[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                      NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:
                   ADVANCING RESEARCH FOR THE FUTURE
                       OF U.S. INNOVATION, PART I

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             APRIL 28, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-10

                               __________

 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

44-363PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023












              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
                                 ------                                

                Subcommittee on Research and Technology

                HON. HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, Chairwoman

PAUL TONKO, New York                 MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida, 
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                    Ranking Member
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
DON BEYER, Virginia                  PETE SESSIONS, Texas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         PETER MEIJER, Michigan







                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             April 28, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Haley Stevens, Chairwoman, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    15
    Written Statement............................................    17

Statement by Representative Michael Waltz, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    17
    Written Statement............................................    19

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    21
    Written Statement............................................    22

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    23

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, National Science 
  Foundation
    Oral Statement...............................................    25
    Written Statement............................................    27

Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Chair, National Science Board
    Oral Statement...............................................    38
    Written Statement............................................    40

Discussion.......................................................    49

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, National Science 
  Foundation.....................................................    76

Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Chair, National Science Board...................    88

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives
    American Society of Civil Engineers..........................    92

Letters submitted by Representative Don Beyer, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    David J. Verardo, Ph.D., President of Local 3403 at the NSF, 
      American Federation of Government Employees................    98
    Everett B. Kelley, National President, American Federation of 
      Government Employees, AFL-CIO..............................   101






 
                      NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:
                   ADVANCING RESEARCH FOR THE FUTURE
                       OF U.S. INNOVATION, PART I

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
           Subcommittee on Research and Technology,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., 
via Zoom, Hon. Haley Stevens [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.


[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


     Chairwoman Stevens. This hearing is going to come to 
order. 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 this remote hearing. First, 
Members need to keep their video feed on as long as they are 
present in the hearing. Members are responsible also for their 
own microphone. Please also keep your microphones muted unless 
you are speaking. 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 hearing.
     Good morning, and thank you all for joining our virtual 
hearing on examining the advancement of scientific research for 
the future of U.S. innovation through the National Science 
Foundation (NSF). I am speaking to you today from the Oakland 
County Commission Chambers, a few short miles from Oakland 
University, home of the School of Engineering and Computer 
Science and a proud recipient of over 9 million NSF dollars 
that they are using for active projects for stem cell biology, 
cybersecurity capacity, and STEM (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics) education. It is just one 
snapshot here at Oakland University of the incredible impact 
that the NSF makes through their $8.5 billion budget.
     I want to thank Dr. Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa for 
testifying today and bringing your passion, your expertise, 
your dedication to the leading scientific research agency for 
the United States of America. And welcome virtually to all of 
today's participants, Committee Members, to Oakland County, 
Michigan, where we proudly boast the largest robot just, again, 
a couple miles down the road at Fanuc from the destination I'm 
sitting right now. I'm also in the hub of innovators and makers 
that have been long connected to the National Science 
Foundation.
     I also want to take a minute to welcome my colleague Mr. 
Mike Waltz, the Ranking Member of the Research and Technology 
Subcommittee. This is his first hearing as the Ranking Member, 
and we welcome him to this new role and certainly recognizing 
the linkages that my State Michigan shares starting with I-75, 
which is just a pinch outside of his district in eastern 
Florida, which includes Daytona Beach.
     We have an enormous topic before us here today, and we are 
preparing as a Subcommittee a rigorous effort to determine the 
course of how we will exercise the full weight of the U.S. 
scientific research agenda and continue to lead the world in 
terms of emerging technologies and economies of scale. We are 
here today to examine, but also determine, a course of action 
and a vision for a rapidly advancing future of the United 
States and our innovation agenda. We are also here to ensure 
that NSF and to evaluate the funding, the adequate funding 
needed for the National Science Foundation.
     While we await the President's full budget, his priorities 
are more than clear. The proposed 20 percent increase to the 
National Science Foundation budget has the potential to unleash 
more scientific research, scientists working with their 
students to study the changing climate, advancing our Nation's 
efforts in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and 
so much more, including our continued response to the COVID-19 
pandemic and our efforts to usher in an equity agenda for all 
scientists and potential scientists around the country.
     Our hearing is also going to be a part of how we will 
utilize the National Science Foundation to overall assist the 
U.S. scientific enterprise and further R&D (research and 
development) efforts, along with technology transfer.
     I am proud to cosponsor with Chairwoman Eddie Bernice 
Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, Ranking Member Mike Waltz, and 
several other of my Committee colleagues the NSF for the Future 
Act. This bill was developed over a period of time with our 
stakeholders, policy leaders, additional experts, obviously 
with a lot of weigh-in from the NSF to create a piece of 
legislation that is comprehensive in reauthorizing the 
priorities of leveraging NSF's strengths and protecting its 
core mission that has been in place since the 1950's. The 
legislation, the NSF for the Future Act, seeks to advance and 
scale up innovations in Pre-K through 12 STEM education, ensure 
STEM students are prepared to enter the workforce, our 
workforce agenda, and our connection to the NSF couldn't be 
more of an imperative here. And we are also focused on training 
the next generation of researchers and innovators and certainly 
with an overall accountability of the National Science 
Foundation to the public. The transparency couldn't be more 
important.
     New requirements in this bill would address threats to 
research security and ensure researchers are thinking through 
the societal impacts of their work, while continuing to 
dominate on open-source platforms and meeting supply chain 
needs, our supply chain recovery.
     The NSF for the Future Act proposes a new Directorate for 
Science and Engineering Solutions. While technology plays a key 
role in the directorate, it is certainly not its singular 
focus. Instead, the NSF for the Future Act charges NSF with 
engaging broadly with both traditional and nontraditional 
partners in academia, industry, civic organizations, and local 
communities and governments to identify a myriad of societal 
challenges that are ripe for research-driven solutions and 
partnerships to pursue that research.
     Scientists, take note. We want to hear from you.
     The reason we are pursuing this direction is that we have 
the need and the opportunity to increase funding for basic and 
fundamental research in the United States of America. Our 
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell recently held a 
hearing talking about just this point, how we are at some of 
our lowest levels in research funding while the rest of the 
world is moving forward and advancing very aggressively on 
scientific research.
     Seventy years of investments have enabled the United 
States to lead the world in science and innovation, compete in 
the global economy, and protect also the health and security of 
its citizens.
     We could not applaud the NSF more for your critical role 
in the COVID-19 response, and there is a long list of 
investments and research spend that you have conducted once 
this pandemic began, and we cannot, again, thank you enough for 
your efforts in that regard.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Stevens follows:]

    Good Morning. The hearing will come to order. Thank you all 
for joining our virtual hearing on examining the advancement of 
scientific research for the Future of U.S. Innovation through 
the National Science Foundation. I am speaking to you today 
from the Oakland County Commission Chambers, a few short miles 
from Oakland University home of the School of Engineering and 
Computer Science and a proud recipient of over $9 million NSF 
dollars that they are using for active projects for stem cell 
biology, cybersecurity capacity, and STEM education. It's just 
one snapshot of the incredible impact of the NSF through their 
$8.5 billion budget.
    Thank you Dr. Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa for testifying 
today and for bringing your passion, expertise and dedication 
to the leading scientific research agency for the United States 
of America. And welcome virtually to all of today's 
participants to Oakland County, where we also proudly boast the 
world's largest robot at Fanuc a few short miles from my 
destination, where I sit in the hub of innovators and makers 
many that have benefitted or been connected to the work of NSF 
at one time or another.
    I also welcome my colleagues--particularly Mike Waltz as 
the new Ranking Member of the Research and Technology 
Subcommittee. Mr. Waltz represents a corner of Florida and 
while most Michiganders are indeed familiar with Florida and 
the offerings of Daytona Beach, I'll still bet Mr. Waltz that 
we'll out innovate him nearly any day of the week.
    Now--we have an enormous topic before us today and are 
preparing a rigorous effort to determine the course of how we 
will exercise the full weight of our scientific research agenda 
and continue to lead the world in terms of emerging 
technologies and economies of scale. We are here to examine, 
but also determine a course and a vision for a rapidly 
advancing future of the United States in the 21st century. We 
are of course awaiting the President's full budget, but his 
priorities are apparent: the proposed 20% increase to NSF's 
budget has the potential to unleash scientists and their 
students to study the changing climate and advance our nation's 
efforts in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and so 
much more. Our hearing kicks off a series of endeavors as we 
advocate and explore additional resources for the National 
Science Foundation and the U.S. scientific enterprise.
    We are also here to evaluate and move forward the NSF for 
the Future Act, which I am proud to cosponsor with Chairwoman 
Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, Ranking Member Waltz, and 
several more of my Committee colleagues. This bill was 
developed over more than a year with close bipartisan 
collaboration and input from dozens of stakeholders, policy 
experts, and thought leaders. The NSF for the Future Act is a 
comprehensive reauthorization that prioritizes leveraging NSF's 
strengths and protecting its core mission. The legislation 
seeks to advance and scale up innovations in PreK-12 STEM 
education, ensure STEM students are prepared to enter the 
workforce, and train the next generation of researchers and 
innovators. A major focus of this bill is also accountability 
to the public. New requirements in the bill would address 
threats to research security and ensure researchers are 
thinking through the societal impacts of their work, while 
continuing to dominate on open source platforms and meet supply 
chain needs.
    The NSF for the Future Act proposes a new Directorate for 
Science and Engineering Solutions. While technology plays a key 
role in the directorate, it is not the singular focus. Instead, 
the NSF for the Future Act charges NSF with engaging broadly 
with both traditional and nontraditional partners in academia, 
industry, civic organizations, and local communities and 
governments to identify myriad societal challenges that are 
ripe for research-driven solutions and form partnerships to 
pursue that research.
    The reason we are pursuing this is that we have a need and 
opportunity to increase funding for basic and fundamental 
research. NSF is the only Federal science agency that supports 
fundamental research across all fields of science and 
engineering. Seventy years of investments in NSF have enabled 
the United States to lead the world in science and innovation, 
compete in the global economy, and protect the health and 
security of its citizens.
    Our foreign competitors are on our mind, but they do not 
motivate and certainly they do not dictate our work. Our 
ingenuity, risk-adverse, freedom-touting market economy with 
checks for equal opportunity and buy-in for all has and will 
continue to lead a compelling and desirable economic prowess.

