Background paper for the National Conference on Goals, Policies and Programs of Federal, State and Local Science Agencies

BACKGROUND PAPER FOR
THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
GOALS, POLICIES AND PROGRAMS OF
FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL SCIENCE AGENCIES
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
OCTOBER 12-14, 1970

PREFACE
\
This report was prepared as a pre- conference reference document f or participants in the National Conference on Goals, Policies , and Programs of Federal, State, arid Local Science Agencies , held in Atlanta, Georgia on October 12-14, 1970. Its purpose is to provide information on science activities at various levels of government , and to highlight critical problems and issues in whose solution science and technology can play an important role.
The sponsors, the members of the steering cornrn~ttee, and the authors hope that this report will contribute to a better understanding of: (a) the complexities of existent societal problems, and (b) the need for improved intergovernmental science relations designed to bring the strength and versatility of science and technology to bear on these problems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ELEMENTS OF A NATIONAL SCIENCE POLICY by John E . Mock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -...........
INTERGOVERNMENTAL SCIENCE RELATIONS: THE STATE OF THE DISCUSSION by Irwin Feller . . .................................. .
STATE SCIENCE POLICY AND THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND PUBLIC POLICY by Dennis Barnes ...............................
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE by Richard N. Foster & Warren D. Siemens ........
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS IN CREATING PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY by Chandler H. Stevens .......................

ELEMENTS OF A NATIONAL SCIENCE POLICY

by

John E. Mock

Director, Georgia Science and Technology Comrnission

and

rman
Cha~

'

National Governors'

Council on

Science

& Technology

I. Introduction

science in American today is on the defensive. This is due

~. ~tpizaernt,

t

o its awed

successes, by science's

i

n part flawle

s

to its failure s performance

s. in

The average placing a man

~n the moon, quickly becomes disenchanted and disgruntled at its

apparent inability to solve such mundane problems as clogged

freeways during rush hour traffic. Such doubts have led many

citizens to raise questions concerning the benefits to be

accrued from the fairly generous public support of science. This

mood has in turn been reflected in Congressional act i ons, and has

led to an intensive review of the national science policy by the

Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development, House Conunittee

on Science and Astronautics.

The national science policy, not to be equated with the federal science policy, is quite complex in nature. It is, of course, a de facto policy made up of many diverse e lements, as was emphasized by Dr. McElroy when he pointed out in Congressional hearings on July 29, 1970: "Any mechanism designed to produce wider public participation, especially from the primary users of science, should consider systematic advice from at least these five primary groups: mission-oriented agencies of the Federal Government, industry, colleges and universities, state and local science groups, and those special purpose national advisory bodies . " In this paper I wish to highlight briefly: (a) the active role ~layed by the state and local governmental science groups as an 7mportant part of the national science program ; and (b) the growlng need for more effective intergovernmental science policies.

