to make sure that we're unclogging that conveyor
belt.
Ms. Stevens. Yes, we want to take a look at that because
as we move into the application phase--and where I am in the
world of this is, you know, intensive automotive, right, what's
taking place with the proliferation of electric vehicles,
autonomous vehicles. We're obviously also [inaudible] with the
supply chain disruptions and what we've seen taking place with
this chip shortage. Now, I've got a bill on that, the Resilient
Supply Chain Task Force Act, which helps us monitor the ongoing
health of our supply chains.
But the next phase of what we're looking at here is
production, and we have got to be making in America. We know
this, but you don't just get to say let's make it in America,
right? You have to do the basic R&D.
Dr. Parikh. Absolutely.
Ms. Stevens. Then you got to look at your technology
readiness. So I'd really love for you to follow up with me on
that.
And I'm going to be generous to my colleagues because I
love them and there's a great group here on both sides of the
aisle that's here today. And I got about a minute left, but we
got a lot of people online, so I'm going to cede the rest of my
time, Madam Chair, and I will also say Chairwoman Johnson is
spot on with having this hearing right now, and thank you. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Next?
Staff. Mr. Perlmutter is next.
Chairwoman Johnson. OK.
Mr. Perlmutter. Don't we want a Republican to go before
me?
Staff. I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Brooks is next.
Unidentified speaker. And I may be next as well?
Staff. Mr. Posey is next.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking
Member Lucas, for holding this hearing. It's important to
ensure that American science and technology research remains
the best in the world.
This pandemic has dramatically disrupted life for
Americans, and we need to do whatever we can to return things
to normal.
My question is for all of the witnesses. You know, as
mentioned, there's been significant disruptions in our STEM and
research pipelines to our universities by COVID-19 pandemic,
but perhaps the most concerning disruption has occurred far
earlier in this vital pipeline. Just last week in our last
hearing we heard about some of the effects of school closure on
our students. My colleagues and I drafted a letter to our
wonderful Chairwoman requesting a hearing on the concerns that
too many of our K-12 schools remain closed when science says
that they can reopen safely. Even before COVID-19 universities
were concerned that U.S. students were not prepared for the
rigor of STEM education that are necessary to advance America's
research and development projects in schools as opposed to
others where schools are already reopened, as in China. What
will happen when an entire generation of American students are
further behind than their international peers? You know, will
our U.S. colleges and universities simply fill the STEM slots
with more foreign students? I think it's around 36 percent
right now. Should K-12 schools be reopened or should we just
accept the damages to the U.S. STEM research pipeline as part
of the pandemic's cost? And you can respond I guess in the same
order that you gave your opening testimonies with Dr. Parikh
first.
Dr. Parikh. Thank you, Mr. Posey. K-12 education is so
critical to the science and engineering enterprise. We have to
have a broad pipeline at the beginning because every signal
that is sent to a young student accumulates over time. And so
when a young person is told, you know, maybe science is not for
you, maybe you're better at the arts or you're better at
something else, that really hurts us every time that happens to
a young girl, every time it happens to a young man, every time
it happens to somebody who has grown up on a farm or every time
it's happened to somebody who's grown up in an inner-city. And
so we've got to make sure that we're sending the right signals.
On opening schools, it's a complex question. I will leave
that to my public-health counterparts as opposed to me, a
biochemist, but what I would say is that all the things that
can be done to get us to the place where we can--vaccination,
doing the right public-health interventions like wearing masks,
maintaining social distance, doing all those things will get us
there faster than not doing those interventions. I think it's
critically important to do that.
But education, we have got to make sure we're investing in
that K-12 group beyond just the pandemic. We've got to get them
doing science, and we've got to get kids doing science that are
not our usual suspects because if we do that, we're never going
to compete on sheer numbers with China. We've got to have all
of our kids working toward STEM education and STEM fields.
Mr. Posey. Dr. Keane?
Dr. Keane. Yes, I--this is Chris Keane. Thank you for that
question. As--you know, land-grant universities, as part of our
service mission, as I mentioned earlier, do a lot of activities
to support our K-12 education. Our extension programs provide
programs for K-12 students, and also we take opportunities just
to invite K-12 students in to see the exciting things that we
do in research and education, get them excited about going to
college----
Mr. Posey. I don't want to cut you short, but we're short
on time. Just kind of like your response to the questions I
asked if possible.
Dr. Keane. OK. I'll--yes, I'll stop there then. Sorry
about that. I would just point out that, you know, our--like I
said earlier our testing activity directly supports return to
school. Thank you.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much.
Dr. Levine. Well, thank you for the opportunity of being
able to speak to K-12 education. I just want to underscore with
what Dr. Parikh opened with that we want to use--and indeed the
great investment of work on COVID-19 at the Institute of
Education Sciences in the Department of Education, Education
and Human Resources Directorate at the National Science
Foundation--that COVID work. In addition to the work at the CDC
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the health
sciences this research also gives us wisdom and understanding
about how to implement a return to school in safe and secure
ways that include the collection of data so that we know what
happens in real time, the possibility being discussed, so, for
example, a PULSE survey around education, around absenteeism
that would continue to implement measures of testing and to
take the wisdom also of educators, teachers, counselors, and
the school system about what can work in what ways.
And we clearly need to go back to innovating. And this is
an opportunity for both research and education to innovate in
such a way that we can--that we can bring our children back
into a school environment to interact with their peers, to be
able to not only engage in science, which is extraordinarily
important, but in the other ways in which in the K-12 system
children are learning about ways of working together,
collaborating together, so important for the STEM workforce,
and we need to recognize that there were tremendous inequities
[inaudible].
And how we do this, the kind of queuing that I must say my
colleague the biochemist spoke wonderfully about expectancy of
things and implicit bias so that in my generation the most
accomplished of my peers was a woman who wanted to go to
medical school but it was implicitly and explicitly discouraged
as ``not for women,'' and she ended up going to law school and
being a great lawyer and having a wonderful career. That kind
of expectancy effect and sadly implicit bias continues in
particular for persons of color and for women.
Mr. Quaadman. Mr. Posey, I'll be very quick. I know your
time is expired, but, you know, the letter that Chambers sent
to Congress this week on the American Rescue Plan included a
section in there regarding school reopening, which we support.
We made a suggestion of money being set aside solely for
covering the expenses of those school reopenings and dealing
with COVID cleanups and protecting children from COVID, but
that the opening decisions need to be left to the States and
the local districts.
Staff. Thank you. And Mr. Perlmutter is next.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. And just a couple questions
because we do have a lot of people in the queue. I represent
the suburbs of Denver, and we have a lot of laboratories,
national labs, Energy, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration), NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology), USGS (United States Geological Survey) in the
area. And as an example--and I'd like to get kind of an answer
from all of you--the retooling costs associated with sort of
reducing, you know, the number of researchers in a lab, so, for
instance, the National Renewable Energy Lab has some 2,500
employees and contractors, and when they had to shut down more
or less in March, April, and May of last year, they went from,
say, 2,500 down to 100 and then have been gradually returning
the workforce.
So I know as part of this package we're trying to make up
for some of those lost costs. Have any of you thought about the
retooling cost to get our labs back and operating at 100
percent? And maybe, Mr. Quaadman, you want to kind of take a
cut at that first and then I'll go to the other panelists?
Mr. Quaadman. Sure, thank you very much, Mr. Perlmutter,
and that's--that is an excellent question. And we view this
that there are probably going to have to be multiple things
that are going to have to be done. Clearly, the RISE Act, which
we support and I think everybody here supports, is an important
part of particularly protecting that human capital talent and
making sure we're getting that back up and running, but you
also make an excellent point in terms of the technology in the
labs. We believe that there's more that is going to have to be
done there. Additionally, putting more of an emphasis around
basic research and applied research is going to be an important
part of that.
So we believe dealing with some of these short-term
problems can actually help us pivot to also address some of the
long-term problems, so we think this focus that this hearing is
having today is an important start of that process.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. Dr. Parikh, do you have any
thoughts on that?
Dr. Parikh. I do, thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. Well, first
of all, the research going on at NREL (National Renewable
Energy Laboratory) is so important to the Nation. You know,
going down to 100 people for a time in March means that when
there's an experiment going--there are--every type of
experiment--every type of experiment has--that is a long-term
experiment has constant check-ins by people. As much as the
technology is powerful, it requires people checking things in.
And because we had to shut down so quickly, planning was tough,
right, so if we had tissue culture that was ongoing, we would
take that down and we would--instead of having many, many petri
dishes full of tissue culture, we would take it down to one and
freeze it and save it for when we come back. But then when you
come back, you got to grow it back out again before you can do
any research at all. And that takes time, it takes people, and
it takes reagents, it takes the lab space, and so it takes
funding, it takes resources. And so as Dr. Quaadman said, the
investment that we make here at this sort of inflection point
is going to pay short-term dividends and long-term dividends.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. I'd like to change the subject
just a little bit for Dr. Levine and Dr. Keane in terms of the
students. So in the front range of Colorado we have the School
of Mines and University of Colorado. CSU (Colorado State
University) has a big infectious disease lab that has been
operating. In terms of the talent pool and this pipeline of
young scholars, again--and you've answered this already, but
just specifically what has sort of this delay of a year done to
that pipeline? And I'd start with you, Dr. Levine.
Dr. Levine. Well, I think the delay of a year has had
several adverse impacts. One, even the workforce, the talent in
labs, structured labs or even the broader laboratories of field
research doing intervention studies, while there's been a
tremendous amount of really exciting work ongoing, as Dr.
Parikh underscored earlier, innovation and collaboration to try
to do things in a very different way, there is that loss of not
working hand-in-hand, not being able to bring in, not having
the support to bring in the postdocs, the layered way in which
science occurs.
The laboratory is an environment where the undergraduate--
I started my research career as an undergraduate working with
doctoral students, working with postdocs and with faculty. That
kind of exchange does not happen and has not happened in the
same way, and it's going to take an investment. It's also going
to take an investment in things like REUs, research experiences
for undergraduates, and that kind of investment can make a
difference. But I think the consequence is substantial.
Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Doctor. And Dr. Keane, I'm
sorry, my time is expired. Somebody else will get to you.
Staff. Thank you. Mr. Sessions is next.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much. And I want to thank
each of our panelists for being here today. Certainly, Dr.
Keane, Dr. Parikh, Dr. Levine, thank you. Thomas, thank you, I
think it's Quaadman, we appreciate you being here.
The question that I have focuses on giving people money
while we're still closed, and I'd like for you to address that
in your own way because I think this money should be given when
people open, not when people stay closed. Anyone of you,
please.
Mr. Quaadman. Well, Mr. Sessions, I--you know, I guess I
could take an early crack at that. Look, we believe--this is
one of the reasons why I gave the answer that I did to Ranking
Member Lucas is that we think that there should--there needs to
be a discussion of, you know, the broad range of potential
policy initiatives that we need to address the COVID vaccine.
So part of the reason why we do need broad-based relief is to
deal with small businesses that are teetering on the brink of
closure, some permanently----
Mr. Sessions. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I made a mistake, Tom.
As it relates to the RISE bill.
Mr. Quaadman. Sure. So I was just going to get there. And
with the RISE Act what we need to do is to make sure that we
are keeping the human capital in place, that we can have that
human capital move forward as we open up those labs so that we
can flip that switch and get things up and running because,
unfortunately, what has happened over the last year is because
there's some work that can be done, right, in terms of research
paper or the like, but there's other type of experimentation
which cannot be done, and we need to get up and running as
quickly as possible not only to keep pace with our competitors
but actually to get up and running before they can.
Mr. Sessions. Yes, well, I understand competition, but I
also heard our panelists say it's up to States and local
people, universities. For instance, I represent a small
university, Texas A&M down in College Station, that is one of
the leading, I believe, research and development universities
in the world. But my point is if they make a decision to stay
closed, let's say, until January of next year, that means that
they have students that are dropping out, that means students
that are going somewhere else. The question is do we fund them
before they open?