     Chairwoman Stevens. So with that and in conclusion, we are 
going to be engaging in a robust dialog today, and I would also 
at this time like to recognize Mr. Waltz for his opening 
statement.
     Mr. Waltz. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, and 
it's great to join you from the other end of I-75. It's sunny 
and beautiful. I'm joining you from the headquarters of NASCAR, 
but just down the street from Embry-Riddle University, which 
has also benefited greatly from NSF grants and really look 
forward to having the president of Embry-Riddle join us for our 
next hearing, Dr. Butler.
     So I want to thank Dr. Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa as well 
for your participation today, looking forward to hearing your 
testimony and thoughts on where the future of the National 
Science Foundation is headed.
     As we all know, but I think it's always worth restating, 
since its creation in 1950, the National Science Foundation 
really has served a unique role among Federal agencies, given 
its broad mission--I think it's worth quoting--of, quote, 
``promoting the progress of science, to advance the national 
health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national 
defense.''
     So in bringing this mission to life, the NSF supports 
basic research, fuels major technological innovations, 
including smartphones, GPS (Global Positioning System), 
internet, new research disciplines, supports and trains 
generations of scientists and engineers that are critical for 
our future economy and for our national defense.
     The investments in science and technology (S&T) truly are 
drivers of economic growth. Numerous studies have concluded as 
much as 85 percent of the long-term growth in America's economy 
is attributed to advancements in science and technology. And 
for decades, America has led the world in science and 
technology innovation, but as the pace of innovation is 
accelerating, global competition, we all know, has increased, 
and the United States, to be completely candid, is losing its 
edge. The Chinese Communist Party poses an especially 
formidable and growing strategic challenge to our way of life 
and to American leadership around the world.
     Today, the U.S. is really at an inflection point, and it's 
crucial for us to make strategic investments to buildup our R&D 
enterprise. I think there is absolutely bipartisan agreement to 
that point. There is momentum on both sides of the aisle to 
make these investments, but it must be done in a realistic and 
sustained way.
     I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of the NSF for the 
Future Act with Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, 
Chairwoman Stevens. This bill increases funding for fundamental 
research and improves STEM education and research training. It 
creates a new directorate, as Chairwoman Stevens mentioned, 
creates a new directorate in S&T within the agency. But most 
importantly, it does not detract from the agency's core mission 
of advancing basic scientific knowledge.
     So we agree we must make these investments, but I just 
can't emphasize enough we must also secure taxpayer-funded 
research and technologies from adversaries, especially from the 
Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And while the NSF for the Future 
Act includes some provisions to increase research security, I 
look forward to working with Chairwoman Stevens. I appreciate 
her collaboration on this, and Chairwoman Johnson, to build 
upon these provisions and to improve best practices to provide 
tougher safeguards to prevent research theft and foreign 
influence. Our Federal agencies, like the NSF, also need the 
tools and authority to reject grant applications from known 
participants in malign foreign talent recruitment programs. 
Those authorities are absolutely critical, and I look forward 
to working with you on that.
     In addition to my work in this Committee, I also serve on 
the Armed Services Committee and regularly receive intelligence 
on the Chinese Communist Party and how they are leapfrogging 
the U.S. technologically and militarily through intellectual 
property (IP) theft. We cannot allow the CCP to advance its 
authoritarianism on the backs of American taxpayer-funded 
research. I'm encouraged the Democrats on both Committees share 
these concerns, and they have an interest in addressing undue 
foreign influence, as illustrated by the April 9 letter, which 
I thought was fantastic, from Chairs Johnson, Smith, Stevens, 
and Langevin to President Biden.
     I look forward to hearing from our witnesses how the 
Foundation is addressing the challenges of research security, 
how we can build upon Congress's previous efforts to safeguard 
America's IP, and confront the CCP's wholesale theft of our 
research institutions.
     As we make these investments, we must continue and should 
also ensure we avoid duplicating the R&D activities in other 
Federal agencies. As part of the President's recent $2.3 
trillion infrastructure proposal, more than $200 billion is 
tagged for research and development-focused activities, but 
there really isn't a clear directive for how these funds will 
be used or coordinated.
     The President is messaging this $200 billion as a way to 
compete with China, but I would argue that we will not beat 
China by copying its strategy. So strategic investments in 
technologies are important, but the potential of creating a 
one-time slush fund could end up doing more harm than good.
     I think, instead, we should look at proposals like the 
Securing American Leadership in Science and Technology Act, the 
SALSTA Act, which creates a national S&T strategy, doubles 
funding for basic research across Federal science agencies over 
10 years, or the NSF for the Future Act, which I mentioned 
previously, while not a whole-of-government approach, this bill 
has been thoughtfully developed to protect NSF's core mission 
and more than doubles the amount of research it will support 
over 5 years. Both proposals include long-term planning to make 
investments in STEM workforce, facilities, and research needed 
to develop state-of-the-art technologies. Through these 
investments, American research, American innovations, and 
American workforce will continue to lead the world.
     I look forward to working with both Chairwomen Johnson and 
Stevens, Ranking Member Lucas, to move the NSF for the Future 
Act through the Committee in a bipartisan basis and to the 
House floor in consideration. I also look forward to working 
with the leadership of the NSF and the National Science Board 
(NSB). Again, I want to thank you both for being here, for your 
leadership and for participating in this hearing. Chairwoman 
Stevens, I yield the balance of my time. Thanks so much.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Waltz follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens, for holding today's hearing, 
our first for this subcommittee in the 117th Congress. I'd also 
like to thank Dr. Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa for taking the 
time to participate. I'm looking forward to hearing your 
testimony and thoughts on where the future of the National 
Science Foundation is headed.
    Since its creation in 1950, the National Science Foundation 
(NSF) has served a unique role among Federal agencies, given 
its broad mission of ``promoting the progress of science, to 
advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to 
secure the national defense.'' In bringing this mission to 
life, the NSF supports the basic research that fuels major 
technological innovations, including smartphones, GPS, and the 
internet, creates new research disciplines, and supports and 
trains generations of scientists and engineers.
    Investments in science and technology drive economic 
growth--numerous studies have concluded that as much as 85 
percent of the long-term growth in America's economy is 
attributed to advancements in science and technology. For 
decades, America has led the world in science and technology 
innovation, but as the pace of innovation is accelerating, 
global competition has also increased, and the United States is 
losing its edge. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses an 
especially formidable and growing strategic challenge.
    Today, the United States is at an inflection point and it 
is critical for the U.S. to make strategic investments to build 
up our R&D enterprise. There is momentum on both sides of the 
aisle to make these investments, but it must be done in a 
realistic and sustained way.
    I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of the ``NSF for 
the Future Act,'' with Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas 
and Chairwoman Stevens. This bill increases funding for 
fundamental research and improves STEM education and research 
training. It creates a new directorate to move the Foundation 
forward, enabling the NSF to explore new approaches to 
accelerating science and technology into solutions to major 
challenges. Most importantly, it does not detract from the 
agency's core mission of advancing basic scientific knowledge.
    While making these investments, we must also secure 
taxpayer funded research and technologies from adversaries like 
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). While the ``NSF for the 
Future Act,'' includes some provisions to increase research 
security, I look forward to working with Chairwoman Stevens and 
Johnson to build upon these provisions to improve best 
practices and provide tougher safeguards to prevent research 
theft and foreign influence . Our federal agencies, like the 
NSF, also need the tools and authority to reject grant 
applications with known participants in malign foreign talent 
recruitment programs.
    In addition to my work on this distinguished committee, I 
serve on the Armed Services Committee and regularly receive 
intelligence on the Chinese Communist Party and how they are 
leapfrogging the United States technologically and militarily 
by intellectual property theft. We cannot allow the CCP to 
advance its authoritarianism with American taxpayer funded 
research. I am encouraged that Democrats on both committees 
share these concerns and an interest in addressing undue 
foreign influence, as illustrated in the April 9 letter from 
Chairs Johnson, Smith, Stevens and Langevin to President Biden.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how the 
Foundation is addressing the challenges of research security 
and how we can build upon Congress's previous efforts to 
safeguard America's intellectual property and confront the 
CCP's wholesale theft from our research institutions.
    As we make these investments, we should also ensure we 
avoid duplicating the R&D activities of other Federal agencies. 
As part of the President's recent $2.3 trillion infrastructure 
proposal, more than $200 billion is tagged for research and 
development-focused activities, without any clear directive for 
how these funds will be used or coordinated.
    The President is messaging this as the way compete with 
China, but I would argue that we will not beat China by copying 
its strategy. Strategic investments in technologies are 
important but creating a one-time slush fund may do more harm 
than good. Instead, we should look at proposals like the 
``Securing American Leadership in Science and Technology Act,'' 
which creates a national S&T strategy and doubles funding for 
basic research across federal science agencies over ten years.
    Or, the ``NSF For the Future Act.'' While not a whole-of-
government approach, this bill has been thoughtfully developed 
to protect NSF's core mission and more than doubles the amount 
of research it will support over 5 years. Both proposals 
include long-term planning that make investments in STEM 
workforce, world-class facilities, and the research needed to 
develop state-of-the-art technologies. Through these 
investments, American research, American innovations, and the 
American workforce will continue to lead the world.
    I look forward to working with Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking 
Member Lucas, and Chairwoman Stevens in moving the ``NSF for 
the Future Act'' through the Committee in a bipartisan process 
and to the House floor for consideration.
    In addition, I look forward to working with the leadership 
of the National Science Foundation and the National Science 
Board to meet these challenges. Thank you again to Dr. 
Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa for your leadership and for 
participating in this hearing today. I yield back the balance 
of my time.

     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. Thank you so much.
     And we know our Full Committee Chairwoman Johnson is in 
full support of today's hearing and has also been obviously a 
true leader in terms of where we're going to take the effort 
with the National Science Foundation. So as we might have 
remarks from her for the record, we will plan to submit that, 
but for now, I would like to recognize Ranking Member Mr. Lucas 
for an opening statement.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking 
Member Waltz, for holding today's hearing on the future of the 
National Science Foundation and its role in advanced American 
innovation.
     The National Science Foundation was created in 1950 at the 
start of the cold war, when America's global leadership and 
prosperity was under threat from Soviet Russia and the rise of 
communism. Congress established the NSF with a mission of 
funding basic research and STEM education to promote the 
progress of science; advance the national health, prosperity, 
welfare; and secure the national defense.
     NSF was just one part of a strategy to invest in America's 
scientific capacities. That period also saw the creation of 
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the 
Department of Energy and the national laboratories, and the 
Department of Defense laboratories. It's a research ecosystem 
that has been the envy of the world and given our Nation great 
prosperity and technological achievements.
     But 70 years later, we face a new generational threat in 
the rise of China. Communist Chinese leadership is investing 
more in research than the United States and aggressively 
pursuing technological supremacy through foreign acquisitions, 
forced technology transfers, and, frequently, cyber espionage. 
We also face enormous national and societal changes like 
cybersecurity threats, the growth of AI and automation, the 
need for exceptional computing capacity, and a climate that is 
changing.
     At the same time, science is becoming multi-disciplinary, 
which we need to address and leverage. And we need to improve 
the diversity of our scientific workforce and ensure all 
Americans have opportunities to participate and excel in STEM 
education and employment. And yet, our research enterprise 
remains one of the best in the world. We must maintain and 
strengthen the foundations that have made it so successful.
     The question before us today is how do we grow and evolve 
NSF to meet the challenges of the 21st century while preserving 
what makes NSF great? It was with these challenges and 
opportunities in mind that I was proud to join Chairwoman 
Johnson in introducing the NSF for the Future Act. Our 
legislation doubles down on basic research funding at NSF over 
the next 5 years. It focuses on building our domestic STEM 
workforce, while also creating a new directorate of NSF focused 
on science and engineering solutions. Importantly, we're 
working to improve how we apply discoveries in the lab to solve 
national and societal challenges. The NSF for the Future Act is 
the result of months of stakeholder engagement, hearings, and 
bipartisan discussions.
     Today's hearing, with the leadership of NSF and the 
National Science Board, as well as next week's hearing with the 
NSF stakeholders, continues that open, transparent, and 
inclusive process of reauthorizing the Foundation. This is how 
the legislative process should work.
     But the NSF alone can't meet the scientific challenges 
ahead. Earlier this month I introduced the Security American 
Leadership in Science and Technology Act, which comprehensively 
invests in research across many Federal agencies driving 
scientific progress. My legislation creates a national science 
and technology strategy, doubles basic research funding over 
the next 10 years, invests in our scientific infrastructure, 
improves technological transfer from lab to market, and 
protects American research from theft by foreign adversaries.
     We have a unique window of opportunity before us. There is 
momentum on both sides of the aisle in the House and the Senate 
for legislation to secure our global science and technology 
leadership. But it should be a comprehensive strategy and 
sustainable. A $100 billion slush fund for a top-down approach 
to developing technologies, as some have proposed, does not 
meet that criteria.
     Instead, America's continued scientific leadership 
requires a comprehensive and strategic approach to research and 
development, one that is responsible and sustainable. It 
requires a national collaboration and public-private 
partnerships and a focus on evolving technologies that are 
crucial to our national and economic security, like 
semiconductors and quantum sciences.
     I also agree with many of my colleagues that we need to do 
more to ensure STEM opportunities reach more Americans. We need 
to make sure investment doesn't just go to places like--no 
offense to my friends--San Francisco and Boston, or the top 10 
universities, but also in places like Stillwater, Oklahoma, and 
land-grant institutions like Oklahoma State and historically 
Black colleges and universities (HBCU) like Langston 
University. I look forward to hearing ideas about how we can 
better achieve that goal.
     I am committed to working with my colleagues on the 
Science Committee, the Senate Committees of jurisdiction, and 
stakeholders to move legislation that is as bold and as 
ambitious as the greatest scientific minds in our country. But 
we also have the responsibility to ensure our solutions offer a 
sustainable path forward for the U.S. research enterprise. 
Innovation thrives on stable and predictable funding, and our 
Nation's students, scientists, and research institutions depend 
on it.
     I thank our witnesses for being here today. I very much 
look forward to their testimony. And with that, Madam Chair, I 
yield back the balance of my time.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking Member Waltz for 
holding today's hearing on the future of the National Science 
Foundation and its role in advancing American innovation.
    The National Science Foundation was created in 1950 at the 
start of the Cold War, when America's global leadership and 
prosperity was under threat by Soviet Russia and the rise of 
communism. Congress established the NSF with a mission of 
funding basic research and STEM education to promote the 
progress of science; advance the national health, prosperity, 
and welfare; and secure the national defense.
    NSF was just one part of a strategy to invest in America's 
scientific capabilities. That period also saw the creation of 
NASA, the Department of Energy and the national laboratories, 
and Department of Defense laboratories. It is a research 
ecosystem that has been the envy of the world and given our 
nation great prosperity and technological achievements.
    But 70 years later we face a new generational threat in the 
rise of China. Communist Chinese leadership is investing more 
in research than the U.S. and aggressively pursuing 
technological supremacy through foreign acquisitions, forced 
technology transfers, and, frequently, cyber espionage. We also 
face enormous national and societal challenges, like 
cybersecurity threats, the growth of AI and automation, the 
need for exceptional computing capacity, and a climate that is 
changing.
    At the same time, science is becoming more multi-
disciplinary, which we need to address and leverage. And we 
need to improve the diversity of our scientific workforce and 
ensure all Americans have opportunities to participate and 
excel in STEM education and employment. And yet, our research 
enterprise remains one of the best in the world, and we must 
maintain and strengthen the foundations that have made it so 
successful.
    The question before us today is how do we grow and evolve 
NSF to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, while 
preserving what makes NSF great? It was with these challenges 
and opportunities in mind that I was proud to join Chairwoman 
Johnson in introducing the NSF for the Future Act.
    Our legislation doubles down on basic research funding at 
NSF over the next 5 years. It focuses on building our domestic 
STEM workforce, while also creating a new directorate of NSF 
focused on science and engineering solutions. Importantly, 
we're working to improve how we apply discoveries in the lab to 
solving national and societal challenges. The NSF for the 
Future Act is the result of months of stakeholder engagement, 
hearings, and bipartisan discussions.
    Today's hearing with the leadership of NSF and the National 
Science Board, as well as next week's hearing with NSF 
stakeholders, continues that open, transparent, and inclusive 
process of reauthorizing the Foundation. This is how the 
legislative process should work.
    But the NSF alone can't meet the scientific challenges 
ahead. Earlier this month I reintroduced the Security American 
Leadership in Science and Technology Act, which comprehensively 
invests in research across the many federal agencies driving 
scientific progress. My legislation creates a national science 
and technology strategy, doubles basic research funding over 
the next 10 years, invests in our scientific infrastructure, 
improves technology transfer from lab to market, and protects 
American research from theft by foreign adversaries.
    We have a unique window of opportunity before us. There is 
momentum on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate for 
legislation to secure our global science and technology 
leadership. But it should be comprehensive, strategic, and 
sustainable. A $100 billion slush fund for a top-down approach 
to developing technologies, as some have proposed, does not 
meet that criteria.
    Instead, America's continued scientific leadership requires 
a comprehensive and strategic approach to research and 
development-one that is responsible and sustainable. It 
requires national collaboration and public-private partnerships 
and a focus on evolving technologies that are crucial to our 
national and economic security, like semiconductors and quantum 
sciences.
    I also agree with many of my colleagues that we need to do 
more to ensure STEM opportunities reach more Americans. We need 
to make sure investment doesn't just happen in places like San 
Francisco and Boston, or at the top 10 universities, but also 
in places like Stillwater, Oklahoma and land-grant institutions 
like Oklahoma State or Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities like Langston University. I look forward to 
hearing ideas about how we can better achieve that goal.