fl

Whereas science in the fif t ies and sixties was heavily in -

uenc ~d by defense and space policies, it will be r e shaped in the

~~~ent~~s ~nd eighties by social and environmental policies . Al-

t ugh 1t 1s obvious that science and technology offer no panacea

W~t~any of ~he.more critical problems facing society today, yet

Hand~ut the1r 1nput many problems would be insoluble. Dr. Philip

agre e~hstate~ it well recently when he wrote: " ... while I quite

appr~ also

~ ?

~~ heast

tsoc1etn~ecemaunldtittuecdhinnooulosgyproablolenme s

are insufficient as faced by our society

,

I

can Y"'~r~ly ~el1eve that wise utilization of science and t echnology

Pri
Of

nmacni ~~l

e

t

Ot gre ools o

at f

t

ass his

i

stance civiliz

in t atio

hese n fo

r

r

egards and improving

t

remai he c o

n the nditio

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It is applied science and technology which are being called upon to help man solve his most urgent problems. State science agencies, working closely with all other levels of government, are attempting daily to match technological know-how with societal problems.
II. State Science Agencies
During the past decade Americans have begun to examine criti~ cally the efforts and outputs of science and technology from two points of view : (1) Are our scientific and technical endeavors sufficiently focused on solving the more significant problems facing ! society today? and (2) Are we sufficiently aware of the possible disadvantages which could accrue to society by the rapid implementation of various scientific discoveries or technological advances?
Many of society's more critical problems -- health, housing, urban-rural interaction, education, economic development, transportation, and environmental control -- are areas which, for the most part, have b een the responsibility of state and local governments. In recognition of this fact, over half the states and several of the larger cities have begun experimenting with various t ypes of science agencies designed to provide scientific and technological inputs to the governmental decision-making process. In addition to acting in an advisory capacity, some states and local agencies have acquired funding authority to sponsor research and development projects pertinent to their needs, and others have implemented large-scale programs to enhance their scientific and technological base.
The Federal Council for Science and Technology established in 1969 an Ad Hoc Committee on Intergovernmental Science Relations, chaired by Mr. Eric Ward, Office of Science and Technology. The objectives of this Committee are:
- to recommend policies, procedures, and programs to improve management, information exchange, and planning coordination of Federal Agency activities with related activities of state and local governments, and
- to formulate in consultation with representatives of state and local governments intergovernmental policies regarding Federal-State-local government cooperation in science and technology, including recommendations for new Federal initiatives to strengthen the scientific and technological activities of state and local governments.
More recently the States have formed the National Governors' Council on Science and Technology. The objectives of this Council are to:
A. Gather, analyze and disseminate information of interest
2

F
to the States in the management, development, and regulation of their scientific and technological resources;
B. Focus attention on the States' role in applying science and technology to critical societal and governmental problems and opportunities;
C. Develop policies and programs to improve cooperation among the States, between the States and local communities, and between the States and the ?ederal government relating to the use of science and technology;
D. Provide a means by which the States may be adequately involved and represented on a continuing basis in the formulation, development, and implementation of national science policies and programs;
E. Encourage local communities to apply science and technology to urban and rural problems.
Thus, on the national, federal, and state level there is a richness in detail and a wide variety of policies and programs designed to incorporate into the governmental decision-making process the strength and versatility of science and technology. Unfortunately, most of the programs are so new that there is no way of evaluating their effectiveness and their ultimate impact on governmental and societal problems. Thus there is a need for developing an evaluative method for comparing disparate programs and policies in order to provide rational guidance to governmental decisionmakers. Even more important is the need for designing new policies and programs to fit changing and local conditions.
It is a well known fact that officials who are responsible for day-to-day operations seldom have the time or inclination to develop long-range, broad-based policies. This, of course, is one of the reasons that most government agencies tend to react, rather than to act, and why small, insignificant waste disposal problems can gradually grow into unmanageable national pollution problems. To handle these various problems, State and local governments have created science advisory agencies, which, having an essentially unlimited planning horizon, are free of the urgency of day-to-day operations, and free to analyze, evaluate, and create long range policies, plans, and programs.
Some states, with the assistance of the National Science Foundation, have created study centers to provide guidance on the utilization of science and technology at the policy-making level. Such centers also provide a mechanism for educating and involving students in practical social and political problems involving science and technology. This educational concept can readily be expanded to include training of government employees at the state and local level, sensitizing them to the benefits to be expected and to the growing need for utilizing science and technology in the decision-making and policy-making process.
3

In o r der to coordi nate the se d i verse efforts, a strong, viable Feder al- State p artn e r s ~ i p in s c ience and technology is needed. Both g roup s h a v e muc h to offe r
As f e deral inputs to this partnership , the federal government could :