Dr. Parikh. Mr. Sessions, if I may, the students we're
talking about funding here are the graduate students in the
sciences and engineering and, you know, they are--they're
working right now. They are writing research papers. They are
doing what they can with labs at half capacity and that sort of
thing. The challenge becomes this conveyor belt that I've been
talking about. So you have these students are working right now
and we've got to keep them--they're in this holding pattern.
And then we got students coming up right behind them. And if we
lose those students because they say, you know what, I don't--
science and engineering is hard enough anyway. I'm not going to
make a whole lot of money when I first graduate, maybe I should
go be a lawyer, I should go into something else, when that
depletion of that human capital that Dr. Quaadman was talking
about is so critical to us right now because every other nation
on earth is investing in that human capital. If we bleed that
human capital in the short term, the money appropriated a year
from now won't do the same thing as the money appropriated
today.
Mr. Sessions. OK. I do understand this, but we're kind of
dancing around this. Look, I spent a number of years at Bell
Labs in New Jersey. My son just finished medical school a
couple years ago. I get graduate medical education (GME). I do
get these are the brightest and best. Why do we want to delay
anything or make it more difficult? That's not my point. Should
a university or a program receive money before they open?
Dr. Keane. So, Representative Sessions, thank you for that
question. This is Chris Keane. Just--I know time is short, just
a quick example. So, as you've heard, we have continued a lot
of operations virtually, but take a laboratory just as a very
simple example. A laboratory had to close because of COVID. On
the other hand, some of the students and faculty could go home
and write papers and write grant proposals and do other work
that they, you know, normally wouldn't have the time to do if
they were in the lab, so these folks do a lot of critical work,
and so they can do [inaudible] of work at home.
Mr. Sessions. OK. Let the record reflect that we're not
sure about whether--I know people are doing work. I did work
during this, too. I think we ought to consider that the
inducement for going back to work, because that's a question,
you get the money when you produce that, and that means you
make a series of decisions about your workforce including
making sure they all have the COVID vaccine. We've heard
testimony in this Committee how the vaccine works, and just a
week or two ago we heard that the vaccine is the No. 1 thing
you can do. And then you have a safe workplace, a whole lot of
other things. I'm just saying in my mind going back I don't
mind funding that, but I do have problems with not finding a
way to get back to work, which is what we were paying for. So I
appreciate the opportunity for each of you. I would expect you
to be advocates, as I am, for the sciences, for GME, graduate
medical education, graduate education, and all of the
mathematic and physics programs. But I think we ought to put a
caveat in there when you go back to work.
Thank you very much. I yield back my time, Madam Chairman.
Staff. Mr. McNerney is next.
Mr. McNerney. Am I recognized?
Staff. Yes, sir.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Well, I want to thank the
Chairwoman for holding this hearing and the Ranking Member,
very good, and also the panelists. I appreciate your work here.
Dr. Keane, in your testimony you state that in order to
comply with Federal grant financial timeframes, many projects
are having to close out without meeting their stated goals.
What is needed to help grant awardees get the time and
resources needed to make up for the COVID-related setbacks?
Dr. Keane. Thanks for that question, Representative
McNerney. I think--it's a great question. I think the comments
you've heard from the Committee and elsewhere about the 20 to
40 percent, which was developed by a number of our APLU
members, that's sort of--that's an estimate, you know, of the
loss of work due to delay. I think one can make some estimates
of what the financing is to recover that, I think that
basically is a short summary of what's needed.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. Well, Dr. Keane, in normal
times before the pandemic, the life of a science researcher may
have been professionally rewarding but was financially
challenging. And I speak from personal experience here.
Graduate students must forgo well-paying jobs for about a
decade while their peers move ahead financially. And meanwhile,
the grad students have no assurance at all of landing a modest
or secure job at the conclusion of their studies. And I know
Dr. Parikh sort of talked about this, but how does the pandemic
impact this dynamic?
Dr. Keane. Yes, well, it's--yes. No, I was going to say,
certainly, Representative McNerney, the pandemic has been
difficult on graduate students, postdocs and others, and it's--
we've lost some critical talent there. And so we've tried to
adapt by doing various things virtually and things of that
sort, but it is a significant issue.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. Mr. Quaadman, I'm
interested in understanding what's worked in leveraging R&D to
help us bring the virus under control. In your testimony you
mentioned the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium.
How did that collaboration come about, what did it accomplish,
and what lessons do you think could be applied to future
crises?
Mr. Quaadman. Thank you very much, Mr. McNerney. And I
appreciate the promotion but I'm not a doctor. I have a J.D.
but not a doctorate.
But first, I would also like to thank your leadership and
the leadership of Mr. Gonzalez of the Artificial Intelligence
Caucus as well, which has been very critical.
I actually think the COVID-19 High Performance Computing
Consortium is a very interesting development, right, where we
had the private sector through Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft
combining with National Science Foundation, Department of
Energy, along with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology),
UT (University of Texas) Austin, and the University of
Wisconsin where they created a sharing mechanism of computing
power to help in terms of research regarding COVID-19.
Part of the challenge that we have with R&D is also to
ensure that smaller actors and smaller businesses have some of
that access to let's say computing power as an example in terms
of their R&D. So if we can create similar sharing mechanisms--
and frankly, the National Artificial Intelligence Act that was
passed last year creates some frameworks like this--it actually
allows us to have a much more comprehensive approach to R&D,
and we hope that is replicated elsewhere.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. Well, last week, millions
around the globe watched in high definition as NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) successfully landed the
Perseverance rover on Mars. Landing a rover on another planet
is a huge accomplishment in any time but must be more difficult
under a pandemic. Dr. Parikh, how have conditions under COVID
challenged this type of high-pressure mission-critical event
for large, distributed research and engineering teams?
Dr. Parikh. It's been incredibly challenging, and that's
why it's even more compelling and more inspiring to watch the
video from last week. The way it's happened is that people have
had to work in the same that we are, right? They're working
over Zoom, they're working over Webex in contrast to being in
the same room, drawing on a piece of paper, and that makes it
harder. But I can tell you that the inspiration that comes from
watching these engineering teams double-check and triple-check
their work because they are having to work this way, I think it
also just highlights what a small team of diverse people can do
in competition with gigantic teams around the world is just
extraordinary to see that type of inspirational work. And the
science that's going to come from it is amazing as well. But
just the engineering feat of landing on Mars is--look, my
kids--my 11-year-old, that's what gets him excited about
science. They like biochemistry, but they love that.
Mr. McNerney. Well, they don't want to go to Mars
themselves. At any rate, I want to yield back and I thank again
the Chairwoman for yielding to me.
Staff. Mr. Webster is recognized.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Chair. I had a question to Dr.
Parikh. So we're in competition not with just ourselves but
with other countries, especially in the area of STEM and, you
know, trying to make sure we're there, we're setting the pace,
we're out front, all of that, and somebody was talking about
losing potential STEM stars to a law degree or some other
profession. Are we also losing to our competition? Are there
countries that we're losing out or people are getting
[inaudible] research dollars, something like that, and moving?
Is that happening?
Dr. Parikh. It is happening. So we see--just overall, you
know, the NSF puts out the science and engineering indicators,
and the U.S. global share of science and engineering
publications has always been ahead of everybody else. Well,
that is not true anymore. China has overtaken us. It's also
been in terms of number of S&E degrees that are awarded. But
they also have very, very targeted programs to recruit stars
from Europe and from the United States and then to also keep
talent within their borders.
And, look, there are challenges to that in terms of
intellectual property and that sort of thing, but even if
everything was fair, what it says is they've got--they've got a
plan, and plan beats no plan almost every time, and so we have
to have a plan. We have to be making sure that we are doing our
absolute best to recruit the best talent from the United States
whether it be from the farm belt, the sun belt, or the coast,
and also the best talent from around the world. We have been
the beneficiaries of a crossroads of talent here in the United
States, and we cannot let that pass. We are still right there
at the top, but we are in danger. We are in real danger of
losing that position because all these successes that we've
talked about, they're lagging indicators of previous investment
and all the stuff that's gone on for the last 30 years. It's
not a--it's not any guarantee of what's to come.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, sir.
Dr. Levine. If I could amplify just on that, I really want
to underscore that our leadership edge in science has been very
well-served by the United States really being an international
leader in the international community of science, so we lose
our competitive edge when scientists and scholars and students
from other parts of the world don't look to us as the educative
environment to do what they do best. And whether they remain in
the United States or they go to other locations, that
significantly affects not only the knowledge we produce but the
sense of centrality we are in the international community.
I'm not an economist by training, but my sense of some of
the work on patents is that when a country has had the highest
participation of the international community in our higher
education system, that we have--that has enabled discoveries in
our own country. And that's just one example of something I
think we need to really be looking at and a point I earlier
wanted to make but you've asked the right question at the right
time.
Mr. Webster. OK. Well, there's this conveyor belt that's
jammed up all over the place and there's STEM students in high
school and all the way to postdoctorate, all that, so shouldn't
we put our money where the bleeding is and try to stop the
bleeding if we're prioritizing? Is that a good statement to
make?
Dr. Parikh. I think that's absolutely a good statement. We
should prioritize. We should prioritize. And I think human
capital is right there at the top. Making sure that we have the
supply chains fixed as well is right there after it and by
supply chains I mean, in terms of bringing back the
infrastructure, bringing back the technology, bringing it back
online. But human capital is at the top of my list.
Mr. Webster. All right. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Tonko is next.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And I thank you, Madam Chair, and
our Ranker for today's hearing. It's so apropos that we be
talking about the future here--through this lens. And to all of
our witnesses, thank you.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen and
experienced for ourselves the impact this virus is having on
work, on America's workers throughout our economy, and on
workplaces across the country. For many, video meetings and
conference calls had to quickly become the status quo. For
others, much of their work simply cannot be done remotely.
The ability of scientists to advance their research
remotely depends in large part, I believe, on the nature of
their project and their discipline. For instance, research
involving computations, data analyses and modeling and
simulations lends itself more easily to work from home, but it
is difficult if not impossible to conduct research requiring
physical and biological samples and specialized equipment
outside of a laboratory.
And so, Dr. Parikh, what areas of scientific inquiry have
been most negatively impacted by COVID? And how are you seeing
the researchers adapting to that?
Dr. Parikh. Yes, thank you for the question, Mr. Tonko.
You are absolutely right. You laid it out very well in terms of
the challenges to field research, the challenges to clinical
research, the challenges to research that happens in a lab
bench because, you know, if you've been in these laboratories
you know that, especially in the successful ones, they're
dense, right? We have graduate students and postdocs and
scientists who are working together, and they're dense for a
reason. We want them talking. We want them collaborating. We
want them to run into each other on the way to the restroom and
talk about math and physics and biology at the same time
because that's where the excitement comes from. And so that--we
are definitely hurting in the experimental sciences and in the
clinical sciences.
And in the places where we have pivoted our critical
sciences to COVID, it's an opportunity cost, right? We have
work going on in Alzheimer's and work going on in cancer and
work going on in sickle-cell anemia. That's got to keep going
as well, and we've got to make sure that we're able to ensure
that continues.
But I don't want to underestimate the impact also on
things like physics. You know, being able to continue work on
some of these amazing radio telescopes, you know, our ability
to contact to the Voyager space probes was affected by this. We
couldn't send 30 people to Australia to work on the antenna. We
could only send five or six. And so there's a real cost across
the sciences, but the experimental sciences are definitely
where the biggest challenges are.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And, Dr. Parikh, again, for fields
of inquiry that have been able to adapt more easily to working
remotely, do you see any opportunities where this could spur
greater collaboration and innovation?