     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Lucas. And if there are 
Members who wish to submit additional opening statements, your 
statements will be added to the record at this point.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking Member Waltz, for 
holding this important hearing. And good morning to our 
esteemed witnesses.
    Last month, I was joined by my colleague Ranking Member 
Lucas, and Representatives Stevens and Waltz, in introducing 
the ``National Science Foundation for the Future Act.''
    When I started planning for this legislation, I was open to 
big ideas. It would be the first comprehensive reauthorization 
of NSF in a decade. It was an opportunity for Congress, working 
with the stakeholder community, to take a step back and 
consider what NSF has achieved in the last 70 years, and what 
we want it to achieve in the coming decades.
    It was also an opportunity for us to think differently 
about who counts as a stakeholder. I am quite confident that 
the bill we introduced reflects input from the most diverse 
group of institutions, organizations, and individuals to ever 
have a seat at the table for an NSF reauthorization bill. And I 
am very proud of that fact. If we are to be more inclusive in 
our research enterprise, as we must be to remain competitive, 
we must also be more inclusive in our policy-making for science 
and technology.
    As we were beginning to develop our own legislation, Leader 
Schumer announced his proposal to create a new technology 
directorate at NSF focused on a discrete list of critical 
technologies. Even though the details would not emerge for 
months, his announcement further inspired us to think big. We 
started from first principles, by asking what problem are we 
trying to solve and what is the best policy for making 
meaningful progress.
    After going through a months-long bipartisan process of 
engagement with the stakeholder community, we decided on a 
somewhat different approach to the creation of a new 
directorate. Specifically, we have proposed a ``Science and 
Engineering Solutions Directorate.'' I believe the competitive 
and security threat from China is real. I also believe the 
solutions-driven approach we take in the NSF for the Future Act 
offers the nation a win-win science and innovation strategy. 
History teaches us that problem-solving can itself drive the 
innovation that in turn spawns new industries and achieves 
competitive advantage.
    An introduced bill is still early in the process to 
enactment. We are holding this hearing and another next week in 
addition to our ongoing informal dialogue with stakeholders. 
Further, my intent is to proceed through both subcommittee and 
full committee markup to maximize Member participation.
    In the meantime, I invite all my colleagues to cosponsor 
the NSF for the Future Act. And let me say this to any of my 
colleagues who might feel conflicted about cosponsoring both 
this Committee's bill and the Endless Frontier Act. Don't feel 
that way. The two bills have very different scopes, overlapping 
only in the creation of a new directorate at NSF. I look 
forward to continuing the discussion about the future of NSF in 
the context of a comprehensive NSF authorization.
    Dr. Panchanathan and Dr. Ochoa, I am very happy with 
President Biden's commitment to science as reflected in the 
fiscal year 2022 budget request. I look forward to your 
testimony today, including the details of NSF's request and 
your thoughts on the future of the Foundation.
    I yield back.

     Chairwoman Stevens. At this time I'd also like to 
introduce our incredible witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. 
Sethuraman Panchanathan. Dr. Panchanathan is a computer 
scientist and engineer currently serving as the 15th Director 
of the National Science Foundation, a position he has held 
since June of 2020. Prior to his service as Director, he was 
Executive Vice President of the Arizona State University 
Knowledge Enterprise where he was also Chief Research and 
Innovation Officer. Prior to joining the National Science 
Foundation, Dr. Panchanathan served on the National Science 
Board as Chair of the Committee on Strategy and as a member of 
the External Engagement and National Science and Engineering 
Policy Committees. Additionally, he served on the National 
Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was 
Chair of the Council on Research of the Association of Public 
Land-Grant Universities.
     Our second witness is Dr. Ellen Ochoa. Dr. Ochoa is 
currently the Chair of the National Science Board, a position 
to which she was elected in 2020, having previously served as 
Vice Chair from 2018 to 2020. Dr. Ochoa retired from Federal 
service in 2018 as Director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, 
which leads the human space flight enterprise for the Nation. 
Dr. Ochoa is the first Hispanic female astronaut and served as 
a crew member on four space shuttle missions in a variety of 
roles, including leading onboard scientific activities and 
serving as flight engineer during the launch, rendezvous, and 
entry phases of the mission. She began her career as a research 
engineer at Sandia National Laboratories and NASA's Ames 
Research Center.
     As our witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes 
of testimony. Your written testimony, which both of your 
written testimonies were incredible, will be included into the 
record for the hearing. When you've completed your spoken 
testimony, we'll begin questions, and each Member will have 5 
minutes to question the panel.
     We will start with Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you.

           TESTIMONY OF DR. SETHURAMAN PANCHANATHAN,

             DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you so much, and good afternoon 
and good morning, wherever you are. Chairwoman Johnson, 
Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking Member Lucas, Ranking Member Waltz, 
and Members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to appear 
before you today to discuss how NSF can accelerate innovation 
at speed and scale for the benefit of all Americans.
     I would like to start by thanking this Committee for the 
strong support for NSF, which has enabled remarkable benefits 
for our Nation. I would also like to thank Congress for the 
funding provided in the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan. 
The pandemic has had a profound impact on the research 
community. NSF will invest these funds wisely, helping the most 
severely impacted and most vulnerable.
     For over 7 decades, NSF has played a leading role in 
building U.S. leadership in science, engineering, and 
technology, and has an incredibly strong record of investing in 
the brightest minds and outstanding ideas. The internet, 3-D 
printing, the economic theory underpinning spectrum auctioning 
and kidney exchanges, companies like QUALCOMM and even PCR 
(polymerase chain reaction) testing, which has been critical to 
the fight against COVID-19, are just a few examples of the 
outcomes and benefits of NSF investments.
     For the first time in decades, the United States' 
leadership in science and engineering is facing intense global 
competition. Other nations, especially China, are investing 
vast resources in basic research and industries of the future 
like artificial intelligence. Advances in technologies like AI, 
quantum information science, and even the technologies we 
cannot yet conceive of will influence the global balance of 
power for generations. The United States needs to take a 
comprehensive approach to R&D investment that brings science, 
engineering, and technology innovations to market much more 
rapidly. We must commit ourselves to this challenge so that we 
are leaping forward and ensuring that the race for global 
leadership is not even close. Doing so requires IT integrating 
curiosity-driven research and use-inspired outcomes.
     That is why we have crafted a bold mission for the agency. 
First, we must advance the frontiers of science and engineering 
research into the future. Second, we must ensure accessibility 
and inclusivity in STEM. There is tremendous untapped potential 
throughout our Nation. Every demographic and socioeconomic 
group in every geographic region is full of talent and must be 
inspired and given the opportunity to participate in STEM. 
Finally, America must lead by our actions and our values. We 
will work with like-minded partners and we will take the 
necessary steps to safeguard taxpayer investments.
     The foundation for this vision is partnerships. They are 
powerful tools to leverage resources and deliver more impactful 
research. NSF has a history of cultivating and fostering 
environments where partnerships thrive. The American Jobs Plan 
and the fiscal year 2022 discretionary request propose strong 
investments in research and development. This includes a $50 
billion investment in NSF, creating a new technology 
directorate and a 20 percent increase to NSF's budget in fiscal 
year 2022. This increase would strengthen NSF's ability to 
champion the basic research that is critical to our future.
     In addition, we know that our opportunities for 
translational impact in all science and engineering fields that 
hold enormous potential benefits. The proposed directorate will 
be a crosscutting platform that leverages, energizes, and 
rapidly brings these innovations to market. NSF will not 
abandon our current mission or be redundant with other mission 
agencies. We all know we have a large gap in bringing fantastic 
innovative ideas to market in society. This is our opportunity 
to rapidly change that.
     The budget request also invests in increasing the 
participation of underrepresented groups in science and 
engineering, which is exceedingly important for our Nation. NSF 
greatly appreciates the strong support for the agency's current 
mission that is evident throughout the NSF for the Future Act. 
The focus on STEM education, broadening participation, 
strengthening fundamental research, and intensifies--
intensifying our focus on innovation to address urgent needs 
aligns well with the agency's vision for the future. We look 
forward to working with the Committee as it progresses.
     Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. 
With the continued support of this Committee and Congress, NSF 
will bolster fundamental research across all fields of science 
and engineering and unleash rapid innovations, securing our 
future for generations to come. Thank you so much for this 
opportunity.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Panchanathan follows:]

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     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. And with that, we'll 
recognize Dr. Ochoa.

                 TESTIMONY OF DR. ELLEN OCHOA,

                 CHAIR, NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD

     Dr. Ochoa. Thank you so much. Chairwoman Stevens, Ranking 
Member Waltz, Members of the Subcommittee, and Full Committee 
Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak with you as Chair of the National Science 
Board.
     U.S. leadership in science and engineering has shaped our 
way of life, economic prosperity, and national security for 7 
decades. When my predecessor testified before you last year, 
she said, ``The past has shown that investment in basic 
research now will give us the keys to meeting the security, 
health, and economic challenges of the future, challenges we 
know will arise but whose nature we cannot predict.'' How 
prescient those words proved to be. Thanks in no small part to 
the Federal investment, we're beginning to emerge from a 
devastating pandemic.
     Urgent trends led the Board to develop a vision for what 
the United States needs to do to remain preeminent. Our Vision 
2030 report provides a roadmap for reinventing our science and 
engineering enterprise and ways to build on NSF's strengths and 
success. The time is right to invest in science, technology, 
and talent at the scale of our Nation's challenges, and NSF is 
the right agency for the job.
     I'll focus on two priorities that we all share: delivering 
benefits from research and developing domestic STEM talent. 
First, we must speed the path from discovery to innovation and 
impact. In Vision 2030, NSB highlighted the need for a new 
structure to magnify the translation of discoveries. The Board 
is gratified by the confidence placed in NSF by Congress and 
the Administration to expand the agency's role in delivering 
benefits through technology and translation, along with 
increased investment in fundamental research.
     As there are now multiple proposals, the Board offers 
these principles for your consideration. We believe any new 
directorate should work synergistically with the existing ones, 
strengthen NSF's basic research mission, and create robust 
feedback loops to couple its work to the current discipline-
oriented directorates. A structure that's clear and consistent 
with existing practices, including maintaining the Board's 
governance role, will help ensure its crosscutting nature. 
Continued programmatic agility will be crucial.
     And finally, funding for any new directorate will need to 
include support for people and operations. In that vein, the 
Board appreciates that theNSF for the Future Act includes 
provisions that would help connect the curiosity-driven and 
use-inspired research across the agency, creating opportunities 
to address societal problems. We appreciate the flexibility for 
the agency to experiment with new models, spending mechanisms, 
and nimble processes. And we applaud the bill's focus on talent 
development, especially diverse domestic talent.
     And this leads to our second shared priority. Talent is 
the treasure on which the Nation's prosperity, health, and 
security depend. For the United States to be a STEM powerhouse, 
we must capitalize on talent in every State and recruit the 
missing millions from across the many dimensions of diversity. 
That's why the NSB applauds the legislation's support for 
networks and partnerships that scale up effective practices in 
broadening participation. The Board also appreciates financial 
support directly to students such as through NSF graduate 
research fellowships, which is critical to retention.
     NSF is only one piece. Much more needs to be done across 
the entire ecosystem to provide more onramps into the workforce 
and improve the attractiveness, equity, and inclusivity of STEM 
careers. And we must improve our Nation's K through 12 STEM 
education. The Board believes there's an opportunity to support 
broad adoption and use of NSF-funded STEM education research 
where it's needed most, in classrooms.
     To conclude, NSB is excited to partner with the NSF 
Director, with Congress, and the Administration to realize our 
vision for the future, one where NSF continues to drive U.S. 
innovation and delivers benefits to all Americans. Thank you 
for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your 
questions.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Ochoa follows:]