* Conduct broad-based r esearch pertinent to the
various social problems.
* Promote the rapid transfer of technology and
information.
* Support at a reasonable funding level, regional,
state and local science activities.
* Develop new and improved communications channels
including feedback loops -- with non-federal science agencies.
The states could made a valuable contribution to the partnership by:
* Conducting limited- o b jective R&D to apply the
results of broad-based research to local environmental and s ocial conditions.
* Providing a divers i t y of effort.
* Providing a laborator y and test bed for new
ideas. As Profe ss or Alan K. Campbell has recently pointed out: "There are 50 states. Certainly one, t wo, or three of them might begin moving in new directions. One of the advantages alwa:~:{S c laimed for the American federal system is t hat the states provide laboratories for e xperimentation. There have been brief pe riods in history 'i-'.rhen some states, most notab ly Wisconsin and Ne w York have played that role. Perhaps now is another time for the empl oyment of that kind of state power."
* Se rving as a focal point at the state and local
level for federa l science inputs.
* Creating a science constituency at the local level.
The time is most pr opitious for analyzing such FederalState re l ~tionships withi n the context of a viable national science p olicy. But the time for such analyses is short. Many of the cri tical urban an d regional problems are crying for immediate a t ten tion and for immediate solution. We must move quickly from ~he analytical level to the practical, action-oriented level.
4

III. Regional Science Activities
The key to the solution of many regional problems lies in the encouragement of local initiative at the state and regional levels, and of entrepreneurial and innovative activities in both the private sector and the public sector.
- National Academy of Science Report
Valid state science policies must be related not only to federal policies, but also to regional and local policies. Thus the states must consider the fact that many problems (such as economic development and environmental management) must be attacked on a regional basis to be truly effective. On the other hand, problems pertaining to mass transit, housing, and urban blight can only be solved if the state and local governmental decision-makers realize that they share a commonality of interest that can best be furthered by close and continuing cooperative efforts.
One of the most important reports on regional science activities was recently published by the National Academy of Sciences, i.e., The Impact of Science and Technology on Regional Economic Development. It is based on the following prem1ses:
1. The economic well-being of our nation is dependent on the development of our technological potential.
2. Federal policies must be established on the basis of a concern for the well-being of the various regions as well as the nation as a whole.
3. Relationships between science,technology, and the national or regional economy are complex.
4. The long-range physical and social welfare of man is of overriding importance in the development of policies for utilizing science and technology.
One very interesting recommendation made in the report is for the establishment of Exploratory Centers for Regional Development. Such exploratory centers were proposed: (1) to assure innovation in the form of valid long-range plans, (2) for better utilization of available resources, and (3) to promote diffusion into widespread use of new technologies, new organizational structures, and new ways of doing things.
In addition to organizing regional science activities on a geographical basis, it is also possible to organize regional efforts along functional lines. In this regard, the thirty coastal states have recently formed a Coastal States Organization in recognition of the fact that a coordinated effort is required to solve many of the complex multi-use and pollution problems in our coastal zone
5

and marine areas. It will be necessary for the states in the coastal region to 'I..York in harmony in establishing common policies, cooperative plans and programs, and in developing an effective dialogue with the federal government with respect to the national oceanographic program. The charter of the Coastal States Organization sets forth the following functions for the Organization:
1. Gather, analyze and disseminate information on marine and coastal affairs of interest to the States in the management, development and regulation of their marine and coastal resources.
2. Identify problems of mutual concern with marine and coastal resources.
3. Develop programs to improve cooperation among the States and between such States and the Federal Government relating to the use and conservation of marine and coastal resources, and to marine science and engineering.
4. Provide a means by which the States may be adequately involved and represented on a continuing basis in the formulation, development, and implementation of national marine and coastal resource programs and policies.
The Coastal States Organization had its first official meeting 1n Washington in June of this year. It has already proved to be effective in providing inputs to Congressional committees and federal agencies on coastal zone research and coastal zone management matters.
IV. Local Science Activities
In today's urban society, the majority of our societal problems are compounded in the cities, where we find a surfeit of problems brought on by: (1) the population explosion, which has led to a rapid increase in our population during the twentieth century, (2) the population implosion, which has led to a rapid, intensive urbanization of our nation, and (3) the population displosion, which has led to a polarization of economic groups between the affluent suburbs and the depressed urban core.
As I have previously pointed out, most of the urban problems are inherently non-technical in nature. However, science can often help the decision makers by shaping and sharpening the issues, by providing fresh insights and technological fixes, and by generating various options (with their associated cost-benefit analyses and their explicit tradeoffs).