Dr. Parikh. Oh, my gosh, you know, we have seen--if
there's been one upside to the pandemic, it has been that
collaboration from peer to peer in the United States and around
the world has just grown exponentially. You see young
scientists talking to one another in the United States, in
Europe, in China, in Japan. They're having conversations. And
look, we need that because, again, COVID is not our last
crisis, and we need to know that these scientists who are able
to talk to each other right now, that's a relationship, and
that relationship is going to continue for the next thing and
the next thing and the next thing, and that is--that's
incredibly important. We've got to keep up our part of it,
though, as the United States and make sure we've got wonderful
scientists here bringing everybody to us.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in
many setbacks, and it will take our enduring commitment to help
America's scientific research community recover. And to this
end, last year, the Federal Government provided guidance, as
well as administrative and salary flexibilities for
universities and COVID relief legislation, including that which
funded support research agencies. But based on your testimony--
and I can confirm this based on my conversations with research
institutions in my district in upstate New York--greater
support is needed.
So, Dr. Keane, in your testimony you mentioned the
administrative flexibilities that the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) provided to universities from March to September
of last year. To what extent did these flexibilities from our
Federal agencies, especially related to grant commitments, help
mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic?
Dr. Keane. Thanks, Representative Tonko, for that
question. Those flexibilities were very important to our
faculty, students, and staff. They allowed things, for example,
to, you know, to cover cost of PPE (personal protective
equipment) and other unusual items. They allowed salaries to be
paid. Under certain conditions [inaudible] working at home
perhaps on different project than the contract. So it was
essential to help transition through. And there's been a lot of
interest as part of the recovery package trying to do something
along those lines for--thank you.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you, Dr. Keane. And with that, my
time has wound down, so I yield back, Madam Chair.
Staff. Mr. Garcia is next. Mr. Garcia, you are muted. Mr.
Garcia, you are muting and unmuting. I'm not sure if you're
using a spacebar or if you're using----
Mr. Garcia. There we go. Can we--can you hear me now?
Staff. Yes.
Staff. Yes, sir.
Mr. Garcia. OK. All right, thank you. I apologize for
that.
Dr. Parikh, I think you hit on something earlier that we
all kind of glossed over, and that's the RISE Act deters the
proliferation of lawyers, and I think we should rename it as
such.
I want to focus in the realm of national security. We have
roughly 44, 40 percent of our national R&D project is coming
out of the national security realm, the labs, the DARPAs
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencies) of the world.
National security is relative, right, so as we either
accelerate or decelerate relative to China and other threats,
that's where threats will manifest, and that's where our
weaknesses will become vulnerabilities. How are we able to
compare how we're doing within classified realms, especially--
but through our labs like DARPA and, relative to, say, the
Communist Chinese military science research steering divisions?
Do you have any insight how we're doing at the national
security levels of both military and similar infrastructure
investments? And I think, Dr. Keane, it sounds like you were
touching on this earlier, but let's start with you.
Dr. Keane. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that question,
Representative Garcia. I think your question points out the
vital importance of the research enterprise and the
universities produce the young talent that goes to work in the
national security enterprise. I have my own personal experience
that's in the nuclear weapons program where there is just
tremendous issues, you know, bringing in talent. As you
probably know, the big labs right now, Livermore, Los Alamos,
and so on are trying to hire 1,000 people a year to support the
refurbishment of our stockpile, so this just speaks to the
important mission that our universities and research ecosystems
play in training these professionals to handle these national
security challenges.
Mr. Garcia. Yeah, but I think what I'm asking is how much
insight do we have relative to China? Are they struggling in
the same way that we are percentagewise? I think you mentioned
that the rise of investments from the Federal Government on our
side represents about half of what----
Dr. Keane. Yes.
Mr. Garcia. China is accelerating to our pace of over the
last couple of years. That statement there, one, where is the
data behind that statement, and how do we assess how much of an
impact either COVID or the lack of investments writ large
outside of COVID are having relative to the Chinese
infrastructure investments?
Dr. Keane. So I don't have any data relative to Chinese
infrastructure, Representative Garcia, but the data I quoted is
from the NSB (National Science Board) indicators 2020. If you
look at that, you'll find a plot that basically shows R&D
expenditures by country with China rising rapidly and the
others, including the United States, relatively flat or only
moderately rising.
Just a quick statistic, you know, from I believe it was
2000 to 2017 China's average annual rate of increase has been
17 percent in expenditures, and ours is 4, 4.5 percent. That
pretty much summarizes it.
Mr. Garcia. OK. And then so how do we ensure that these
significant investments that we're making in the COVID packages
are actually also gaining traction in the classified programs
area, significant military development efforts that may not be
enveloped in DOD (Department of Defense) programs of record
quite yet? Some of these are at the university level, some of
these are in labs. How do we ensure that these big dollars,
these chunks of money being spent on COVID are actually still
going through in support of our national security interests?
Dr. Keane. Well, quickly, I'll say the university side,
our primary connection was training workforce and so improving
our infrastructure allows us to train better people in all
fields, and people's careers change when they enter the
national security word, so we do the fundamental training. I'll
leave it to others to comment on the infrastructure in the
national security world.
Dr. Parikh. Mr. Garcia, I can speak a little bit to this.
You know, the--there are two things at play here. One is the
funding you're talking about in terms of how do we make sure
that the national security research apparatus also sees some of
this funding? I think that's very important. You're right.
Approximately half, almost half of the--of our research dollars
end up in some way going through national security.
My thought here is that we need to make sure that part of
the scientific enterprise also sees these dollars because
it's--that will also flow to the universities because they are
the workhorses of that enterprise as well.
The other impact is on people, and if you look at China,
you know, you were noting those dollars. The other thing to
note is that they produce lots of scientists and engineers. And
so when Dr. Keane talks about we need 1,000 hires a year at our
national laboratories, it's easier when you're producing a lot
more talent. And we're bringing that talent--we have to import
some of that talent in addition to what's on the ground here,
so we've got to do--it speaks again to that human capital
aspect but also making sure that the full half of our
enterprise that is defense-related needs to also see that
funding.
Mr. Garcia. Yes. Yes, OK.
Dr. Levine. If I could just add, one of the things that I
think supports that infrastructure that we're talking about at
the national security level is that if you look at the National
Science Foundation indicators, locations like China have also
invested substantially in building the talent pool to study the
human resource issue, meaning the social and behavioral
sciences have really grown in locations like China.
One of the areas internationally that is so central is
work on the workforce. We've more or less disinvested in
research on the workforce, and we support that activity, the
investments in each of the Defense Departments and the social
and behavioral sciences is not what it was 10 years ago, and
there's often debates about really important activities like
the Minerva Research Initiative that not national security
research, but the knowledge base from that done in universities
really has a tremendous value to our national security
interests, I think that's part of the mosaic that you're asking
about.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, absolutely. OK. Thank you all. I yield
back.
Staff. Mr. Foster is next.
Mr. Foster. OK. Am I audible and visible here?
Staff. Yes.
Mr. Foster. Well, thank you. And thank you to our
Chairwoman, Ranking Member, and our witnesses.
I'd like to speak a little bit about Federal careers as
potential jobs for early career researchers. Drs. Keane and
Levine, you both highlighted in your testimonies that there
were high levels of uncertainty in students and postgraduates
with regard to future research opportunities due to COVID.
Now, pre-COVID, as my colleagues know, I was very active
as a leader of the National Labs Caucus where I would drag my
colleagues on visits to the national labs, including the
national security labs. And during these visits, we would often
arrange luncheons with young scientists and engineers who were
getting things done, having a wonderful time, but there were
simply not enough of them.
It was reasonably suggested by a professor friend of mine
that there might right now be a real appetite amongst
graduating STEM students, both graduate and undergraduate, to
take STEM jobs in the government. Part of this is because of
the Administration's renewed emphasis on science and scientific
integrity and policy but also due to the genuine bipartisan
support in this Committee and in Congress for ramping up
Federal science funding over the next decade, which might make
a career path in the Federal oversight of a growing science
program more appealing than it may have been previously.
So, first, do you believe that this appetite exists? And
if so, how do we capitalize on it?
Dr. Levine. I think that's a tremendously important
question and I'm going to say opportunity. I should, I suppose,
disclose that I myself went to the National Science Foundation
as a visiting scientist for 3 years and stayed for 11. The
opportunities with the scientific workforce within government,
including actually in many State governmental agencies and
institutions, is just enormous, and I think that having an
understanding of those career ladders, that you are not
stepping out, you're stepping in, that these are significant
science jobs where you can have very productive careers and
that kind of synergism also between the academy and higher
education and these laboratories needs to be amplified and
supported, postdoc programs and other instruments that at this
point in time, if the jobs are there, I think it's a great way
of bringing some of the silos--you know, some of the silos
together, and I [inaudible] raising it.
Mr. Foster. Yes. Well, do you think, for example, a
virtual job fair highlighting the STEM jobs that are available
across the many agencies of the Federal Government would be
well-received right now?
Dr. Levine. Absolutely. Absolutely love it. And some of
the agencies we work with at the American Educational Research
Association--we're planning for our annual meeting, you know,
those kinds of opportunities, whether they're visiting
physicians or longer-term physicians, we're seeing a lot of
handshake around that. And one of the things that's most
important to understand is as the jobs have been delayed,
denied, put on a back burner, including in higher education,
the biggest concern of early career scientists is they don't
know what jobs are real and what jobs are not real, so it's
kind of incumbent upon us to collectively have this as a
priority both in universities and [inaudible]----
Mr. Foster. On a sort of related issue, over the last four
years, there's been a well-documented wave of early retirements
of STEM professionals in government, you know, with a
tremendous loss of accumulated experience and knowledge. Many
of these were frankly driven by frustration over policies and
proposed budget cuts, which we now are hopeful are going to be
reversed. And so what do you think of standing up a program to
call back some of these early retirees just for a couple years
with the explicit goal of mentoring a next generation of
younger and more diverse Federal STEM workforce?
Dr. Levine. I think it's a terrific idea. Every year as I
get older and older, I underscore how terrific that is. I think
that that--a loss of our sort of talent pool even in higher
education institutions strapped for resources. And that's not
to say those faculty leaders aren't remaining active as
scientists, but having some kind of bring-back-mentoring kind
of model I think is----
Mr. Foster. Yes. Yes, even if it's just a half-time job,
my feeling is that a lot of people would be more than happy to
pass their accumulated wisdom to the next generation, you
know----
Dr. Levine. And let me say the National Academy of
Sciences really capitalized on that kind of model in a
noncrisis situation. Scientists from government may work in
direct study panels and have various kinds of mixed models. I
think you've hit--you know, you've pointed to something really
important.
Mr. Foster. All right. Well, thank you, and it looks like
my timer is down to zero. And I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Kim is next.
Ms. Kim. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, and Ranking Member
Lucas, for holding this important hearing. I am concerned that
many of the lockdown and remote learning measures has worsened
our students' low scores in math and science. Students in
grades K through 12 are the future of our STEM talent pipeline,
and if they do poorly in subjects like math and science, our
talent pool would eventually decrease, along with our
competitiveness. As our Nation looks to recover from the COVID-
19 pandemic, we should not forget our STEM students.
So I would like to pose a question to all witnesses. How
has the COVID-19 crisis impacted our future domestic STEM
workforce pipeline, and what are the implications of the
potential loss of talent for the United States research and
innovation ecosystem and economic competitiveness? Well?
Dr. Levine. One of us? I suppose we worry. I--you know,
this is a--kind of a point that's been implicit, I think, of
all four of our presentations, that we, you know, we worry
about what that means in terms of everything from special
services that will help deal with some of the socioemotional
kinds of crises, and tensions, and ambiguities that early
learners are experiencing as family members have died or lost
their employment, and how--so that the development of the math,
and science, and engineering talent pool needs to be understood
in the ecosystem of--in which students and early learners live.