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     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you both. And at this point we 
will begin our first round of questions, and the Chair will 
recognize herself for 5 minutes.
     Dr. Panchanathan, if you don't mind, could you just give 
us your best definition of basic scientific research and to the 
ability you are able to, could you give us the percentage of 
NSF grant funding that goes toward basic scientific research if 
you happen to have that figure available?
     Dr. Panchanathan. So what is basic research is not 
necessarily anything that has an objective that we keep in mind 
as we are investigating the fundamental theories and 
fundamental approaches of any branch of science or engineering. 
And that we're able to do because it is a curiosity-driven 
approach, it's a discovery-based approach and that is purely 
explorative in nature. That's what we would term as basic 
research.
     If you look at NSF--and I often define it as the DNA of 
NSF being these twin strands of curiosity-driven, discovery-
based exploratory research, highly synergistic with use-
inspired solutions focused translations or innovations. These 
are highly synergistic and symbiotic. Sometimes it's even hard 
to peel them apart. In some cases it's obvious. In some cases 
they are so intertwined that it's even hard to peel them apart.
     So I would say a majority of the focus of NSF is on 
fundamental research. And some of that do end up becoming 
outcome-oriented results through programs and projects surely, 
but some see them over decades, some see them even over a few 
years. And I'm happy to give you examples. In the interest of 
time----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Well, yes, let me----
     Dr. Panchanathan. [continuing]. I'm happy to----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes, and I'll jump back in here 
because I--as a former NSF applicant myself, right, you know, 
we get into this how do we get the best proposals? How do we 
get to the pathway of getting funded? I was an applicant but I 
didn't get funded, right? That's not my question. But what 
leads to the pathway of getting an NSF grant? What goes into 
that? And also evaluating--and I'm going to throw in two more--
and Dr. Ochoa, if you want to jump in--is what leads to the 
pathway of getting funded, and looking at if we're only funding 
a certain percentage, what are we not funding and why and 
should we? And then, three, we can't ignore the reality that 
this pandemic has really impeded our research endeavors in 
terms of being in the lab and accessing equipment. The NIH 
(National Institutes of Health) has talked about billions of 
dollars of lost scientific--or lost research funding from their 
side of it, and I don't know if we've experienced that with the 
NSF. So if we could address those components here, that would 
be really helpful as well. Thank you.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you very much. I will try to 
quickly address this. When you asked for a presentation of the 
previous question, I just want to make sure that I laid it out 
clearly. Sixty-four percent is basic research, 10 percent is 
applied research, and so I just want to make sure that you had 
those numbers with you.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes.
     Dr. Panchanathan. So, you know, you brought up the issue 
of, you know, how might we take the COVID situation, and there 
are multiple questions in your main question, so I don't know 
whether we'll have time to deal with all of that, but I'm happy 
to come back and talk about this----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Sure.
     Dr. Panchanathan [continuing]. And to make sure that we 
are comprehensive in our response.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes.
     Dr. Panchanathan. So on the COVID response, we have put a 
lot of effort--and I will elaborate that in terms of specific 
details, but I will tell you that this has been a huge priority 
for us in terms of ensuring that our scientists, researchers, 
research, innovations, and innovators are fully supported in 
two categories: those who have been disproportionately 
affected, those institutions that have also been 
disproportionately affected, individuals and institutions, and 
we are putting a heavy emphasis on that to ensure that we are 
taking care of them.
     I'm happy to provide more details in response to your 
question----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Sure. And so--and certainly the 
scientific research went forward.
     And Dr. Jim Baird, a Committee Member, and I were really 
pleased to get signed into law at the end of 2019 in the 116th 
session of Congress the Building Blocks of STEM Act, which 
places an emphasis on early childhood education, a requirement 
of the National Science Foundation to begin funding, you know, 
STEM grants with a particular emphasis on young girls. I know 
you've already been doing a few of those grants, but certainly 
would like to continue to achieve that equity and inclusion 
measure with STEM. And your awareness and understanding of that 
is highly recognized.
     So I know I've got about 20 seconds left, but, Dr. Ochoa, 
did you want to chime in on anything that we just briefly 
mentioned before I cede back my time?
     Dr. Ochoa. Thank you. Talking about the pathways to 
funding, you know, the Board has a role in the oversight of the 
merit review process that the National Science Foundation does. 
And of course all those proposals need to address intellectual 
merit, as well as broader impacts, which are how this research 
or the activity that the principal investigator (PI) does, you 
know, impacts society. And it can be through the research 
itself, what it's actually working on. That may contribute to a 
societal problem. It can be through activities that are 
directly related like including students or early career 
scientists in the project.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes.
     Dr. Ochoa. And it can even be through ones that are 
complementary, so you might have an educational workshop for 
high school students. So those are some of the things that go 
along with--that people can propose as part of their overall 
pathway to funding that is something that the Board looks at 
how well the Foundation has been able to do that in their 
process.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great, thank you so much. And with 
that, I'm going to recognize Mr. Waltz for 5 minutes of 
questioning if he is here. Yes, there you are. All right.
     Mr. Waltz. I am. We're on the move, but thank you.
     Dr. Panchanathan, the NSF for the Future Act codifies your 
Office for Research Security. I had the opportunity to speak 
with her. Unfortunately, she is an army of two and with an 
overwhelming problem. The IG (Inspector General) office is 
indicating they've had 1,000 percent increase in referrals from 
the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) on research fraud and 
theft, particularly as I mentioned in my own opening statement, 
from Chinese government-backed researchers. In fact, I'm on my 
way to University of Florida. They just had an indictment there 
where a researcher had access for years to the world's largest 
supercomputer. As soon as they launched the investigation, it 
crashed their computer systems and he fled to Beijing. The 
problem truly is pervasive.
     Thank you for working with us, Chairwoman Stevens and the 
Committee staff. The NSF for the Future Act increases from 2 to 
5, and those FTEs (full-time equivalents), I still think that 
is just really scratching the--really is the tip of the iceberg 
of the problem. My concern is you're looking at either doubling 
or in President Biden's infrastructure plan looking at a 
tenfold increase in the amount of funding that will flow to the 
NSF.
     What's your vision and if you could give me specifics, 
please, I'd appreciate it, your visions for securing this 
research? And I fully appreciate and fully support the 
additional resources. I want to be clear there. But if we're 
only scratching the tip of the iceberg with what we have now, 
you go to a tenfold increase, how do you obligate it, how long 
does it take you to obligate it, and then how do you secure it 
going forward?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you so much for the question. So, 
first of all, you know, the security issue, you know, there's--
this is an evolving issue, and we need to make sure that we are 
balancing our approach and so we are making sure that we are 
putting the right balance in place.
     So NSF--I want to assure you that NSF is taking this very 
seriously and devoting resources to it. You pointed out the--
and I'm so grateful to the NSF for the Future Act, providing 
additional resources. And this is something that we really 
appreciate that Congress has identified. Identifying the 
problem and assigning resources to this is exceedingly 
important for that.
     And you also rightly pointed out that we appointed a Chief 
Research Officer for Research Security, Strategy, and Policy, 
CRSSP. She's working hard but not alone with a small group but 
in partnership with inside the agency as you know in all the 
directorates working in partnership with other people who are 
also lending support and a hand to make sure that we are doing 
this in a comprehensive way, not just centralized in one 
location in that office alone because we want to make sure that 
this works in its fullest form.
     We are also working in partnership with the IG, and you 
also pointed that out, and that's another thing that we want to 
make sure that happens.
     I want to say that i this process, being an AI researcher 
myself, the analytic tools have become exceedingly powerful in 
ensuring that----
     Mr. Waltz. Right.
     Dr. Panchanathan [continuing]. We're able to bring this. 
And however much you provide human element to this, technology 
can provide us a lot of insights and early warnings and 
indications that can be had.
     Mr. Waltz. If I could just dive in there, I appreciate 
that and I think that is fantastic and the way they're able to 
overlay grant applications where they're reporting zero foreign 
income or zero participation in talents but yet those same 
researchers are appearing in Chinese or Iranian scientific 
papers and able to overlay that, but they're also reporting 
that they just can't possibly follow up on the vast amount of 
leads that that technology is generating. So I appreciate that 
emphasis and we'll continue to emphasize that, giving them 
tools, for example, to be able to request on demand and see the 
actual contracts that these researchers are entering. But with 
40,000 researchers and 12,000 institutions, I think we need 
continue to have a lot of emphasis.
     In my time remaining, Dr. Ochoa, you stated that the 
Vision 2030 report is a guide to where U.S. science and 
engineering enterprise must be in 10 years. And given your 
experience in developing the roadmap, if you could just submit 
for the record since I'm about out of time your opinion on a 
proposal that we've included in the Securing American 
Leadership in Science and Technology Act, the SALSTA Act, to 
develop a national S&T strategy and quadrennial review like 
what DOD (Department of Defense) undertakes, if you could 
comment for the record on that. And I may have a follow-up with 
you on that to see a process for a whole-of-government strategy 
for S&T that might benefit U.S. competitiveness. I think we can 
do more on the strategy side of this across the government, and 
I would appreciate your input.
     Thank you so much, Chairwoman. I yield my time.
     Dr. Ochoa. Thank you. And we talked in our report about 
supporting, again, both sort of the individual creativity, 
curiosity-driven research, along with an increased emphasis on 
delivering benefits. And on that side, a lot of it does have to 
do with there are particular topics, industries, areas of 
research that are important to the economy and for which the 
government as a whole is interested in.
     And NSF and the Board is very interested in making sure 
that it's a partnership, a partnership across Federal agencies, 
and of bringing in many other partners as well, obviously, 
academia, which is where NSF has so many deep relationships, 
and private industry, and even other partners like foundations. 
So NSF wants to work with mission-driven Federal agencies. 
Obviously, one role that the Office of Science and Technology 
Policy (OSTP) have is to really look across those agencies and 
help ensure that there is an overlap and that there are ties 
and hooks between what NSF is doing in the basic research area 
and how that may play into the missions of the--of other 
Federal agencies.
     Mr. Waltz. Dr. Ochoa, I know I'm out of time, I've 
exceeded, but, Dr. Ochoa, if you could submit for the record 
specifically your opinion on that proposal in the SALSTA Act 
for a quadrennial review, which is similar to DOD's process, 
I'd love to have a follow-up with you on that.
     Dr. Ochoa. OK, absolutely. It's not something specifically 
we've talked about with the Board, but we can share our 
thoughts.
     Mr. Waltz. That would be great. Thank you so much, 
Chairwoman.
     Dr. Ochoa. Yes.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Great, thank you. And with that, the 
Chair would like to recognize Mr. Tonko for 5 minutes for 
questions.
     Mr. Tonko. Hey, thank you, Madam Chair, for holding 
today's critically important hearing. I'm looking forward to 
working with you and the rest of the Members of the Research 
and Technology Subcommittee this Congress to advance 
legislation that will help harness the power of our Nation's 
research enterprise to propel innovation and make certain that 
we have a skilled workforce ready to meet our lofty goals for 
addressing climate change and fostering an innovation economy.
     In New York's capital region, which I represent, it's 
known for being a hub of STEM innovation thanks to the 
incredible work of instructors, researchers, and its scientists 
at our world-class colleges and universities. Researchers in my 
district have made remarkable strides advancing work across the 
STEM fields in recent years, not only breaking new ground in 
our scientific understanding but also inspiring and teaching 
the next generation of great scientists, engineers, and 
visionaries.
     I appreciate both of our witnesses today for joining us 
this morning and to discuss the role of NSF in these efforts 
and how Congress can best support the Foundation moving 
forward.
     So one of the major discussions before this Committee is 
how to best support the idea of expanding the mission of the 
National Science Foundation to take on a strategic effort to 
translate the results of basic research into solutions to some 
of our most pressing societal and existential challenges.
     So, Dr. Panchanathan, in the creation of any new 
directorate at NSF, how will you ensure that researchers from 
all disciplines will be able to apply for and receive funding 
to help define and pursue a wide variety of research agendas 
and aims?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you, Representative Tonko, for 
your question. So, when you're thinking about this directorate, 
we know we have strong directorates in various scientific 
disciplines. We all know that at NSF. This directorate that we 
are proposing is actually a crosscut. It is not an independent 
directorate but a crosscut, a crosscut that leverages what is 
happening currently in the science directorates but also 
energizes what is happening in the science directorates and is 
able to take out what is happening in the science directorate 
at speed and at scale so that it might benefit society and the 
economy at a very rapid rate.
     This is what we need today when you look at our 
competition like China, that tight integration. Again, I go 
back to the DNA example. The tight integration of the 
technology outcomes and societal outcomes and the scientific 
inspirations that are--that it is drawing from and contributing 
to. That is how we visualize this.
     So to your point, absolutely this is going to be from 
every discipline. You're going to look at every possible avenue 
of innovation being translated for the benefit of society and 
the economy.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And, Dr. Ochoa, how do you think a 
new NSF directorate would impact NSF's mission with regard to a 
full range of research, including curiosity-driven research and 
use-inspired and translational research?
     Dr. Ochoa. Well, we talked, as I mentioned, the features 
that we felt was important. I'll probably just be copying what 
Dr. Panchanathan said, which is we wanted to make sure it 
wasn't siloed, you know, where you create a stovepipe where, 
you know, over here is a separate directorate that's really 
looking at delivering benefits. This is something that has 
happened across the discipline directorates that already exist, 
and so any new structure that really focuses on delivering 
benefits should be crosscutting. And that's also why we 
emphasize so not only the integration across the directorate 
but the governance model, again, making sure that you don't 
have a separate governance model because that would only 
potentially enhance the stovepipe area.
     And then flexibility, I think one of the things that has 
always been a highlight of NSF is they have the ability to 
invest all across the disciplines but particularly as new and 
interesting, promising topics come up. And I think that's one 
of the highlights of the new directorate and the whole agency 
as well.
     Mr. Tonko. Well, with my time left I'd like to ask both of 
you if you could share your thoughts on NSF's role in advancing 
research to solve some of the biggest societal challenges, 
including climate change, the opioid crisis, and other large-
scale multifaceted challenges if you would, please.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you again for the question. So, 
you know, NSF has got these multiple directorates, and usually, 
these challenges, the opioid epidemic challenge, the climate 
challenge actually draws from all areas of what we're investing 
in contrary to people--people may think that it is in one 
discipline. It's in fact the best solutions are found at the 
confluence of disciplines.
     Let's take climate challenge for example. It is an 
engineering problem, it's a computing problem in the modeling 
sense. It is a geo problem, it is a bio problem, it is a 
mathematical physical senses problem, and most importantly, it 
is a social behavioral science and--problem, too, because 
without that, we cannot have comprehensive and complete 
solutions to this challenge.
     So what we're trying to do at NSF--and that's where NSF is 
very unique as an agency because we can bring all of the assets 
across disciplines in order to find real solutions for the 
problem at hand.
     And so for the rest of the time I would like to yield to 
Dr. Ochoa.
     Dr. Ochoa. In addition to what Dr. Panchanathan just said, 
obviously, there are other Federal agencies that invest in 
science and are trying to understand some of these issues in 
particular when you think about climate research and climate 
science. So Dr. Panchanathan has put so much effort in the last 
several months where he's been Director to reaching out to the 
leads of Federal agencies and talking about where can they 
partner even closer. Obviously, NSF has always partnered with 
other agencies, but really bringing it to a very strategic 
level, maybe above the level of, you know, just certain 
research topics. And I think that's a big part of going forward 
and how NSF can be successful in addressing society challenges, 
marrying up their basic research mission and their deep reach 
into the higher education institutions, close to 2,000 of them 
across the country, and bringing that to solving these 
problems.
     Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield back. 
I'm sorry I went well over time----
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. Well, we're--you know, 
we're packing in the questions. I think we're each doing 5 
minutes, sometimes we do a second round, but this is heavy 
stuff.
     And with that, we're going to recognize Ranking Member 
Lucas for his 5 minutes. Thank you. Thanks for being here.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman. Absolutely.
     And to both our panelists, as you know, the United States 
and China approach funding research and development very 
differently. The U.S. Government has traditionally focused on 
making investments in basic research, which leads to unexpected 
outcomes that have been adopted and developed by U.S. industry. 
We also have diverse mission agencies that focus on more than 
transitional or applied research in energy, transportation, and 
national security, for example.
     Would you both agree that the U.S. model has been 
successful, and, with that answer, I'd ask you to follow up 
with, and as we consider updates for the research enterprise, 
what's been successful? What should be protected?
     Dr. Panchanathan. So thank you for the----
     Mr. Lucas. Either one first.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Dr. Ochoa, would you like to take this 
one first?
     Dr. Ochoa. Please go ahead, Dr. Panchanathan.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you.
     So, Representative Lucas, you are absolutely correct that 
there is a lot of applied research that happens through the 
mission agencies. But at the same time, the innovation that is 
happening and emerging out of the work that is in the various 
directorates of NSF is also being translated, but not enough is 
being translated at speed and scale. There is so--there are so 
many innovations that NSF researchers are bringing out. Not all 
of them are necessarily aligned with the mission agencies I 
know. For example, if you take energy--clean energy 
technologies, clearly, there's opportunity for partnership at 
the Department of Energy.
     If you look at Google as an example, in 1994 we had a 
proposal from two graduate students who talked about a digital 
library project as a proposal. Three, 4 years later when a 
final report was submitted on that project, they said we 
founded a company called Google. Now, here is an example of not 
even a long-term scientifically based innovation that has 
translated into market. And there are many, many examples of 
that. But even the near term there are examples like that.
     These do not necessarily fall under any specific agency 
because NSF promotes science and technology and engineering 
talent across all disciplines. And there is so much talent and 
ideas that are out there that are not getting the full 
attention and investment that is needed so that they can 
exercise into these thousands and thousands of new companies 
and ventures and industry products.
     This is what I think I call strengthening at speed and 
scale, and we need to do this urgently because when we talk 
about our competitor China, we need to make sure that we are 
taking full advantage of all of these ideas that is emerging 
out of our research labs so that our competitors don't get hold 
of those and then build those translational pipeline so that 
they end up in accruing the benefits. This is why it is an all-
of-the-above strategy, what is happening in the other agencies, 
absolutely.
     But what is missed right now is what I think we should 
focus on in addition to empowering what is already happening so 
that we get an unbelievable rate of progress and a scale of 
progress that is absolutely needed urgently here in our Nation.
     Mr. Lucas. That's a good point, and I appreciate exactly 
what you said but to note--and you can call this an editorial 
comment if you want. I'm a little concerned about some of the 
proposals from the Senate and the Administration which call for 
massive one-time money dumps for technology research and what 
this might do to our research enterprise over the long haul. 
Can you both discuss the importance of long-term, sustained, 
and stable funding for basic research and the damage that 
volatile funding patterns can do, just the general principle 
about why is it important to have stable, consistent, long-term 
funding streams?
     Dr. Ochoa. Well, I'll go ahead and I'll talk a little bit 
about the model and then hopefully that will lead a little bit 
into funding and then I'll hand it back to you, Dr. 
Panchanathan.
     Just talking about what has made us successful but perhaps 
what we've gotten a little bit complacent on and--which is why 
we are trying to really emphasize this on the Board is, No. 1, 
our lead in fundamental research is very important, and the way 
that we carry it out, with openness, transparency where we use 
constructive peer-review. So we're really getting quality 
science products out. This has been the foundation of 
innovation and will continue to be so in the future.
     Second, we have a combination of supporting individual 
creativity in terms of research, as well as the ability to have 
these government-university-business partnerships, this whole 
ecosystem that supports science and engineering. And I think 
that's a real strength of the United States.
     And then finally, one of our biggest strengths is our 
people, our diversity of people, of institutions, and of 
perspectives. And this is one area that we think we have become 
somewhat complacent. We're not reaching out geographically, 
demographically in many ways to bring these people into science 
and engineering, and we're not just talking at the research and 
development end but also the skilled technical workforce that 
is so important to our economy.
     So as we look at increased investment in all of this, I 
think one big key--and I will let Dr. Panchanathan talk more 
about it--is partnerships, partnerships, again, across Federal 
agencies, with members of industry, with foundations. And that 
is one way that you can sort of monitor this funding, the 
change in funding is to have other partners who are also 
investing with you.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you so much. If I could add, I 
just wanted to say that, you know, whether it is the American 
Jobs Plan or the fiscal year 2022 budget request, the 
legislations that you talk about, Representative Lucas, I 
cannot agree with you more that sustained, long-term funding is 
important, and that is what I see as how it is being talked 
about as I see it.
     But to add to what Dr. Ochoa said, I think at the end of 
the day we want the sustainability of many of these initiatives 
through partnerships. And this is something that I'm a huge fan 
of and I've been working hard since taking over this role is 
talking to many, many industry counterparts, many, many 
Foundation counterparts, as well as cities and States having 
come from a small state like Arizona and having seen firsthand 
what a partnership between a university, the city, the county, 
the State, and more can do to build robust economic development 
activities and sustaining things over time. This is an all-of-
government approach and all-of-partnership-based approach that 
requires to be put together in addition to sustained efforts in 
terms of ensuring that the support is there for not only 
bolstering our curiosity-driven research but also ensuring that 
that research outcome is taken out rapidly at speed and scale 
for the benefit of humanity and society.
     Mr. Lucas. I would just note, Chairman, as I yield back 
the time that's now expired, I don't want to create a situation 
where we have a feast of resources that create the 
infrastructure, the expectation then that we cannot sustain and 
disappoint a generation of researchers. I'm old enough to 
remember what we did in the effort to go to the moon and how 
all that was almost forgotten by the American public and 
Congress in the aftermath, very traumatic for a lot of 
brilliant people with careers at stake.
     I yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes. Yes. And it's certainly great and 
refreshing to be able to talk about investing in our scientific 
research agenda and responsibly thinking about the plus-ups 
that we want to make to an agency, an independent Federal 
agency such as the NSF, unlike, unfortunately, some of what we 
got from the previous Administration, which was $500 million 
cuts here and there. And we saw this obviously to the NSF and 
to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) coming 
out of the previous White House. So it's a great day when we 
can talk about funding.
     And with that, I would like to turn it over to my 
colleague and friend Dr. Bill Foster.
     Mr. Foster. So I'm on earlier than I had anticipated, but 
I can handle it.
     Well, you know, as the only Ph.D. physicist and practicing 
research scientist in Congress, I sort of serve as a lightning 
rod for the enthusiasms and the concerns of the scientific 
community. You know, there is obviously a lot of excitement 
about this point in time when we may be approaching a Sputnik-
like moment for a real increase in the budget but also 
significant concerns.
     You know, even prior to COVID the House Science Committee 
was entertaining dueling proposals to double the research and 
education budgets in this country. And on the campaign trail 
President Biden was sort of alternating between advocating for 
doubling or tripling the scientific research budgets.
     And in Congress I see our main challenge right now is to 
capture this real bipartisan appetite and enthusiasm for a real 
increase in research budgets because, you know, as has been 
mentioned, for the last decade we have struggled to maintain 
even NSF budgets and scientific budgets generally that were 
even flat after inflation.
     You know, the NSF has a founding document, sort of a 
spiritual guide, the Endless Frontier report by Vannevar Bush 
and others that has some ageless and wise advice that has 
really stood the test of time. And in its discussion on 
industrial research, it leads with a paragraph consisting of a 
single sentence. And that sentence is, quote, ``The simplest 
and most effective way in which government can strengthen 
industrial research is to support basic research and to develop 
scientific talent.'' OK. That's worth thinking about that 
sentence hard and rereading the Endless Frontier report for 
those who haven't done it recently.
     You know, it did not ask Congress to micromanage areas of 
scientific focus. It did not ask Congress or really the NSF to 
pick commercial winners and losers. You know, NSF and our 
country has benefited tremendously from that clear vision of an 
agency dedicated to pure scientific research and scientific 
education guided by scientists and engineers on advisory 
councils such as the National Science Board and the OSTP.
     You know, there's a lot of concern right now about 
scientists who worry that a new technology directorate or more 
extreme proposals, along with an increased focus on commercial 
and applied research, could represent a potentially damaging 
distraction from NSF's core mission. You know, I'm frankly 
worried about a future in which you and your successors will be 
brought before Congress and asked, you know, what products did 
you bring to market for us this year when the real answer is 
that these products will only appear on the market many decades 
from now. In fact, you know, one of the biggest gifts that 
Congress could give to China would be to subject the NSF to 
congressional micromanagement and short-term commercial 
considerations in our consideration of their budget.
     There is also the worry among scientists that a new NSF 
focus on technology and commercialization will overlap in 
inefficient ways with existing applied and commercial research 
programs in Department of Energy, NIST, DOD and elsewhere.
     And, you know, I'm sure you both spend a lot of your time 
trying to deconflict parallel efforts in all the different 
agencies, and an additional big, you know--the--we have another 
entity at the table if we stand up a new directorate or more 
extreme example of that is being proposed.
     So, you know, I'd urge my colleagues to set as their first 
priority simply delivering on the enthusiasm of an increased 
budget and trying to repair the damage that's been done by a 
decade of flat budgets. And then when you've delivered with 
properly funding the programs that you very thoughtfully stood 