We need to be considering what kind of programs that we offer
wrapped around, and opportunities equitably and inclusively,
around the school year having, or around that--the--this band
of time off. What happens with after school programs? How do we
invest in early education programs so that they are rich
learning environments, and how do we both measure and
accommodate learning loss?
Staff. Miss----
Dr. Levine. That's a need for--that's a real need for
data, also, that would be adjunctive to developing models of--
I'll say models of accelerated compensation for loss this year.
Ms. Kim. Yeah, following up on that, Dr. Levine, over the
last few years we have made some progress in increasing the
number of women in STEM, and when I served in the California
State Legislature, I had been one of the strong proponents of
especially young girls coming to Sacramento, and in our
capital, to also demonstrate the work that they're doing. So
this is something that I have a great passion on. But how has
the pandemic disproportionately impacted women in academic
research, and what steps can this Committee take to address and
tackle those roadblocks?
Dr. Levine. Well, I--the major way is the context in which
students, graduate students, undergraduates, early career
scientists, the context in which they live, and the
disproportionate burden, particularly on women of color. Broad
family responsibility. We'll see this in a number of
preliminary--kind of top level findings from our survey, and
also our focus groups, as disproportionate child care
responsibilities, so that, at the end of the day, one is
struggling with how to put the package together, and to, you
know, keep the family all aware of what--one illustration was
in one of the focus groups someone started the conversation by
saying, I'm a faculty member, and I--I'm building upon the work
I'm doing in kindergarten teaching, and I thought, I wonder
whether she was a kindergarten teacher. And then she was
talking about the fact that she was--she had a 5-year-old, and
she was spending a big proportion of her day learning how to be
a kindergarten teacher.
So that has consequences not only for her performance as a
scientist, and her ability to engage at the level at which she
is capable of performing, but it also affects, you know, let's
put it this way, the role modeling of the fact that is cueing
about the roles of women. Now, that's not to say that men with
family responsibilities aren't also doing a very substantial
share. It's just the data also show a--kind of a
disproportionality where that stands.
Ms. Kim. Well, thank you. I yield back. I notice my time
is up now. Thank you very much.
Staff. Mr. Beyer is next.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much, and, Madam Chair, thanks
so much for pulling this together, all of our witnesses. Very
grateful, very fascinating.
Dr. Parikh, I have an intuitive question for you. We've
heard through all the different testimonies about how
detrimental and deleterious the COVID crisis has been for
research, for the careers, or--et cetera, but we've also seen
an historic commitment to biology and to genetics through the
COVID crisis. Fastest ever vaccines to display--mRNA vaccines.
How do you balance the 20-year leap forward in biological
sciences against the downsides of the COVID pandemic on
research?
Dr. Parikh. It's an excellent question, Mr. Beyer. You
know, the--if you had asked 2 years ago could we produce a
vaccine from, you know, from sequence, to putting it into
millions of people in a year, there wouldn't have been many
people that said yes. There wouldn't have been many people at
all that said yes. I would not have said yes. And so the
progress that has been made and demonstrated by the biomedical
research community is incredible, and it's inspiring to young
people, right? There are people now--there are young kids who
say, you know, I want to be, if not Dr. Fauci, then that other
scientist. You know, but what I would say is, in doing that,
we've raised expectations. We've raised expectations, and
here's the problem, is that going into these fields is really
tough. And so you've got young people who say, yes, I want to
follow in Dr. Fauci's footsteps. Here's the problem, is that I
run into this clogging the system that says, you know what, if
you can't afford it when the pandemic happens, and you're a
graduate student in Cambridge, and you don't have a family
safety net to take you back in, then how are you going to
continue your graduate studies on that, you know, that very
small stipend?
So we've got this paradox--I mean, incredible inspiration,
and yet the reality of the scientific career doesn't quite
match up to that yet. And part of what--yeah, part of what this
Committee can do is to help make those things align and match
up.
Mr. Beyer. Let me interrupt you, only because we're
limited to 5 minutes, but I'd love to have the other 30-minute
conversation on this.
Mr. Quaadman, I come at this from a Ways and Means Member,
with my pals Dan Kildee and Gwen Moore, and I'm concerned
about, No. 1, the impact of TCJA (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), that
dropped the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21, 22, a quarter
don't pay anything. I noticed in your statistics that
corporations paid 400 billion in R&D last year, and I looked it
up, and there was $525 billion in stock buyback, so 25 percent
more in stock buybacks than in research. Do you think moving
back to having stock buybacks pre-authorized by the SEC
(Securities and Exchange Commission) could move us in the right
direction on research and development?
Mr. Quaadman. So, first off, I would say, as I said in my
testimony as well, we do think it is important for that portion
of the tax reform bill to be addressed so that we can continue
the real time expensive R&D expenses. The only thing I would
say in terms of stock buybacks, it's a little bit of an apples
and oranges situation, because you have certain businesses that
are not involved in R&D, that all they can do is actually give
their money back to their investors. So I believe this is
something that the SEC is going to probably be looking at after
Gary Gensler is confirmed as chair, so we will have to see if--
I think it's a little bit of an apples and oranges issue.
Mr. Beyer. By the way, Tom, I agree with you on the
immediate expensing of R&D expenses, and that was just one of
the things--it wasn't a policy decision. It was forced by the
Byrd Rule in order to get TCJA through reconciliation, which I
hope we can fix. But, Tom, a larger question--while listening--
going through statistics, and our--your notion that our Federal
R&D, the 2.8 percent's the lowest it's been in 60 years as a
percentage of GDP, GDP increased from 2010 to 2020 by 22
percent, and our Federal R&D as a percentage of GDP was
essentially flat. How do we make a national commitment to
Federal R&D as a percentage of GDP so that we say it should be
4 percent, or it should be 5 percent, and make the long-term
commitment to that?
Mr. Quaadman. Well, Mr. Beyer, I think that is an
excellent question, and it actually goes to some of the points
that Mr. Garcia was making as well about R&D with national
security. Look, the Federal Government plays a very critical
role in our R&D process infrastructure, and that basic research
plays out in many, many different forms down the line. So I
think, you know, if we take a look at the combination of the
America--the CHIPS for America Act, the National Artificial
Intelligence Act which passed last year, the Energy Act that
passed last year, those can be used as a pivot point to start
to increase Federal R&D, but as I referenced earlier as well, I
think there are a number of other steps that we would like to
talk to you about as to how we can increase that Federal
research dollar, and see if there's some sort of mechanism to
increase it over time, and also to ensure that we are keeping
pace with our international competitors.
Mr. Beyer. Yeah. Thanks. My time's up, but thank you for
the specific recommendations you gave us today.
Staff. Mr. Feenstra, I think.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Lucas. I first of all, I want to thank each of the witnesses
for their testimony today. It is crucial for us to hear from
each of you on how to best maintain the United States' role as
leaders in science and innovation, and how we can help our
Nation's research enterprises recover from the effects of the
pandemic. I also want to say I really enjoyed the conversation
concerning research and development tax credits. The State of
Iowa is one of the leaders in research and development tax
credits, and myself being chair of Ways and Means in the Iowa
Senate over the years, I have seen a tremendous value in what's
happening with research and development tax credits, and how we
have really driven research in our State, you know, when it
comes to agriculture and biofuel.
But, with that, I have a couple of other questions. I'd
like to center these questions to Dr. Parikh, and then to Dr.
Levine, if possible. Representative Webster asked, and
discussion was talked about, about losing high tech jobs
overseas as students graduate, and we see this at our
universities, Iowa, Iowa State. I was a professor at Dordt
University, teaching business and economics, and we saw it
there also. So the question is, Iowa State, we take STEM
careers very seriously. Our Governor heads up a State advisory
council to increase interest and achievement in STEM studies
and careers. It works through partnerships that engage
employers, nonprofits, students, and policyholders. So, as we
talk about this, how should we increase STEM career interest
after this pandemic? How do we get these kids to stay here, get
them engaged? How do we get them involved? I know we've had
some discussion about this, but I would like to hear more on
your thoughts in this area.
Dr. Parikh. Thank you, Mr. Feenstra, for the question. You
know, one of the things is--something to come after the
pandemic, is--people have gotten excited about this
collaboration between government, and industry, and business in
bringing therapies and vaccines to the people. Well, one of the
challenges that we still have is this silo between academic
scientists and industry scientists. There are a lot of
industry--there are a lot of academic scientists, and our CVs,
our resumes, don't look the same. And we don't know--it's very
hard to cross those barriers. And I think everyone would gain
if that student who's at Iowa State, and goes through the
academic track, but then there's a fluidity where they can move
into academic jobs or into industry jobs or into defense jobs,
if that were easier, that would be a huge benefit to the
country, and to business, and to the students themselves. So I
think that's one way that we can do something after this
pandemic is over that would make a huge difference for moving
the science forward, and for people.
Dr. Levine. Let me just underscore, along similar lines, I
think we need to look at our higher education system as part of
the ecology of producing important work in science. So, for
example, better networking of terrific faculty at--whether it's
Grinnell, or other institutions that are primarily 4 year
institutions, like--mentioned--of Iowa, that those faculty who
are really igniting the interest of students in their
undergraduate courses, that those faculty can place
undergraduates in a summer program, in a lab, in a university,
or in a national laboratory, or in an industrial setting, in a
social behavioral sciences and a large survey research
organization where they can touch and feel what happens on the
ground.
I would not have myself pursued a science career if I was
not invited as an undergraduate to work in a social psychology
laboratory. That turned me from pursuing a different
professional set of interests to the lab, and we need to be
investing in higher education, including community college
settings where there are exceptional faculty doing this work,
to see this as part of the infrastructure. Not just the kind of
synergism that I refer to, and Sudip just did, about the
different kinds of silos, but also the siloing of institutions,
and thinking of teaching as not as meritorious and knowledge-
producing as research.
Some of the stereotypic thinking of--as productivity, so
that we encourage team science, which we all talk about as
extraordinarily important, into disciplinary science shouldn't
be viewed as left over after you achieve your credentials as a
building block of your field. Team science as a disciplinary
science produces extraordinary knowledge. We need to emphasize
the--as we think about the science of the future. And I share
the view that, actually--one of the most exciting--I lead this
life in which I'm so excited by what we're inventing, and so
overwhelmed by how to do it faster and better, so on the best
days I'm just really excited about what the scientific
community has been able to do.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you so much for your comments. And I
know my time is up, but I just quickly want to say this, is
that I think we have to be innovative also when it comes to
this private/public partnership. I know Tom, you mentioned
this, on how we can do tax incentives with the colleges, the
universities, and the private sector of saying, hey, what can
we do to incentivize where these kids can go from the college
role to the job role? And we've done this in research and
development with a great tax credit. I just think there's ways
to nuance this to even make it more successful. Thank you for
your time, I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Kildee is next.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you. Can you hear me OK?
Staff. Yes.
Mr. Kildee. All right. Well, first of all, thank you to
Chairwoman Johnson for holding this really important hearing. I
do appreciate the testimony of the witnesses, and hearing ways
that our researchers have been affected by the pandemic, and
yet have still helped to combat, really in a pretty remarkable
way, the spread of coronavirus. It is truly a remarkable
achievement that we've seen just in the last year, particularly
around--but obviously around vaccination.
Obviously our national research infrastructure is critical
to all of us in so many ways. We have to ensure that it
survives this moment that we're in right now, and that's why,
like many, I'm just--in this hearing support the RISE Act to
provide the relief necessary to--and to support federally
funded research. Not only to provide emergency relief to
support our researchers--public health crisis, but we also
obviously have to sustain these research investments as we look
forward toward economic recovery, and the long-term economic
viability of the U.S.
Part of rebuilding our economy obviously includes
investment in the infrastructure, but also specifically
including energy infrastructure and clean energy technology.
And I know Congresswoman Stevens, my in-state partner,
mentioned this, but, you know, for example, putting more
electric vehicles on the road, reducing carbon emissions,
supporting investment in American-made manufacturing, this all
protects our planet and helps us grow our economy.
So I wonder, Dr. Parikh, if you could perhaps address this
question. If we don't invest in R&D in the technology of the
future, like electric vehicles, other countries will, and I'm
curious about what your sense of that challenge really looks
like for us. And then, if I have time, I would like to ask Mr.
Quaadman also. Dr. Parikh?
Dr. Parikh. Thank you, Mr. Kildee. You know, what's
remarkable is over the last 75 years we developed this
ecosystem, and we invested in it, and we did it pretty much
alone, right? There weren't a lot of other nations that were
doing this, and so we benefited greatly from it. And what's
happened is everybody now understands the blueprint, and you
all know this as Members of this Committee, that everybody now
understands that blueprint. And we have to innovate beyond
where they--where they're copying us. And if we don't, the
scale of investment, that's coming, right? China can invest
just as much as we can.
And so it's not about just the scale. We need the scale,
but we also need the thoughtfulness of how do we incentivize
industry, how do we incentivize industry and academia to work
together, how do we do it in a targeted way, in a coordinated
way?
We have over 20 agencies that do science research and
development across the Federal Government. Now, in the past,
they didn't always work together. But if we're going to attack
climate change, if we're going to attack the need for better
batteries for electric cars, if we're going to attack the need
for quantum computing, we have to have a coordinated effort. We
need NOAA, and NIH (National Institutes of Health), and CDC to
work together on climate change. We need DOE, NSF, and DOD
working together on batteries. So that requires more
coordination that we've ever had before, so we've got to do
both those things. We've got to be able to invest heavily, you
know, and that's going to be a lot more than we're doing today.
As Mr. Quaadman said, we should be doing way more in terms of
GDP in research and development, but the second piece is we've
got to coordinate our activities in a way that actually attacks
the problems that we're trying to solve.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you. I wonder, Mr. Quaadman, if you
could comment, but also specifically any thought you have on
the necessary incentives for private sector investment? Like,
for example, the change in the R&D tax credit that'll go into
effect in 2022, what impact that might be having in terms of
the way those--that expensing will be amortized. Are we
providing the proper incentives? Did the Tax Cuts and JOBS Act
actually work against us, in the sense that it changed the way
companies can to look at that investment?
Mr. Quaadman. Yeah, thank you very much for that question,
Mr. Kildee, and I would just say too when the Chamber released
its climate principles in mid-January, last month, you know,
two things that we had in there is we have to embrace
technology and innovation to address climate, but then we also
need to ensure that there's U.S. climate science leadership to
address the problems as well. So I think the American Energy
Act, as an example, provides for funding for a number of
different technologies, such as advanced nuclear, carbon
capture, a number of other things that can--that could help
lead us through that.
I would also say too--No. 2, to your point, it is very
important that we do change that R&D tax credit. That is going
to be very important for how business will allocate funding.
But the last point I want to make too, which it has come up in
a couple other questions, but I think undergirds a lot of this,
Federal research is also important. Some of what we've talked
about with the COVID vaccines, there is 2 decades of research
that went into mRNA before we even got to the vaccine. If we
take a look at GPS (Global Positioning System), that research
started in the 1950's. So we also have to understand too, there
could be decades of research in the basic research field where
the Federal Government plays a unique role that the private
sector and the academic researchers can come in later on, when
we're talking about applying the development research. But
really it's that core that we need to get going as well.
Mr. Kildee. Great, I appreciate--my time's expired. I
really appreciate the testimony of the witnesses, and, Madam
Chair, I appreciate you holding this hearing, and I yield back.
Staff. Mr. LaTurner is next.
Mr. LaTurner. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas,
thank you for having this hearing so we can discuss the
importance of research, and the United States remaining at the
forefront of the world of science and technology. One of the
key reasons the United States became a world power was the
emphasis we placed on innovation. We invested in research and
development in the universities like the University of Kansas
(KU), which I am so proud to represent, and national
laboratories as well. We led by example in scientific and
technological advancements. But now others in the world are
emphasizing their research programs, and are working hard to
overtake us. China is pursuing aggressive plans to become the
world leader in technology, supplemented by their own national
policies, and billions of dollars in investments.
It comes as no surprise that national research efforts
were among the many things impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Laboratory closures, health restrictions, and cancellations of
conferences and travel have strained researchers and disrupted
our normal operations. The virus has lowered our research
output, cost hundreds of millions of dollars in divestment, and
nearly halted the academic research and STEM workforce
pipelines. If we want to come back from this, and stay ahead of
China, we must look to getting our research enterprise back in
full working order, and ensure there is a place for our future
generations of researchers and innovators. I hope that this
Committee can come together to make sure the rest of the world
looks to America for future scientific advancement.
Mr. Quaadman, partnerships between the Federal Government,
academia, and the private sector are commonplace in our
national R&D or enterprise. Can you discuss the importance of
the public/private partnership, especially as it relates to
overcoming the COVID situation that we've been in over the last
year?
Mr. Quaadman. Yeah. I think it was very important that we
had the ability of the Federal Government, academia, and the
private sector to come together extremely quickly to ensure
that there were either research dollars in place, or that there
were deployment dollars put in place, as well as a sharing of
knowledge, which we talked about the computing consortium as an
example of that.
We've--we saw--frankly, we also saw that in the 1960's
through large agreement with the moon program as well. So it
just goes to show, if we get our act together, and can work in
concert together to ensure that we are putting our best foot
forward, nobody's going to beat us. The problem we've had over
the last several decades is, you know, we're sort of riding
along on some successes that we've had in the past, but we did
not have a concerted strategy, and I think we are at a point
here where we could sort of take a little bit of a deep breath
to make sure we get things back up and running, but also look
at the long term as to what we need--what policies do we need
to put in place to make sure that we are going to continue our
leadership.
Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate that. Dr. Keane, the University
of Kansas is the largest employer in the Second District of
Kansas, and one of the largest employers of the State.
Researchers at KU, like most citizens in the country, have had
great restrictions to return to work. What I'm concerned about
is that grants that have been awarded in the past can't be
completed, and the potential for new scientific discoveries
will stall. Can you speak to the type of impact legislation
like the RISE Act would have on the university research
community, and how that can affect the larger communities and
cities that universities reside in?
Dr. Keane. Thank you, Representative LaTurner, for that
question. It's a great question. The RISE Act will definitely
help the situation. We talked earlier about the 20 to 40
percent loss in output. It's essentially due to, you know, the
time out we've had, and then looking ahead, the difficulties in
ramping up again. So the RISE Act will support researchers that
will allow us to come back fully, and that will support the
local economic development within those areas. As you know,
universities are very strong engines in the local economy in
their various communities, certainly in my area in rural
Washington. So I would strongly urge that we--that the
Committee pass the RISE Act, provide the resources to enable
that research to finish that was interrupted. And I think also,
as we've heard, we need to look to the future as well.
If I could also just for a moment emphasize as well some
of the issues with HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and
Universities) and others on this, they're in a particularly
tough spot because they don't have a lot to fall back on in
terms of infrastructure and other things, in terms of getting
the full range of our talent. They, as well as--faculty, as
we've already heard, have been particularly strongly impacted,
and deserve attention.
Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate that, Dr. Keane. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, thank you Ranking Member Lucas. I yield back my time.
Staff. Mr. Casten is next.
Mr. Casten. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I feel
like I need to apologize. We have such a good bunch of
speakers, I would love to ask the same questions of all of you,
because I think some of the differences in nuance would be
interesting, so if you want to follow up, please do. But I'm
going to pick, for totally selfish reasons, as a biochemical
engineer and biochemist, I've got to represent, so I'm going to
go with you, Dr. Parikh.
I want to follow on the discussion you had with Mr. Tonko,
and this, you know, that we've seen this falloff in research,
and it's been focused on specific sectors, and I, you know, I
think a lot have covered that, and I don't want to dwell on
that, but what I'd like to understand is--we have--science is
an international endeavor. There's lots of collaboration
between labs. For a whole lot of reasons that we don't need to
get into here, but we can acknowledge, COVID affected different
countries very differently, the rate of mask uptake, the rate
of social distancing, deployment of testing, and particularly
in the Southeast Asia region, including Australia and New
Zealand, the reality of COVID was much less grim, as far as
what it meant for social distancing than what it was here. Of
those sectors of our scientific endeavor that have been most
deeply impacted, have any of them been able to work with their
collaborators to move that research overseas, and if so, will
that research come back to the United States after, or is there
a permanent loss that's there?
Dr. Parikh. Mr. Casten, that's a terrific question. I
don't have hard data on numbers of projects that may have
moved, but certainly, at the individual peer to peer level--
look, these conversations are happening all the time. We've got
scientists here that talk to their collaborators. Maybe they're
former students who are in Europe now, or who are in Australia
now. And basic research works in a way where we do share
information, we do share reagents, we do share intellectual
conversations, because the point is to actually do the basic
research so you can get to the intellectual property. And so
that is happening.
There's no doubt that when experiments can't happen here,
as a graduate student, I'd be wanting my idea to flower
somewhere, because I have the intellectual ownership of that.
Maybe not IP, but intellectual ownership of it, and so that is
definitely happening. And right now it's manageable, because we
can keep these students in the pipeline with funding like the
RISE Act. What happens--what could be bad is if we don't do
things like the RISE Act, we don't ensure that that pipeline
gets unclogged, if those students follow those projects, those
students follow those ideas, or they just leave the sciences.
And that's what--that's a true worry for us.
Mr. Casten. So let me go from a mildly complicated
question to a really complicated one, and put you on the spot
with the clock at 2:30 and counting. When we think about the
economic downturns, you know, there's--and I know the metrics
on economic downturns. It's harder in science, but, you know,
we'll see a collapse in the economy, and on a good downturn,
``good'', we sort of restore to the historic growth trajectory.
So if you think about, like, the dot com crash, we got--we came
down, and we got back--so we saw some above-average growth. In
a bad downturn, like the 2008 crash, we fall off and we, you
know, maybe we return to the historic rate of growth, but we
never get back to that historic trajectory.
Dr. Parikh. Yeah.
Mr. Casten. The reason I ask about that sort of
international--not just the brain drain, but if the research
has moved overseas, is there, you know, as you think about the
restoration of--where we are, are we--is this going to be a
good downturn or a bad downturn, from a scientific perspective?
And from a policy perspective, beyond throwing money at the
problem, which I'm sure we will, are there policy tools that we
should be thinking about right now to make this a good downturn
in the scientific? That make sense?
Dr. Parikh. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and----
Mr. Casten. And, again, if any of the rest of you have
answers, please send them in writing, but I--time here after
Dr. Parikh is done.
Dr. Parikh. I appreciate that. No, I think it's an
excellent question, and what we do here is going to determine
what happens. I mean, we are at this inflection point. We're--
we can't just move some money at it, and move on, and yes,
we'll keep that historical trajectory, I hope. But, in reality,
others are moving in the environment as well, so we have to do
a couple of things. One is the investment. The second is that
coordination factor I'm talking about. We haven't done that
before. It is so important that we--if we're going to say that
climate disruption is important to us, we've got to coordinate
our activities. If we're going to say that batteries are
important to us, we've got to coordinate those efforts between
the academic environment and business. If we don't do that,
then we're--our unconsolidated work is going to be incredibly
powerful, and yet the sum will not be greater--the whole will
not be greater than the sum of the parts. We've got to have
that coordination.
So I think that's the policy issue. As we get out of the
pandemic, and as we--if we save this generation of human
capital, then the next thing is we've got to be able to
coordinate our activities, otherwise we can't--a plan beats no
plan. The Chinese have a plan on these things, and we have some
on some areas, because of good legislation from this Committee
and others, but we've got to make sure that we're thinking
about this in a holistic sense.