up in the last decades, fully fund those, have a look at what 
has to be changed before deciding that we have to go redesign 
the whole system. It's performed pretty impressively for the 
amount of money it's been given.
     And so the question I'd like to ask is how in Congress can 
we find out what the practical limits are, how quickly NSF, 
DOE, NIST, all of the agencies that do scientific research can 
really absorb a budget increase? You know, I know you are asked 
every year secretly from Congress, you know, what an 
unconstrained budget looks like. And, by design, we're not 
allowed to see that. But I was wondering what mechanisms you 
can--you know, if you're allowed to throw deep and dream big, 
what are the mechanisms we could see what the real 
opportunities are with an unconstrained budget?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Dr. Foster, this is a good question. I 
think that, you know, we have pondered about this quite a bit 
at NSF and even in the Board, and they have a lot of 
conversations about this, too. So if you look at--let's take 
the current moment that we have at hand. If you take the 
50,000-plus proposals that we receive every year, we fund about 
20 percent on average over the years, average 20 percent.
     When I came to the agency, I asked a question. Like you, a 
scientist, I asked the question. What are the proposals that 
are deemed worthy of funding that we are not funding today? 
That is these have been ranked by the--in a panel, and these 
are deemed worthy of funding but they are yet not funding them? 
It turns out 1/3 of the proposals on average are worthy and 
thought of as highly competitive or competitively funded, but 
we yet fund only 20 percent, not 30 percent. So right there on 
the chopping room floor we are leaving unbelievable ideas and 
therefore what talent that could have generated all of that on 
the table. So that's one number.
     Mr. Foster. Right.
     Dr. Panchanathan. The other number, as you might know, as 
all of you would know--and the Chairwoman talked about her own 
proposal that she submitted, like me, and being unsuccessful 
at--I've been unsuccessful with NSF proposals, too, so I know 
the pain. So basically, when you look at the size of the 
proposal, is this the right size? Are we funding it at the 
right size? It turns out that while we marginally increase the 
size of the proposals, it has not kept up with either the 
inflation or the rate of increase of graduate student stipends. 
So right there, you know, you could think that a 50 percent 
increase in the size, the grant size would be more appropriate 
for what we need to be funding today at least.
     Then I asked the next question. Are we funding the right 
duration of these grants? Is it a magical number of X number of 
years? Now it is, like I say, 2 or 3 or 3 to 4 years. Is that 
the right duration? It turns out that graduate students have a 
certain time duration for graduation for their Ph.D.'s. And so 
rather than 3 to 4, 4 to 5 may be more appropriate, so, again a 
30 percent decrease in duration.
     If you take today's proposals, today's ideas that are 
right submitted today, and if you were to put these factors 
into consideration, right there there's a doubling of the 
budget that is required, right there, today. So--but not 
funding NSF at only--not 100 percent of what we need to fund 
but only at 50 percent of what is being funded, we are losing 
out on great ideas. And guess what? Those ideas are being 
picked up by our competitors. That is not an acceptable thing, 
and therefore, we have to change these facts right at NSF, OK?
     Now let's go on and talk about what else we are missing. 
You know, we founded this fantastic program called I-Corps. I 
was an I-Corps PI. I tell you, I went to the boot camp. It 
transformed me. It transformed me in terms of how I think about 
my research. So now how many projects do we fund at I-Corps? It 
turns out 1,500. And how many do we have trained through that? 
Forty-five hundred. We have hundreds of thousands, not just 
thousands we are talking about we are leaving on the table. 
This is missed opportunity for turning the entrepreneur talent 
into something that benefits our Nation. We are leaving it on 
the chopping room floor. And I'm not talking about anything 
new. I'm talking about existing ideas, OK? SBIR (Small Business 
Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology 
Transfer), we are not funding them at the level we should be 
funding.
     So I would say both curiosity-driven research and use-
inspired research needs to be funded at a much higher level. 
And to give you a thumbnail, we are at least a tripling or a 
quadrupling of the NSF budget, which can be accommodated to 
make that happen today.
     Mr. Foster. Yes. Well, thank you for that. And my 
apologies to my colleagues for extending my time.
     Madam Chair, if there is an opportunity for a second round 
of questioning if that fits in, I think it would be, you know, 
very productive if possible.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Yes, we'll see. We'll see if we'll do 
the second round. It's--yes, I hear you loud and clear. And 
it's very important, I think, to get what Dr. Panchanathan is 
putting on the record for us into that congressional record. 
You know, we're not in the Committee room, but this is still a 
part of the House record, this hearing. And part of this 
testifying and the process that we're undertaking here is 
exactly how we're going to shape this. I think our dialog is 
just going very nicely.
     So with that, it's a real honor to recognize my colleague, 
Congressman Peter Meijer, from the western part of Michigan for 
5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and then thank you to 
our distinguished panelists here today. I'm Peter Meijer 
representing Michigan's Third District, so as the Chairwoman 
alluded to, in Michigan we are defined by our natural 
boundaries. We're defined by our Great Lakes. And not only does 
that make us much more in touch with an understanding on some 
of the environmental pressures and constraints but also 
appreciative of all of the scientific research that has gone in 
to helping us protect and preserve and grow our understanding 
of that ecosystem.
     So I guess, you know, Dr. Panchanathan, I really 
appreciate your enthusiasm and energy, and I think there is a 
wide share among this Committee and the Subcommittee in a 
bipartisan way on that need, which is indeed why we're here 
today. But I just want to drill in a little bit on the Great 
Lakes if I could more specifically.
     So obviously, the NSF is just one part of the overall 
research ecosystem. We also have the Department of Energy, the 
national labs, NIST, NASA to name a few other civilian research 
agencies. I'm going to get into the Great Lakes in a second, 
but could you talk a little bit more about the NSF's 
relationships with these other agencies and then how you kind 
of see and value your interagency partnerships?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you very much for the question. I 
often say that if we open up my body and look at my DNA or even 
you don't have to open my body, take a blood sample, look in my 
DNA, it would scream partnerships, partnerships, partnerships, 
collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. And I'm not just 
saying it for words. My actions speak louder than words. My 
past life in Arizona you will have seen that partnerships is 
something that I fostered of every form and every type.
     So what did I do when I got out of the agency in July? The 
first couple of weeks I picked up the phone and talked to every 
agency leader and I said I want us to partner stronger, better, 
in larger initiatives, as well as continue to, you know, fuel 
these smaller initiatives that we are partnering in, every one 
of them. Just 2 weeks ago, I picked up the phone and I asked 
for a call with Secretary Granholm from the Department of 
Energy as one example, another example and said how might, 
Secretary, we might partner more between Department of Energy 
and NSF? Because there's a lot of things that we partner on, 
facilities, projects, a whole host of things, AI, quantum. We 
partner in many, many things, and how might we leverage this 
and build even more sustained partnerships and broader 
partnerships for the future?
     So this is something that I deeply value. You said I 
deeply, deeply value because, as a government--all-of-
government approach, we need to make sure that we need to not 
have any duplication of efforts but synergization and scaling 
up of efforts because of partnership. But I didn't stop even 
there. I went beyond agencies, industry, foundations, et 
cetera.
     So I cannot agree with you more that partnerships as the 
way that you achieve rapid progress the speed and scale.
     So I yield the time to Dr. Ochoa.
     Mr. Meijer. Well, and thank you, Director. I wanted to 
dive in a little bit more there and specifically, I didn't 
mention these prior but other scientific agencies, you have 
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the 
USGS (United States Geological Survey). Could you speak to your 
experience in working with them and specifically any research 
that NSF has supported on the Great Lakes more broadly?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Absolutely. I mean, I may not have 
specific to the Great Lakes. I can give you examples and we 
will be happy to respond to your specific question there. But 
the broader context of NOAA and USGS partnerships absolutely. 
In fact, when I picked up the phone and talked to the previous 
NOAA leader when I came in, as well as USGS leader, I told them 
why not work on AI institute focused on the areas that NOAA is 
interested in and USGS is interested in? USGS, the leader said 
to me that, you know, we have lots of data. We collect a lot of 
data, and it'll be great to have the NSF partnership because 
you guys know what to do with data. In other words, your 
researchers know what to do with data and glean useful 
information from that. So I said bring it on. Let's build a 
strong partnership so that your data and our researchers--
because our researcher--as a data researcher myself I--you 
know, we all salivate for data at large scale. Therefore, there 
are researchers out there salivating for the data. Wouldn't 
this be great if we bring the two together? And so you can be 
rest assured that we are developing the partnerships.
     With respect to the Great Lakes, I will make sure that we 
get that information and data to you in concrete form.
     Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Director. You mentioned also the 
industry partnerships. I just wanted to say in fiscal year 2020 
NSF invested over $4.5 million in Michigan startups through the 
small business program, so I'm hopeful that that will be 
continued and expanded because, again, I'm glad to hear that 
you very much feel partnerships is in your DNA and appreciate 
that we don't want to have duplication of effort but want to 
make sure that we're all rolling in the same path. So I really 
appreciate your time today. And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent. And with that, we're going 
to recognize Congresswoman Moore for 5 minutes of questions, 
from the other Great Lakes State of Wisconsin.
     Ms. Moore. Well, thank you so much, Madam Chair. I--you 
know, I'm, you know--Zoom--these Zoom days, you Zoom from 
meeting to meeting, but I did have a chance to listen to our 
outstanding guests today. And really--like I said, I'm going to 
have a Ph.D. in science before I leave this Committee.
     But that being said, the NSF is such a valuable resource 
to us, and I know that there's discussion around reaching out 
to more minority students by going to HBCUs, Hispanic-serving 
institutions (HSIs), and making those recruits.
     But I do have a question about other interventions. You 
know, you do have cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, or Detroit 
and big cities that have a lot of urban African Americans who 
don't necessarily have access to HBCUs in their region. And 
their needs--we need to make sure we don't leave them out as 
well.
     Also, there are STEM programs in some of our community 
colleges that we need to make sure that we don't limit our 
reach so that we miss out on where the greatest number of these 
students might exist instead of working sort of around the 
edges of the problem.
     We all know that the lack of equity in STEM interests, 
whether it be based on race or gender, starts much earlier than 
arguing whether you need to go to an HBCU to find these kids or 
whether you need to go to the University of Michigan to find 
them.
     And so I'm just wondering, to our witnesses, what the NSF 
is doing specifically to make those interventions to very low-
income students and women K through 12? The younger the better.
     Dr. Panchanathan. So--and this time I'm going to make it 
short so that I have my colleague to have a chance to also 
weigh in. So an excellent question. Thank you so much for 
asking that. You know, you're absolutely correct. Talent and 
ideas are everywhere across our Nation. It is our 
responsibility to ensure that they are inspiring, motivating, 
and bringing the talent to light. NSF is involved in a range of 
programs, and I can go through all the details and I can even 
respond to you more concretely on this offline, but I will tell 
you that our K to 12, you are absolutely correct. Our K to 12 
kids need to be inspired to not only take STEM as what they 
might do in their careers or, you know, in what they do but 
also the STEM spirit and the STEM spark being lit even if they 
didn't pursue STEM, that they are going to somehow have this, 
you know, association with STEM or be impacted by STEM and have 
an appreciation for STEM.
     So at NSF we are working on various projects and programs 
to do this, and one of the major ways in which we do this is 
how might we inspire them by having science teachers who 
inspire the kids and therefore having the teachers at scale who 
are scientifically inspired by themselves, therefore inspiring 
the children in turn is something that we are focused on, and 
we are working with--in partnership with--seeking partnership 
with foundations to do that at scale so that they might have it 
everywhere across our Nation. We have many programs with HBCUs 
and other MSIs (minority-serving institutions), private 
colleges, universities, as well as HSIs.
     And I want to, you know, pass the baton off to Dr. Ochoa 
because the Board has been doing some deep thinking about this, 
so I would like Dr. Ochoa to highlight that, too.
     Dr. Ochoa. Well, thank you. It's absolutely a question 
that the Board is very interested in and concerned about, and 
just in general we focused on a variety of these issues just in 
the last year at our meetings where we had external panels on 
the Black experience in STEM, on barriers to student retention 
in STEM, and next month in May we're going to have a panel on 
lessons learned from minority-serving institutions on retaining 
students in STEM. And I would invite you to tune into that.
     A couple things that I can think of, first, NSF does 
support research on STEM and how your best teach it and reach 
out to it. And we would like to see broader use of that. And 
second, they do get involved in outreach to a wide variety of 
ages. And there's one program I actually--I became familiar 
with when I was at NASA, although it was NSF-funded, a program 
called SciGirls, which is hosted by middle school girls of a 
variety of demographics, as shown on public education stations, 
and they actually act as hosts and introduce students of their 
age through STEM topics. They came to Johnson Space Center when 
I was Director there, one of our younger Latina engineers took 
them on a tour and I got to make a guest appearance. So 
absolutely NSF also looks at how can we reach out at a younger 
age and get students interested in STEM.
     Ms. Moore. Thank you so much. And, you know, like I said, 
equity is really important for African Americans, Latinos, 
Asians, and women as well, and so, you know, if we're going to 
be really intentional about this, you know, we have to go 
everywhere. And so, you know, like I said, I applaud going to 
HBCUs. You know, I didn't go to an HBCU and, you know, whether 
I have regrets about that don't even matter. I'm an alumna of 
Marquette University, grateful for my education.
     But know that that--you know, my constituency needs some 
love as well.
     So with that, thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence, 
my Zoom jumping, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you. You couldn't be more spot 
on.
     And with that, we're going to recognize Dr. Jim Baird for 
5 minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for 
mentioning our early work in the 116th Congress. And I want to 
thank Ranking Member Waltz and everyone for holding this 
hearing. And I really always learn something in the Science 
Committee and appreciate the witnesses and their sharing their 
perspectives on the importance of research and innovation and 
the National Science Foundation.
     And I just want to mention, as the other Ph.D. scientist 
in Congress, I'm very supportive of research and development, 
Dr. Foster.
     Anyway, and I really recognize the significance of basic 
research and how a long-term commitment that is because what 
you're doing in basic research today may not materialize until 
somewhere down the road because of other basic research when 
they all come together.
     But I would mention that in addition to what NSF does with 
other agencies, there's also a great deal of work that's done 
with academia. Purdue University is in my district, and they 
utilize NSF grants to fund basic student research. Just last 
week, I spoke to several materials engineering students whose 
work has been funded through the NSF.
     So my question is how do we really measure the success and 
value of these academic grants? And then how successful are we 
at retaining these students to remain as STEM leaders? But I'm 
particularly interested in keeping them in the U.S.
     So I guess, Dr. Panchanathan, you might start with this 
question, and then we'll go to Dr. Ochoa.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you very much, Representative 
Baird. You know, in terms of assessing the value of these 
projects, clearly, you know, every project has at the end of 
the term--as you rightly pointed out, we need to ensure that 
curiosity-driven research is given the opportunity to exercise 
the ideas that people have into, you know, unbelievable 
outcomes from a scientific perspective, not necessarily from a 
tangible all the time in terms of looking for an outcome which 
is, you know, measured by either a company coming out or a 
product coming out, definitely not.
     So typically all these projects that we fund, they submit 
annual reports. And in the annual reports they outline two 
things: those things that are manifested in terms of the 
intellectual merit with which the proposal was submitted and 
funded, and also the other component called broad impacts and 
how did that work impact a broader set of objectives that they 
laid out in their proposal. So they ensure that these reports 
are capturing all the amazing outcomes that are achieved 
through the intellectual progress that they make with their 
scientific explorations, as well as the broader impacts they 
also create because of what they do in their proposal in the 
project. So we ensure that that is captured through these 
reporting process, and that is something that on an annual 
basis and an end-of-the-project report is also typically 
gathered. And we make sure that we harvest the information from 
that, which is very valuable for us to be able to dice and 
slice it to understand all the amazing impact that NSF is 
creating across the Nation in various regions and beyond. So 
that's something that we do in terms of evaluating the 
progress.
     Dr. Ochoa. I'll just add a couple of things. First, I'll 
draw your attention to a report that the Board puts out in 
conjunction with a National Center for Science and Engineering 
statistics, which of course is housed within NSF, which 
provides the latest data and trends on higher education, STEM 
degrees, STEM workforce, as well as the industries that it 
supports in the United States. And so that is one way to 
understand the trends and what are--what's making a difference.
     There's also some programs that NSF has that are really 
trying to incorporate impact metrics, so not just the number of 
people, for example, that were reached out to, but there's a 
program within the tribal colleges and universities that are 
looking at what is the actual number of STEM degree programs 
that have been developed through this support.
     And a few years ago NSF initiated some pilot programs on 
metrics, one of which includes, you know, the long-term 
outcomes of people who get the graduate research fellowships 
through NSF. And they're also looking at a framework for doing 
the same thing for participants of their undergraduate research 
experience that they fund. So understanding, you know, what is 
making a difference for these students and helping that--you 
know, evolved programs that NSF supports is certainly something 
both of interest to NSF and the Board.
     Dr. Panchanathan. The second part of the question that you 
asked, Dr. Baird, if I could address that, how do we keep them 
here in the United States, you know, again, this crosscut idea 
that we have out right now in place will even more train them 
to be aligned with what the society and industry is interested 
in and turning their ideas and giving them experiential 
opportunities that then makes them ready for jobs right here so 
that they might then be retained here because they have the 
opportunities to express their--continue to express their 
talent as they move forward.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chair, for 
letting me run over a little bit, but I'm out of time.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Anything for my colleague from 
Indiana.
     With that, I'd like to recognize Mr. Conor Lamb for 5 
minutes of questioning.
     Mr. Lamb. Hey, thank you to our guests for joining us 
today. I really appreciate all the information.
     I really just have one main question, which is that where 
I come from in Pittsburgh we have this heritage of being an 
important location of R&D and industrial innovation not only 
because of our great universities, but we were actually a 
powerful center of corporate R&D, particularly Westinghouse 
Corporation, but U.S. Steel and PPG and others as well.
     And it seems like that is dropping off in America in terms 
of overall investment in corporate R&D. We looked at the total 
amount of applied R&D spent last year and only around 6 percent 
was corporate-funded. So I was just curious, do either of you 
think that there is more that we can do to encourage corporate 
R&D? How do you think we're doing vis-a-vis our competitor 
nations? Or is it that this is the reason that the government 
needs to be more directly involved in applied research because, 
you know, corporations and the global market just can't afford 
it? Just any thoughts that you have on that.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Representative Lamb, when I came into 
the agency, I outlined a vision. One of the component parts of 
the vision when we talk about this technology and translation 
and so on is this concept of what--Bell Lab-like entities where 
we had public-private partnership, people seamlessly 
integrating the academic world as well as the industry world, 
all working together. And I call them innovation activators. 
You can call them whatever you want, innovation hubs, that 
everywhere across the Nation we need to build these innovation 
hubs.
     So what happens is the building of the ideas, the mutual 
influence of the ideas, and further fostering that, and then 
the talent that gets exposed to this ecosystem becomes very 
sensitized to that way of thinking so--which means that they 
are even more ready for the workforce and the entrepreneurial 
outcomes that we can achieve through that talent. All of that 
can be made possible through the fusion.
     So when we talk about this crosscut directorate idea, you 
can think of such hubs being in every part of our Nation 
because we said talent and ideas are in every part of our 
Nation. For example, if you take a rural environment where 
agriculture is predominant, you could imagine building a--you 
know, a cluster around smart agriculture and how might--what 
might be a better living laboratory than a smart agriculture in 
a rural area or in a State----
     Mr. Lamb. You're saying it has to be that we get multiple 
entities basically under the same roof----
     Dr. Panchanathan. Right.
     Mr. Lamb [continuing]. And not be a model of----
     Dr. Panchanathan. Right.
     Mr. Lamb [continuing]. You know, the Westinghouse 
corporate research development park or something like that?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Right.
     Mr. Lamb. Yes.
     Dr. Panchanathan. It's a consortium, you're absolutely 
correct. How might we bring interested parties all together so 
that we can have these innovation hubs where these innovations 
can rapidly than speed up and scale. And that's required across 
our Nation. This is exceedingly important, and that's why I'm 
excited with the American Jobs Plan, the fiscal year 2022 
budget proposal with the President, and we're excited about all 
the legislative efforts, including, you know, the NSF for the 
Future Act because all of this are communicating the importance 
of us doing this, this effort of translating rapidly so that we 
might be the vanguard of innovation and take full advantage of 
the unbelievable spirit of curiosity-driven research already 
existent but also influencing more of that at scale because 
of----
     Mr. Lamb. Dr. Ochoa, did you have anything you wanted to 
add on that?
     Dr. Ochoa. I thought I'd just add an example that was in 
fact just announced this week. So this is an NSF-led 
multisector partnership on accelerating research on the next 
generation of communications networks and systems. So NSF is 
leading it and it involves NIST, DOD, but then several large 
companies. And this is NSF's largest single effort to date to 
engage public and private partners to jointly support a 
research program. And I think this is exactly the kind of thing 
that Dr. Panchanathan is pushing in a whole variety of areas 
where NSF, which is really focusing on the basic research part, 
but it's forming these connections with other more mission-
driven agencies and then of course the actual industries who 
will go into the more development area while NSF is doing the 
basic research part.
     Mr. Lamb. Got it. Well, I appreciate both of you helping 
shine a light on this for us and letting us know the ways that 
we can help improve because this obviously needs to be at the 
top of our agenda for innovation and economic development and 
jobs going forward. So I really appreciate it. Madam 
Chairwoman, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Lamb.
     And with that, I'd like to recognize Mr. Gonzalez for 5 
minutes of questions.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chairwoman Stevens and Ranking 
Member Waltz for holding this timely hearing and to our 
distinguished witnesses for joining us.
     Dr. Panch, it's great to see you again. According to a 
report from the Federation of American Scientists, the U.S. 
spent $134 billion on R&D in 2020. As a percentage of GDP 
(gross domestic product), that's .6 percent, so roughly a 50 
percent decrease from 1976 spending levels. Comparatively, 
China's spending on R&D has climbed in recent decades reaching 
$378 billion last year, so nearly 2.4 percent of their GDP. So 
we're being outspent in that regard. And they're also very 
well-focused with respect to how they allocate their dollars.
     And so one area I want to start with, Dr. Panch--and, Ms. 
Ochoa, it's great to see you as well. I know Dr. Panch a little 
better, so don't feel left out. But, in any event, I want to 
start specifically on quantum and quantum technologies. Dr. 
Panch, as you know, China is aggressively recruiting U.S. 
researchers and scientists to grow their knowledge base and 
accelerate their timeline for quantum technologies. My concern 
is if China were to get their hands on a quantum computer that 
can break today's mathematical encryptions, it would put our 
country's IP, personal data, and mission-critical systems more 
at risk than they already are.
     To that end, what steps is the NSF taking to expand 
quantum technology and ensure the U.S. maintains the advantage 
in converting research into commercial applications?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you so much, Mr. Gonzalez. Again, 
good to see you, too. You know, as you know, NSF is very, very 
invested in quantum not today but for several decades and in 
multiple disciplines of investments that is shaping the quantum 
revolution as we are talking about it today, whether it is, you 
know, the physics of quantum or quantum information science, 
engineering, all aspects of quantum sensing, all aspects are 
being--have been invested in by NSF over the decades. So has 
also been the investments by other agencies.
     So that--this is again one of those areas where many 
different agencies can come together, most importantly 
industry, leading industry like, for example, IBM, coming 
together in partnership so that we might accelerate the 
progress at a speed that is much greater than what we would be 
able to do by just outsource working.
     But having said that, NSF has got tremendous investments. 
Last year, for example, we launched the Quantum Institutes in 
partnership with DOE. That's a great platform for ensuring that 
we are able to support the researchers coming together from 
multiple parties, not only academia, labs and industry and 
others working together so that we might build the fastest 
computers, quantum computers, the fastest quantum information 
science ideas, and the fastest, therefore, fundamental research 
that needs to happen in quantum so that we might unleash the 
future of what we need to do with quantum. So we are doing all 
of that at the same time.
     And I can tell you here is where industry partnerships are 
exceedingly vital. And again, that plays to this crosscut idea 
that we talk about in technology is because that's where we 
will bring the science in partnership with industry and 
therefore make these rapid translations possible.
     Mr. Gonzalez. OK.
     Dr. Panchanathan. Lastly, we need an entrepreneur 
ecosystem around this to be developed so that we might have 
those good ideas to translate.
     Mr. Gonzalez. And then specifically to how we compare 
relative to China in terms of development, do you feel like 
we're ahead of them on quantum, we're neck-and-neck? If it's a 
straight horse race, I mean, how do we compare specifically to 
them in your eyes?
     Dr. Panchanathan. So it's very difficult to go in and say 
where we are, you know, in the race----
     Mr. Gonzalez. Yes.
     Dr. Panchanathan [continuing]. But we are competing. But I 
can tell you one part of this which is the good news. In the 
last, again, six, 9 months that I've been in the job, I've 
pretty much reached out and talked to many of our partners 
across the globe. Let's take Canada for example. Canada is 
investing heavily in quantum. How might we find like-minded 
partners who share in our values, who share in our, you know, 
research integrity and trust and reciprocity? That is we are 
building a coalition of like-minded partners across the globe 
so we can leverage our investments together to make even more 
rapid progress. So that's our--not only leapfrogging other--
with our investments but also further leapfrogging with the 
ability to be able to channel the other partnership resources 
that we can bring to bear.
     I want Dr. Ochoa to also have a chance to respond to this.
     Dr. Ochoa. The only couple things I would add is in 
quantum, as in other areas, I think the two things we really 
want to take advantage of are this broad ecosystem where you 
have the government and particularly NSF, which has this broad 
and deep reach into the higher education institutions across 
the country, marrying that up with industry, and then making 
sure that we're always thinking about how do we reach out and 