Mr. Casten. Well, thank you so much. I see I'm out of
time, but would love to continue the conversation with you and
your staff--and, again, sorry to the rest of you that I didn't
get to talk to, but we'd welcome them as well, to the extent
you have a point to add. Thank you, I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Gimenez next.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, thank you very much, and I want to
thank the Chairwoman and the Ranking Member for putting this
together, and everybody that's been on the panel. The question
that I have is something that Mr. Parikh said, something about
the supply chain. Does talent follow the supply chain?
Dr. Parikh. Does talent--thank you for the question, Mr.
Chairman. I think talent follows the opportunity. You know, in
times when the finance industry looks like the place to be as a
young person, people want to go to the finance industry. And
you are--you're so influenced by your parents. And I just had a
conversation with a program in the south side of Chicago, and--
we're trying to get young people interested in the sciences.
They only get interested if they know there's a job there, that
there's a life there. And so, yes, it follows the opportunity,
as much as it follows the supply chain.
Mr. Gimenez. So if the supply chain is leading, or left
the United States, and we want to get some of this talent back,
would it be a good policy to try to bring the supply chain back
to the United States?
Dr. Parikh. I'm following your question now. Look,
absolutely, because the more parts of the supply chain that are
here, there are more jobs for that talent. They can work in
manufacturing, they can work in the translational sciences,
they can work in--on the policy side related to the
manufacturing, so absolutely. I think that's a true statement.
Mr. Gimenez. How can we incentivize the supply chain to
come back to the United States?
Dr. Parikh. I'm going to defer to Mr. Quaadman on part of
that, because he is the--he's much more of an expert on the
industry side. What I will say is that, you know, the
investment in research, if you notice these areas around the
country, the geographic areas, the clusters where science is
happening, a lot of time the translational stuff happens around
there as well, and then you can see the manufacturing. But I'll
defer to Mr. Quaadman on the--on details.
Mr. Gimenez. OK.
Mr. Quaadman. Sure, Mr. Gimenez. Thank you for that
question. That's an excellent question, so let me answer it in
two separate ways. No. 1--came out with--report with China, and
one of the things--recommendations that was made in there was
also to increase our domestic manufacturing base, and I think
the CHIPS for America Act is a very good example of that. And
we can send you a copy of that report, and have a further
discussion with you on that. Second, we are also looking at
President Biden's Executive order from yesterday. We fully
agree with the aims of having a resilient supply chain, and a
diversified supply chain, and we also look forward to providing
our--on that as well.
Mr. Gimenez. OK. Shifting gears a little bit, you know,
the pandemic has been horrible, but also it's taught us a
different way of doing business. And so is there any upside
here for research, in that the pandemic has forced us to
conduct business in a little bit different way? And maybe it's
been positive on some research, and it's been negative on
others, so what's been your experience?
Dr. Keane. Representative Gimenez, if I could take a crack
at that one for a minute? First of all, I think we've all
learned a lot about but--about virtual techniques, and some of
them are just going to remain, as you might imagine, certain
types of meetings that will become virtual forever. They
actually are more effective at promoting diverse input. I think
we've also learned some other things, not just associated with
remote technology and--things like artificial intelligence. The
Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence out here in
Washington State, their leader put together a body of papers on
COVID-19, 200,000, analyzable by some of their machine learning
platforms and so on. So, essentially, it's as if you could draw
on 200,000 papers to get an answer you're looking for, which is
obviously a faster rate of progress than most of us human
researchers could do. There have some major changes that have
happened, some very positive advances out of this crisis, and
so I think there'll be a lot of great advances that'll be
incorporated into the research enterprise in the future.
Thanks.
Mr. Gimenez. Well, last question, since I'm new to this
Committee, where do we stand in terms of artificial
intelligence research here in the United States versus probably
our main competitor, China?
Dr. Keane. I'm not an expert in that, but I will just say
that the advances--there have been advances in machine learning
due to some advances about 4 or 5 years ago, and so the
applications of AI right now are exploding. It will
fundamentally change how we conduct research, and lots of other
areas of our lives.
Mr. Quaadman. I would just add too that is the jump ball
of the 21st century, as to who's going to win that. And I think
we're taking some very good steps to ensure we've got the
policies in place so we can help with the development, we can
help be a leader there, but by no means are we assured of
winning that race.
Mr. Gimenez. I know that my time is up, and so thank you
very much, but I'll just close by saying that I think you're
right, the race to artificial intelligence is the jump ball of
the 21st century, and we need to win it as a nation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
Dr. Levine. If I could just add one dimension on that
point quickly? One of our potential competitive edges is that
AI needs the kind of modeling and development that takes into
account the diversities of reasoning and decisionmaking. And
what we have in our democracies, and in our commitment,
hopefully our renewed commitment, to equity is to bring those
voices into the AI community. There are many very central
locations already doing that. It's the kind of thing we need to
invest in, and that's where I think our competitive edge can
reside. We don't think in one way, and we need to bring that
diversity of reasoning into modeling in AI. It's happening now,
and we need to invest further in it.
Staff. Ms. Ross is next.
Ms. Ross. OK, I've unmuted. Can you hear me?
Staff [continuing]. Can.
Ms. Ross. That's great. Well, thank you, Chairwoman--and--
Member Lucas. It's been a--hearing, and it--it's--much from
research dollars going to our universities, and also going to
several of the organizations that do research. We're now ranked
among the top 10, I believe No. 6 in the country, and I have
North Carolina State University in my district. I also have two
HBCUs in my district, and I really appreciate the mention of
the HBCUs, because they are doing excellent work, and are
educating the next generation of entrepreneurs, so I want to
thank you for that.
My first question is for----
Staff. Ms. Ross, you appear to be experiencing bandwidth
issues, and your connection is cutting in and out. You may want
to turn the camera off, and that may help with your audio.
Ms. Ross. OK. No. OK. OK. I'm sorry about that. I'm going
to have to yield back.
Staff. OK. We'll go to Mr. Obernolte.
Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you very much, and thanks to
our witnesses. I've really enjoyed the hearing. One recurrent
theme that has surfaced in the testimony seems to be concern
about our investment in research and development compared to
China's, and how that might undermine our strategic position.
That's a concern that I very much share, and so I had a couple
questions regarding that.
First, to Dr. Keane, you quoted some very interesting
statistics about how we were falling behind China in our
investment in research and development, and I'm wondering, are
those statistics including both private and public sector
investments in research and development? And, you know, kind of
as a follow-on, it seems to me that measuring private sector
investment in R&D in the United States is actually a little bit
problematic because it's not something that's always reported.
You can get it from publicly traded companies' disclosure
statements sometimes, but quite often that's a trade secret
that companies don't share. So how confident are we in those
statistics?
Dr. Keane. Yeah, thank you for that question,
Representative Obernolte, great, great questions. First of all,
the source of that data, as I mentioned earlier, I believe is
the National Science Board Indicators Report, which is based on
the survey data that the National Science Foundation collects
from industry, universities, all manner of folks that perform
research. So the answer to your first question, then, is that
those numbers include all research, federally funded
universities, industry, nonprofits, et cetera, and all those
folks typically respond to these survey--NSF.
With that said, your question about the quality of the
data, I don't have an NSF colleague here, but, you know, we
could certainly connect you with someone to talk about that,
and how they collected--but it is all expenditures from all
sectors, and it is based on a--it's currently a systematic
survey that's been done for many years by the National Science
Foundation.
Mr. Obernolte. All right. Thank you. You know, not to say
that the data's invalid, something I'm very concerned about,
but to be able to solve the problem we need to make sure we get
our arms around exactly how big the problem is, and because our
economy is much less centrally planned than China's I'm
concerned that we don't have a full picture of what our private
sector investment in R&D is.
And then, for my second question, to Dr. Quaadman,
basically on the same topic, but you had said something I found
very interesting in your testimony, expressing concern that in
the past most research and development was publicly funded here
in the United States, and that now that's kind of flip-flopped,
and we're 70 percent privately funded, and only 30 percent
publicly funded. And I'm wondering if you could defend a little
bit, you know, why you're concerned about that? Because it
seems to me that, you know, maybe there's a difference in the
type of research going on. Maybe public funding is more toward
basic research, and private funding is more toward applied
research. But, you know, why is that something we should be
concerned about?
Mr. Quaadman. Well, because--think of it this way, all
right? Because the--a lot of the business funding, it's either
in development research or it's in applied research, right,
where you're trying to develop products off of other research
that's--theoretical--or from the basic research arm. So if
you're not doing some of that basic research, you're not going
to get some of those other impacts. So if you think about it
this way, in the example I used earlier, with GPS, right, that
started with the Federal Government in the 1950's. Think of all
the different ways we're using GPS now. By the way, with the
implementation of 4G, with data localization and sharing, et
cetera, that's how you got ridesharing, right? And we would
sort of say now, like, going into an Uber and a Lyft, that's
sort of second nature. So now if you look at it this way as
well, as we start to implement 5G, what are going to be the
products that come after that?
The point is, if we're not doing that basic research,
you're not going to have those positive benefits--societal
benefits that occur due to some of the development research
that happens, and that's when you start to look at what--as we
are, not spending as much on the basic research. We're not
going to have that bang for the buck later in the future.
Mr. Obernolte. Sure. I agree with you, however, I think
it's kind of a nuanced point. Basic research is sometimes the
most easily duplicated. Applied research is very difficult to
duplicate because you're, you know, you're applying it to a
specific application. So----
Mr. Quaadman. Um-hum.
Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. I mean, I actually think that
this is something that we as a nation should be talking more
about, because I think it's an incredibly important topic to
talk about, what kinds of research we're funding, who is
funding it, if it's public sector or private sector, and how
that stacks up against other countries, particularly China. But
thank you. I see my time's expired. Thank you very much to our
panelists. A really interesting discussion, I look forward to
continuing it in the future. I yield back.
Staff. Ms. Bonamici is----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chairwoman
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, and thank you so much to our
witnesses for joining us today. I--I've now relocated to a
computer where I'm not going to be dropped, I hope. So I really
appreciate the Committee's continued focus on the effects of
the pandemic on our Nation's research enterprise following our
hearing last fall on the needs of universities and I'm very
glad that we're securing funding for the National Science
Foundation and NIST, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology in the American Rescue Plan, but we need to pass the
RISE Act to truly recognize the expenses and the challenges
that have been accrued in ramping up, or down, spending, and
then eventually restarting Federal research. So today I want to
focus on the long-term consequences of the pandemic for the
research community, specifically for our workforce, in solving
the next moon shot challenge.
But I also wanted to note that, you know, this Committee
has had countless hearings over the years about how to grow and
diversify the workforce, and STEAM (science, technology,
engineering, arts, and mathematics). I say STEAM intentionally.
Mr. Quaadman mentioned innovation, which is critical, and there
was a suggestion along the way that--interested in the arts
should be redirected to STEM. I submit that the better solution
is integrating the arts into science, technology, engineering,
and math. Brain research shows that arts education helps
students be more creative and innovative, and Europe and Asia
are not cutting the arts.
So I'm--I do want to focus on the economic consequence of
the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they have exacerbated so many of
the inequities and the barriers facing women in communities of
color. Because of entrenched gender roles, women are continuing
to take up the majority of childcare and caregiving
responsibilities. That's directly affected their research, as
Dr. Keane mentioned. One professor at the University of Oregon,
Dr. Machalicek recently noted that she regretfully now deletes
every request for a proposal because she simply doesn't have
time [inaudible] caregiving responsibilities. She hosts an
online writing group for--they have to be at night, after
bedtime for--children.
Now, Dr. Levine, you noted several data points in your
testimony that suggest that Dr. Machalicek is not alone in her
experience. What steps can universities and the Federal
Government take to support women in research fields to make
sure that they aren't left behind as we get through the
pandemic and build back?
Dr. Levine. What an excellent question, and that citation
not only resonates with what we heard so powerfully in our
focus group, but just looking at the top line, as we're
bringing the survey into an analytic format, we're just seeing
it pop off the page. We need to do something that provides much
more comprehensive wrap-around services. That's one of the
reasons why I mentioned early on that supplemental funding that
NSF has, that should be a kind of thinking that leads to wrap-
around support, potential childcare services, additional,
potentially, RA (Resident Assistant) support, and other kinds
of time off, salary release time, as a good way of catching up
and that, and those who have elder care responsibilities.
And one of the reasons why I emphasize--this is
particularly an issue for women of color is that one of the
things we picked up in the focus group very clearly is how much
additional family care, based on many first generation career
scientists, then need to also not only invest in their own
child care, but wrap-around care to their family members, so we
need to----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. And, Dr. Levine, I don't
mean to cut you off, but I really want to get another question
in to Dr. Parikh. And even in the midst of an unprecedented
pandemic, the climate crisis continues. We need climate science
to help mitigate and adapt. Oregon State University (OSU), in
my home State, is home to a world class ice core analysis
laboratory, and they rely on ice core samples from the national
archive at the NSF ice core facility in Denver, so COVID
restrictions on Federal staffing and travel have significantly
slowed their access to samples, in particular for a new project
studying what is believed to be the oldest pristine ice samples
ever discovered. So OSU's research vessels have been restricted
as well, limiting supplies--or, excuse me, samples, for algal
blooms--temperatures of the ocean. These gaps are
irreplaceable, so, Dr. Parikh, I appreciate your focus on our
Nation's innovative leadership, but how will these disruptions
affect our ability to solve challenging problems like the
climate crisis?
Dr. Parikh. It's an excellent point, Ms. Bonamici. It
shows that, yeah, this goes beyond the biomedical research
sciences. It goes beyond our challenges related to the here and
now. It goes to future crises, and there's no getting back the
time that that ice core couldn't move from Denver to Oregon. We
can't get that back. What we can do is ensure that, going
forward, we have the human capital that was going to do is
still there, and the next generation's also coming, and that we
also have thought about the resiliency of that scientific
enterprise.
You know, we can--sometimes you think about these things,
there are freezers that hold unique biological samples in this
country. There are freezers that hold unique core samples from
the Arctic. We need to make sure we have resilience in that--in
those invaluable assets that only our Nation has because we
invested the time, and the energy, and the resources to go get
it. So let's make sure we have that resiliency in place as
well.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. I see my time has
expired. I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Staff. Mr. Babin is up next.
Mr. Babin. Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and
Ranking Member Lucas. I want to thank all of you witnesses as
well today. This conversation we're having is critically
important in many ways, but probably one of the most important
are the implications that this has on our national security
during this time of the pandemic. The U.S. Justice Department
has accused China of sponsoring hackers who are targeting labs
that were using state-of-the-art technology to develop our
COVID vaccines. The Director of the FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation) has said that acts of espionage and theft by
China's government pose the ``greatest long-term threat'' to
the future of the United States.
My first question goes to Dr. Parikh and Dr. Keane. There
have been multiple examples of Chinese hackers attempting to
steal COVID vaccine data from different universities around the
country. In your opinion, how susceptible are our universities
to Chinese hackers, and what do each of you see as being a
solution to better protecting our technology and our research?
Dr. Parikh, if you would answer first, and then Dr. Keane.
Thank you.
Dr. Parikh. Thank you, Mr. Babin. This is a critically
important question. You know, I can attest that every one of
our institutions, our national laboratory, even the AAAS, we
are constantly under attack in cyberspace, and it's from
multiple nations around the world. The challenge for us is to
make sure that we are being--we are protecting our intellectual
property, we're protecting the things that need to be protected
for defense, as laid out by the National Security Directive--
Decision Directive issued by President Reagan during the cold
war, Directive Number 189. We need to make sure that we are
protecting those assets, while balancing the need for
collaboration. And, you know, basic research has collaboration
that is required as well.
So in terms of policy, are--you're asking if the
universities are better today than they were yesterday, they
are. They are. Will they be better tomorrow? I think so. And
part of that is that we are learning. We are constantly
learning. This is a fluid situation. It has gotten worse over
time, and the universities have been, in my opinion, and now I
turn to Dr. Keane to answer directly, but, in my opinion, from
the outside, they have been very responsive to this--to these
attacks.
Mr. Babin. All right. Thank you so much. Dr. Keane?
Dr. Keane. Yeah, thank you very much for that question,
Representative Babin. So let me first of all state that
universities are actually dedicated to implementing measures
to, you know, conduct our research in a secure manner. Just
also a little bit of background, in terms of life under
attacks, you know, as Dr. Parikh just talked about, we're in a
similar situation. Over 90 percent of the e-mails that we get
at Washington State University are attacks or spam, so our
firewalls are constantly defending us against all manner of
things.
In terms of what we're doing about it, you know, a variety
of things. First of all, we have, you know, significantly
increased faculty awareness on this. We talk to our faculty all
the time. We are improving our systems for disclosure of
conflict of interest and conflict of commitment. Conflict of
Commitment, the simple way to think of that is we want to make
sure that a faculty member doesn't spend 100 percent time on
one project, and then go out and get a grant to do exactly the
same work with somebody else, right? And so we have systems in
place that we--or monitor that, and we've gone to electronic,
and other sort of ways to help us do that, as have many
universities.
I also just want to close on this--my comment on this
topic by pointing out that the recent legislation in the
National Defense Authorization Act, and also ongoing efforts to
try and harmonize research security related--across agencies.
Right now there is significant administrative overhead because
we have different requests--for example, interactions with
China or whatever--country--in different formats from different
agencies. So we spend a lot of time trying to sort out the
different forms, which isn't, you know, value added. So
anything that could be done by the Congress or the Committee to
try and take a coherent multi-agency approach to research
security would be welcome. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Keane. Real quickly,
Mr. Quaadman, in your capacity with the U.S. Chamber, how is
the theft of basic research by China going to hurt our economy
and our competitiveness? If you could just give a few seconds
to that?
Mr. Quaadman. Yeah, I mean, obviously it's harmful to
both. One of the things that the Chamber has done, through our
Global Innovation Policy Center, in a few weeks we'll be
releasing our 10th IP Index, which ranks each--ranks the top 53
economies as to their treatment of intellectual property. China
and India historically have not ranked high there. They've
actually ranked fairly low, for obvious reasons. What that has
also done, though, that's also sparked a U.S./China dialog
where we work with these issues with both business and
government leaders, as well as with India. So part of our
belief is that it's--it is important to shine a light on these
problems because it creates incentives to try and address some
of them from the other side as well.
Mr. Babin. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'll yield back,
Madam Chair.
Staff. Ms. Moore is next.
Ms. Moore. Thank you so very, very much, Madam Chair, Mr.
Ranking Member, all of our witnesses, Dr. Parikh, Dr. Keane,
Dr. Levine, Mr. Quaadman. I have learned so much from this
hearing today, and I have more questions than I do time, so let
me try to get through this.
When we look at--I want to make a declarative statement,
and then sort of get a response from you. When we look at the
numbers of women who engage in research, I guess of any type,
whether it's biomedical, or defense, or any other kinds, like,
30 percent globally, and you've all attested to the fact that
women have various family responsibilities that Dr. Keane said
keeps them out of academia for numbers of years longer, they
don't go into research because of the framework of being
family, and so on. I just want to know, is there anything about
the RISE Act, or other sorts of research, that specifically
focuses on maintaining these women, and now that we've gone
through this pandemic and seen some slippage, is there any very
specific plans with the universities, or with research firms,
or Chamber of Commerce, is there any specific research that
focuses on maintaining women?
And I don't say this out of some sort of just abstract
notion of we need affirmative action. I mean, it matters, and
it matters a lot, whether women and minorities are engaged in
these kind of programs. I'll just give you an example. I took
a--kind of a blood pressure medication, and my mouth swelled
up, and I was looking all ugly, and I called one of my friends,
who's a Black female cardiologist, and she said, you--as a
Black person, you should've never been taking that medicine in
the first place. And--so the consequences of not having women
in the field--and I want you to talk about that. And then
there's been a lot of talk about national security issues, and
I notice that women in the Soviet realm, and perhaps even in
China, much higher participation of women in research. Want to
know if that has any implications for national security, or for
our keeping pace. And so I guess I would ask that of Dr.
Parikh, Dr. Keane, Dr. Levine.
Dr. Parikh. Ms. Moore, thank you for the question. My
goodness, the value of having diverse voices at the table,
women, underrepresented minorities, is not just because of the
moral imperative. The moral imperative is obvious. The real
reason is because it actually helps our economic
competitiveness, and it creates solutions, so the example you
gave is a perfect one. When we talk about solutions to this,
they are--we've got to aim it at every spot in that pipeline.
So, for the kids, K-12, we've got to make sure they're not
getting the signals--the wrong signals, to get out of the
sciences. We've got to make sure they're getting interventions
to help them if there are challenges that are keeping them out
of the sciences that are not related to study. Got to make sure
we're intervening there.
And then, at the graduate school level, we have graduate
students that are in their 20's, and we have post-docs in their
30's. They need to not just be treated as apprentices. They
need to have some benefits that are employee-like because they
are of the age to have children. They are of the age to be
married. We need to make sure that they have those kinds of
benefits. So I think those are a couple I've given out. I'll
give to--time to the others as well.
Dr. Keane. Yeah, if I could comment, Representative Moore?
Great question. So the answer to your question is, yes, there
is research going on to try and actually come up with real ways
to improve the situation. But one of the things we need to do,
obviously, as a first step is to think about, you know, why are
we in the situation we're in? And, to that end, just as an
example, there was a very recent, just--think this last month,
a study that came out by the National Bureau of Economic
Research that surveyed 20,000 Ph.D. woman respondents about
their lives, and that turned up some interesting facts, you
know, such as on average women have lost double the time to
research that men have in the pandemic. And also we can see, by
looking at large scale data and publications, that women are
definitely publishing less than men.
And I know--but that is also just a whole number of
potential ways to improve the situation, universities extending
tenure clocks, waiving certain types of service for women,
providing care, and other, you know, the--relieving other forms
of faculty service so women can focus on research, OK? So
there's a whole bunch of ideas in the pipeline to address this
question.
Dr. Levine. Well, I'll just add a couple of words to that,
because those are, you know, the important points, I think, to
drive home to an exceptional question. I think that we also
need to recognize that--hierarchy and positionality, often of
women in the workforce. We have, you know, we are very aware
that in leadership roles women can be silenced in subtle and
not so subtle ways. So they can be central to a team, but not
yet rewarded in the same way, so that--we have to understand
the nature of the work, because women as scientists are often
more inclined toward collaborative models so that--if the
pecking order is sole author, versus multiple author. So this
is a really important broader issue that we need to take--
consideration.
While we support, for example, expanding and extending the
tenure clock during this time, and accounting for different
kinds of activities, we also need to be sure that the status
hierarchy doesn't backslide and say, 3 years from now, so what
happened? You know? So we have to be very attentive to the--to
essentially subtle indicators that may not seem to leave women
behind, but after all they have an adverse--and for women as
well--of color as well. A great opportunity and challenge for
all of us together, and in collaboration with this Committee,
and its sensitivities, and higher education and research
institutions.
Ms. Moore. OK. Thank you. I yield back. Thanks for
indulging, Madam Chair.
Staff. Mr. Gonzalez is next.
Mr. Gonzalez. Did I hear Mr. Gonzalez? I'm sorry, I
thought I heard it, but I don't want to jump the gun.
Staff. Yes, you're next.
Mr. Gonzalez. OK, great. Well, thank you, Chairwoman
Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, for holding this hearing
today, and to our distinguished witnesses for your testimony.