get talent? How do we unleash the talent in the country? And 
keeping both of those in mind I think is where we are going to 
really be able to continue to push our success.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, thank you. And before I yield back, the 
one thing I want to highlight that you just said, we also need 
to attract and retain talent, and that's going to require some 
immigration reform, which I hope we can finally get to in a 
sensible way.
     So with that, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. My mouse on my House computer has 
given out, so I'm using the spacebar, but great concluding 
statement from my colleague from Ohio. And maybe we can delve 
into that at a separate time.
     So after we've just heard from many fantastic colleagues 
from the Great Lakes area, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, 
we're now going to turn to one of our newest Members of the 
Subcommittee, the great Deborah Ross from North Carolina. 
Congresswoman, go ahead.
     Ms. Ross. Well, thank you for your leadership, Chairwoman, 
and Ranking Member. And this is such an important hearing. For 
me, I represent the Research Triangle area in North Carolina. 
North Carolina State University land-grant university is in my 
district, and I have two HBCUs, Representative Moore, Shaw 
University and Saint Aug's.
     Before I get started, I need to brag a little bit on one 
of our professors from North Carolina State, who is currently 
on sabbatical at NSF, Dr. Christine Grant. And my question is 
going to piggyback on some of the questions that we just got 
because Dr. Grant won an NSF Presidential Award for Excellence 
in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring both at the 
undergraduate level and at the graduate level. And in 2018 the 
National Academies released a report calling for a modernized 
approach to graduate STEM education that's more student-
centered. And among the recommendations in the report was a 
call for a renewed focus on mentoring. This, you know, showing 
that student how they could become this outstanding researcher 
or connecting them to whatever their next steps would be.
     And so my question to both of you--and maybe--you know, 
we've talked a lot about this in the minority community and 
with women, but I think this is really across the board. People 
need to have that human connection. So what steps can NSF take 
to advance research on effective practices for mentoring 
graduate students to incentivize institutions and researchers 
to place a stronger emphasis on this critical role?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Thank you so much. Dr. Ochoa, do you 
want to take this one first?
     Dr. Ochoa. Sure. Well, first of all, we absolutely share 
your emphasis on mentoring. We've heard about it from some of 
our outside panels, particularly ones that address student 
retention in STEM and particularly those who are 
underrepresented.
     One of the things that Dr. Panchanathan mentioned earlier 
was hopefully the opportunity to increase award size and 
duration of grants, and one of the benefits is principal 
investigators can spend less time generating lots of proposals, 
more time not only doing their research but mentoring their 
students that they have.
     And I also recently had the opportunity to participate in 
a National Academies podcast on the science of mentoring, which 
they put out in conjunction with the report that they've just 
done, which is quite interesting on, you know, tactics for 
mentoring.
     So what we would like to see, for example, when you think 
about the broader impacts that are reviewed as part of 
proposals, absolutely building up your own student cohort as a 
principal investigator is one of those things that can--
qualifies that because you're really, again, reaching out and 
trying to develop the talent of the next generation.
     And so as a board, we're really talking about mentoring, 
and we're talking with NSF about where are those areas where 
they can place more emphasis on mentoring as well and certainly 
in the broader impacts. That is one area that's a possibility.
     Ms. Ross. Thank you.
     Dr. Panchanathan. I----
     Ms. Ross. Do you want to add--yes, go ahead.
     Dr. Panchanathan. If it's OK, I'll just say a few words. 
This time I will be the one that adds a little bit. So, you 
know, clearly, you know, all of the--you've all received NSF 
grants to know that. Mentoring is probably the most important 
thing that you do in terms of talent, how you, you know, make 
sure that talent is expressed in the best possible form.
     And so one of the things we need to build more and 
complementing Ochoa's answer is how do we build role models? 
Because mentorship is also about who you are. And one of--I'll 
give you one example of a program. It includes a program of 
NSF, right? We want to make sure, again, advance program of 
NSF. We want to make sure that if we want to change the 
demographic of the population that we have today, we need role 
models like Dr. Ochoa, who is a fantastic role model, you know? 
So how do we get more role models like that? And some other 
projects they've been working on and programs that we're 
working on is to fund people so that they might serve not only 
the mentoring part of what the grant requires but who they are 
they therefore inspire and get talent much more diversified. 
And this is something NSF is increasingly focusing on because 
you can't build a broad pool of talent unless you have a broad 
pool of mentors also being supported at the same time. So we're 
looking at both of them here.
     And in general I will say to many of the previous answers 
even, there are significant gaps that are there still, and 
that's one of the things that we are looking at NSF. What might 
we do better, whether it is in the realm of how might we do 
better mentoring, how can we be more diversity-and oriented-
focused and enriching that? How might we get more technology 
translation? All of these things are all--that we're discussing 
today are gaps that are yet to be filled, and that's why we 
need a different way of thinking about all of these things. And 
that's why this moment that is very important for all of 
these--and the proposals that are being made think is very rich 
for our Nation. This is what we need in order for us to be able 
to compete and out-compete and out-innovate other competitors 
like China.
     Ms. Ross. Yes, well thank you very much. I see I'm out of 
time, but while Dr. Grant's working with NSF, I encourage you 
to get to know her. She's an outstanding person and has done so 
much at NC State. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Excellent questions. Thank you so 
much, Congresswoman Ross.
     And with that, we've got Congressman Beyer here for 5 
minutes of questions. I will turn it over to you, sir.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much. And thank 
you to Dr. Panchanathan, Dr. Ochoa, for being distinguished and 
testifying before us today.
     I'm a big fan of the National Science Foundation because 
it's a couple blocks from my home on--in Duke Street, and I 
have thousands of these hardworking scientists and staff living 
in the district. And I really value the tremendous benefit the 
agency has brought to America and Americans over the past 70 
years, so I'm really committed with all of my colleagues on 
this Committee to make sure that the National Science 
Foundation has the funding we've heard.
     In the 7 years I've been on the Science Committee, we 
continue to hear about the dwindling percentage of excellent 
applications that can be approved because the money just hasn't 
kept up. And anything we can do--I know there is--NSF for the 
Future Act, there's the Endless Frontier Act. My dear friend 
and respected colleague Bill Foster, among others, has made 
sure that we are looking deep into the challenges of the 
respective acts.
     And, Madam Chair, I'd love to include unanimous consent to 
enter into the record two letters, one from the national 
President of the American Federation of Government Employees, 
AFGE, Everett Kelley, and another one from David Verardo, who 
is the President of the National Science Foundation AFGE 
chapter, expressing concerns about some of the special hiring 
authorities that are included in the NSF for the Future Act. 
And I'm sure we can work together with the Committee to iron 
these out.
     Chairwoman Stevens. So moved. So moved.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
     Dr. Panchanathan, one of our responsibilities on the 
Committee is to elevate the role of evidence-based policy 
debates and decisionmaking. It wouldn't be going too far to say 
that we're talking about evidence-based and truth-based 
policies is one of the great national divides right now. And 
Federal agencies have this trove of survey and administrative 
data that, if made accessible to researchers, would greatly 
advance evidence-based policymaking.
     So a couple of years ago, the U.S. Commission on Evidence-
Based Policymaking recommended modernizing the Federal data 
infrastructure by establishing a National Secure Data Service. 
And the data foundation subsequently decided that the best 
place to put this thing would be at the National Science 
Foundation. What's your view on this approach, and has NSF 
taken any steps toward establishing a National Secure Data 
Service?
     Dr. Panchanathan. Representative Beyer, as you know, you 
know, Dr. Ochoa talked about the fact that we have this 
fantastic National Center for Statistics that is extremely 
valuable in terms of, you know, taking the data and being able 
to come out with some--glean some interesting insights from the 
data. The specific data resource that you're pointing out, I 
have not had a chance and I'm not privy to that yet, but I'm 
happy to look into that and get my comments more in an informed 
way rather than making, you know, sort of a general statement 
of, well, you know, the data resource can be valuable. Instead 
of making such a statement, I would rather like to go and look 
into it and then get back to you on that if that's OK with you.
     Mr. Beyer. That sounds great, Dr. Panchanathan.
     And, Dr. Ochoa, you know, there's been a big emphasis in 
recent years on supporting public-private partnerships and 
making sure that NSF funding is linked to private-sector 
commercialization, you know, society and societal problems. But 
I confess I'm also just deeply fascinated by how the commitment 
to basic research that's not connected to any short-term goal 
in our lives ends up changing our lives in major ways. As head 
of the National Science Board, can you just talk about the 
fundamental importance of basic research?
     Dr. Ochoa. Oh, absolutely. And of course the Board shares 
that value. That's really why we're all on the National Science 
Board.
     And as Dr. Panchanathan has mentioned, you know, there's 
no sort of hard cutoff between curiosity-driven research and 
use-inspired research. It's more of a continuum. You know, I 
used to kind of think of it as a feedback loop. He likes to 
think of it--and I like this analogy, too--as the strands of 
DNA that are really completely intertwined.
     And, you know, just one example, going back to COVID is 
Dr. Panchanathan mentioned the COVID test that people are 
taking now, the PCR, polymerase chain reaction tests. That was 
developed based on basic research, looking at bacteria in the 
thermal pools at Yellowstone National Park. And it turned out 
these bacteria had enzymes that could replicate genetic 
material. And it's now led to a process that allows you to 
replicate genetic material taken from swabs from people and 
allows this kind of testing to go on, which has been so 
critical in the last year.
     So that research was decades ago. I don't think anybody 
thinking about, you know, exploring the thermal pools of 
Yellowstone would have predicted the future, but that is 
exactly what NSF is in the business of supporting.
     We do, however, as a board, believe we can do even more, 
take--go from what we like to say from the imagination to 
impact. How can we even better impact people's lives and really 
carry out the mission of NSF? As it was stated in 1950, promote 
the progress of science and advance the Nation's health, 
prosperity, and welfare.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Stevens. Absolutely wonderful. Well, thank you 
so much. We had a request from Dr. Foster to do another round 
of questions, but what I would like to do is close out the 
hearing because we are doing another hearing with stakeholders 
next week.
     Bill, what I'll do is we can leave--and the Committee can 
oblige this because it's just like if we're in the hearing 
room. We'll leave the Zoom link open so we can chitchat. We're 
going to--because I think there's some more here for--you know, 
what doesn't need to be on the record but some catchup stuff. 
The for-the-record stuff, as Dr. Panchanathan eluded and said 
several times directly, which is, hey, we'll get back to you at 
a deeper level. There was a request from Mr. Waltz to Dr. Ochoa 
for additional information particularly on the security agenda. 
So we'll utilize the record here.
     I mean, our purpose for this hearing--and it's a very 
serious endeavor--is to capture this for the House record as a 
springboard for what we're going to do going forward. We had 
just an incredible and robust discussion. You can tell how 
special it is to be on the Science Committee in part because 
we've got certainly a lot of vibrancy from the Great Lakes area 
and participation and Members from across the Great Lakes 
region but also across the entire country.
     And we here are meddling on and discussing with you as--
and asking and inquiring the questions of how we move our 
scientific research agenda forward for the purposes of jobs, of 
economic development, and to what the great Gwen Moore asked, 
Congresswoman Moore, our equity agenda and bringing in 
populations across the country to industries of scale, 
particularly, we see this in the digital space with IOT 
(internet of things), a trillion-dollar industry. How do we 
make sure that there's jobs for everyone and inclusion for 
everyone? How do we make sure that our scientific community is 
diverse and inclusive of our African-American population, our 
Hispanic population, our Native American populations just as 
we're considering this for rural America, suburban America, and 
on.
     And so I can't thank our witnesses enough. Your careers 
are so admirable. You in and of yourself, each of you, are such 
inspirations. And we look forward to continuing to work 
together very closely as we move forward our legislation and 
get this done. And we will be having a markup as well as--after 
our next hearing takes place, which is--we're going to hear 
from the stakeholders next week as well. And certainly the 
dedication of our Members who participated here today.
     So, with that, the record is going to remain open for 2 
weeks, all right? So we're going to have a 2-week period for 
additional statements or--and questions, QFRs, questions for 
the record, of our witnesses.
     And with that, I'm going to gavel us out. And the 
witnesses are technically excused, but I think we can stay on 
for a little chitchat if we want to do that, sidebar 
conversations just as if we were in the great hearing room that 
we have in Rayburn. We can't wait to get back there. We've got 
some wonderful quotes from Tennyson and Proverbs on the wall 
that guide us. We need a vision for the future. That's what 
we're doing here today.
     Thank you. This hearing is adjourned.
     [Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions




                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan

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                              Appendix II

                              ----------                              


                   Additional Material for the Record




      Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson


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             Letters submitted by Representative Don Beyer


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                              [all]