As those who served on this Committee with me last Congress
know, I personally believe that appropriately funding and
supporting our research enterprise is among the most important
things we can do for our economy long term. You know, we tend
to solve problems that are sort of staring us right in the
face, but the truth is the investments that we make in our
research enterprise are ultimately going to create jobs 5, 10,
20, 30 years from now. And so I look forward to partnering with
my colleagues in making sure that we're continuing to increase
funding where appropriate, focus that funding so that we can
invent the transformative technologies of the future that will
help us sustain our economy, and continue to lead across the
world.
Mr. Quaadman, as you know, China and other economies are
investing aggressively, particularly in the industries of the
future, like 5G, AI, quantum. Can you describe what steps the
U.S. needs to take to remain a leader in the industries of the
future, and what concerns do you have if we fail to do that,
and cede that ground to a China, or another country?
Mr. Quaadman. Thank you very much, Mr. Gonzalez, and,
first off, let me also thank you for your co-leadership of the
Artificial Intelligence Caucus as well, and your leadership on
these important issues. Look, I would say there are a number of
different things here. No. 1, we're clearly in a race. I think
I read recently Art Schmidt's testimony before Congress
recently, where he said that the United States may only be 1 to
2 years ahead of China in terms of artificial intelligence
research.
I think some of the steps taken last year, both with the
passage of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act,
where we created a framework, both in terms of public and
private partnership, to help incentivize that research, and
provide some funding, is important. I think the OMB guidance
released at the end of last year also helps with that, because
we need the funding on the one side. We also need to have the
collaborative atmosphere that allows for that development to
take place.
Lastly, though, whoever wins that race to be the leader in
artificial intelligence is going to set the standard, so NIST
has a very, very critical role, if we were to be in that
position, of developing what those standards are around the
artificial intelligence, how they can--how it can be used, how
it could get deployed. And that's very important because we
bring in all the different stakeholders in a very collaborative
effort to do that, and there are a lot of thorny ethnic--ethic
issues associated with that which impact personal liberty,
freedom, et cetera that we have very highly developed attitudes
and values around that others may not. So we--that's one of the
reasons why it is very important for the United States to be in
that leadership role.
Mr. Gonzalez. Absolutely. And one thing that I've seen
proposed, that I think is a good idea, and I hope we do it, is
to create some sort of G7, plus Australia and New Zealand
maybe, standard-setting organization or body that could help
inform how these technologies are developed, and what the
values are that underpin them. Just as a concept, what are your
thoughts on that concept? Feel free to disagree with me. I will
not take offense.
Mr. Quaadman. No, I would say two things. One is I think
that's an interesting idea, because if you take a look at it
within the scope of the G7, and Australia, and New Zealand,
there are a lot of those shared values that we have that can be
helpful in terms of doing that. The other thing, I think we
would just need to really think this through as well, is that,
you know, the EU's also a competitor, right? So I think there
has to be a decision if we're going to collaborate on that. And
if it's going to be competition, that's fine, right? I mean,
the United States does very well when it competes, but we have
to realize we are competing, and that if we need to win this
race, it's no different than the race to the moon, or to some
other technologies that we made sure we were leading in in the
1960's, 1970's, or 1980's.
Mr. Gonzalez. Absolutely. And then with my final
question--well, we won't be able to get into this in 30
seconds. Maybe I'll submit it for the record. But one thing I
am concerned about is our human capital development here in the
U.S., and the feeling that, you know, some other countries are
outpacing us in the development of our human capital, and I
want to make sure that we're always in the lead there, and so I
look forward to partnering with all the institutions here, and
the Members of Congress on making sure that the U.S. is always
as competitive as humanly possible. To your point, if we can
compete on a level playing field, we will win. And with that, I
yield back.
Staff. Mr. Sherman is next. Mr. Sherman's recognized.
Mr. Sherman. Why thank you. Madam Chair, thank you for
bringing us together. The importance of science was illustrated
to the entire country over the last year, as we deal with this
COVID crisis. The response of the science community hasn't been
perfect, but given the sudden and unexpected nature of this,
has been very good. We haven't always followed the science, but
we will straighten that out as well. And the vaccines that are
coming to us are as a result of the scientific knowledge that
has been put together over the last decades. That's why it's
important that we move forward with the RISE Act, to keep
research going, and to preserve our research capacity for the
future. And I thank you for introducing that legislation.
We have--others have talked about artificial intelligence,
and I just want to point out how important it is that it's kept
under human control, and that we engineer into the basic
elements of artificial intelligence. You can't just add it in
at the end, get it into the hardware, into the systems, in
avoidance of self-awareness, in avoidance of ambition, or a
desire to persevere. When we talk about promoting science,
naturally we're the Science Committee, and we focus, usually,
on what's government doing, the space program, our grants to
academic research. But we've got a limited amount of money, and
I'm sure what money we have for science we will work hard to
make sure it's spent in the best way.
But there's a much larger amount of money, and that--and
the best practical research is often done by our private sector
with their own money. And we tend to focus on the startups that
have no revenues, and they will, of course, do research. That's
their whole reason for existence. They only, you know, money
comes as invested by the investors. The only thing they're
going to do with it is spend it on their startup research. But
the vast majority of private research is being done by
companies that have revenues that are expected to earn a
profit. And so if you want to influence how much of that
research is done, you have to look at our accounting system,
at--because Boards of Directors get up in the morning, and they
say, how much can we show as earnings per share?
We had an accounting system up until 30 years ago in which
we treated research appropriately, as we had for the past 200
years. We made a mistake, and this the first time in this
Committee that I'll say that perhaps the greatest threat to
research is based in Norwalk, Connecticut. That is the location
of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a
governmental agency that often argues that it's not a
governmental agency. Mr. Quaadman, we have, over the last 30
years, a system where if you invest money in a building, that's
not an expense. It doesn't hurt your earnings per share, it's
investment. But if you invest money in a research project,
that's an immediate expense. It hurts your earnings per share,
and makes you look worse than those of your competitors who
aren't spending money on research. Can you give a feel for how
much this impacts the amount of money spent on research by
corporate America, focusing not on those few startups, but on
the big companies that are expected to show a profit?
Mr. Quaadman. Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Sherman, and
thank you for your leadership, both for investors and for
capital formation as well, and your doggedness on this issue,
because I know you've been after this one for decades. Let me
start here in terms of--we have to separate tax policy out from
accounting policy, because they're two different things.
Mr. Sherman. I'm just focused--I just----
Mr. Quaadman. Yes.
Mr. Sherman [continuing]. Interrupt you, we invest
billions of dollars over in the Ways and Means Committee
promoting research----
Mr. Quaadman. Yeah.
Mr. Sherman [continuing]. But what I'm talking about is
the accountants based in Norwalk, Connecticut pushing us in the
other direction. Go ahead.
Mr. Quaadman. Agreed. Our CEO, Tom Donahue, in 2005 gave a
speech at Nasdaq where he raised concerns about companies
trying to hit the quarterly earnings guidance, right, within a
penny or two, right, and that there are polls that actually
show that businesses would make decisions that run counter to,
let's say, their long-term capital expenditures. In terms of
the first principle for the Chamber in terms of accounting, we
always believe that it's important to start from the place of--
that, you know, financial reporting needs to reflect economic
activity, and not to drive it. Additionally, we've also called
for, for years, about the need for a cost benefit analysis in
the determination of accounting standards, that we actually
have data to understand this along the lines of the problem
that you're raising.
So I believe that Russ Golden, in his last days as FASB
Chair, testified before you at your Subcommittee about looking
at intangibles, which this gets into, and I think there needs
to be--we need to have somewhat of a data-driven discussion
around that to determine what the extent of the problem is that
you're raising, and what we have--what we would have to do to
sort of--what we'd have to do to address it.
Mr. Sherman. My own work makes me think that we're talking
about hundreds of billions of dollars in research that would
otherwise have been conducted over the last 25 years had they
not made this bad accounting decision. I yield back.
Staff. Mr. Meijer is next.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member,
and to our witnesses here today. I really appreciate the time
for you to share your thoughts and experiences. Obviously COVID
has created disruptions across our Nation, but ensuring that we
bounce back as rapidly as possible is key not just in our
academic settings, not just in our economic settings, but also
in our research and development settings.
I've been speaking over the past several months with
members of the Michigan research community, both those at the
Panhandle Institute in my district in Grand Rapids, at Michigan
State University, at the University of Michigan, at Wayne State
University, and other institutes of higher education throughout
the State of Michigan, to see what we can do to ensure that a
lot of the critical research that they've been conducting, you
know, as they had to scale back staffing hours in the labs, as
they had to deal with, you know, perishable equipment and
supplies, on how we can make sure we bounce back as quickly as
possible. And I just want to address this to the witnesses in
general, and please feel free, any of you, to respond. I guess
how are researchers best adapting to the new environment that's
been created by this pandemic?
Dr. Keane. I'll--if I could--I'll take a quick cut at
this----
Mr. Meijer. Yes, sir.
Dr. Keane [continuing]. First. So thank you--thanks,
Representative Meijer, for that question. It's a very important
one. You know, the short answer is in many ways. I think people
are learning how to make effective use of virtual tools for a
whole bunch of reasons, in a whole variety of ways. I think
we're also learning how to conduct research in our laboratories
with different staff. You know, we can come back at some of
these laboratories now at lower staffing levels. We've gotten
much better figuring how to use equipment, and actually conduct
work on the situation.
There's some things that are harder than others to deal
with, such as human subject research, which, you know, has
really come back in things like biomedical research in
particular, haven't quite come back because of the close nature
of interaction. You know, but overall the enterprise--we
estimate at WCU, and my colleague, DPR, is elsewhere, we think
we're sort of at 60 to 70 percent of pre-pandemic at the
moment, but the remaining things are hard to crack. But we--as
I mentioned earlier, we still have to worry about finishing off
all the work that was delayed. Before we--it was very helpful
to have flexibilities and no-cost extensions, but to finish the
work has a cost. So, anyway, that's the quick answer. Thank
you.
Mr. Meijer. I know, and I appreciate that, Dr. Keane. I
guess, just building on that, you know, we've already, you
know, kind of touched upon, kind of in length, some of the
funding concerns, but in terms of other concerns, are there
policy modernizations that you feel are needed to make sure I
guess specifically at the Federal level to make sure that U.S.
researchers remain competitive and grow? Are there any gaps
that have really been created that they're concerned or that we
may be able to address through a policy angle?
Dr. Keane. I'll mention just one I did a few moments ago,
because it's a topic of a lot of discussion right now, and that
is the monitoring of international, right, and disclosures. We
used to have very different and conflicting guidance from
agencies, which is just--it takes us a lot of time to
respondent to. I would--I will also say that a lot of our
agencies have done a fantastic job responding and simplifying.
Rapid, you know, proposal, review, and award processes have
been immensely helpful, and should be encouraged by the
Committee, I would suggest, from a policy level, just as one of
a number of examples of agency reforms that have been put in
place and been very productive.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Dr. Keane. And, Madam Chair, I
yield back.
Staff. Madam Chair, we have one other Member whose camera
is on, but I don't see them. Ms. Wild, are you present? I don't
see her. She would be our last Member, so I think we may be
done.
Chairwoman Johnson. Well, thank you very much. Let me
thank all of you who participated, and most especially our
really great witnesses. This has been a very worthwhile
hearing, and I know that we will probably have a follow-up
sometime not too far in the future.
Before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to again
thank our witnesses, and let you know how resourceful you have
been. And the record will remain open for 2 weeks for
additional statements from Members, and for any additional
questions the Committee might have for the witnesses. Our
witnesses are now excused, and the hearing is adjourned.
Mr. Quaadman. Thank you, Chairwoman.
Dr. Levine. Thank you.
Dr. Parikh. Thank you----
[Whereupon, at 1:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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