In spite of the fact that city governments are subjected to more acute and chronic societal problems than any other level of government, they are the least prepared to handle effectively
6

scientific inputs. This weakness has led to an overdependence of the cities on the federal government in the handling of science and technology pertinent to urban affairs -- including, quite often, the defining of the problems, and even the ranking of the priorities of the problems to be investigated.
It is interesting to note that a few of the larger cities are now beginning to establish a rationale and mechanism for incorporating scientific advice into their governmental councils. Thus, New York City has both a Mayor's Science Advisor (ably filled by Dr. Detlev W. Bronk) and a research partnership with the RAND corporation to assist in study ing some of the city's critical problems. Los Angeles has established the Los Angeles Technical Services Corporation to assist in bringing science to bear on its more critical problems.
These efforts are apparently the only ones being made today at the city government level to provide a direct link between city officials and the scientific community. There are obvious problems which exist in providing science advice at the local level. Small towns and cities cannot afford full time science advisors. This creates a void which state science advisory mechanisms must fill by providing scientific inputs to local governments. However, a more serious problem is the problem of getting local governmental officials to face up to the need and desirability of having a direct link to the scientific cowmunity. As Dr. Detlev Bronk recently pointed out:
"With regard to your question as to the advisability of Mayors appointing science advisers, I would say that I think it highly desirable if the adviser knows well and has the respect of leading scientists and engineers in the city so that he can call upon them as members of an advisory committee to deal with specific problems. In general, however, I find that there are few Mayors who know how to use science advisers; Governors are usually better; and the Federal Government best of all because the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council worked for years in preparing the executive and legislative arms of Government for the utilization of scientists and technical services."
The national science policy must make provision for strengthening local science agencies and for creating mechanisms to coordinate science activities at all levels of government.
V. Support of State Science Activities
A new era in Federal-State relations is appearing on the horizon. This is due in part to an inward-turning of the nation to resolve some of the more critical domestic issues, and to a new philosophy introduced by the new administration, i.e., the concept of New Federalism.
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New Federalism
The essence of the New Federalism is to help regain control of our national destiny by returning a greater share of control to State and local governments and to the people. This in turn requires constant attention in raising the quality of Government at all levels.
-- President Nixon
Hand in hand with this new concept is the proposal to share Federal revenues with the States and local communities so that they can accept a greater share of responsibility for solving problems which are essentially local and regional in nature.
Revenue Sharing Concept
Ultimately, it is our hope to use this mechanism to so strengthen State and local government that by the end of the coming decade, the political landscape of America will be visably altered, and States and cities will have a far greater share of power and responsibility for solving their own problems.
-- President Nixon
As a consequence of moving the focus of decis~on-making downward, the State and local governments will need to provide themselves with exceedingly competent staffs -- which is especially true where science and technology are concerned. Lacking any long tradition in such fields of endeavor and lacking the sophistication acquired by federal science agencies over the past several decades, means that the embryonic State science agencies will by necessity turn to the federal government for assistance in getting started and for establishing a continuing dialogue in matters common to both federal and State science programs.
In a broad sense, a federal-state-local partnership is necessary to coordinate science goals, policies, and programs in order to optimize their effectiveness and their impact. Such a partnership is needed to provide state and local science advisors with an official entree to the federal science agencies. By strengthening state science agencies, a mechanism will be provided to upgrade and equalize the scientific and technological base of all states, thus helping to solve some of our domestic problems as
well as strengthening the total U. s. technological capability
vis-a-vis our international competitors. In addition it will help bring science home to its beneficiaries and supporters, thus promoting an increased knowledge and appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of science and technology by our citizenry.
In the final analysis we must remember that most of the
8

critical societal problems today are the immediate responsibility of state and local governments. Elazar has recently pointed out that: "At the present time, the States and localities account for two-thirds of the total governmental expenditure for domestic purposes. This is a fair indication of their political role as well." He further points out, "that nationally established programs do not become meaningful until they are translated into functioning ones at the local level. In a democratic society based on the idea of local control of public actions, this means that local cooperation is of first importance. And in a democratic society, local cooperation is not gained through coercive measures but through recognition of local prerogatives as well as local needs."
IV. Summary
The impact of science and technology -- both good and bad -on society is well recognized today. Properly utilized, science should be able to ameliorate or solve many of the serious problems facing our citizenry and should be able to show us the path to a brighter tomorrow. As Professor Daniel Bell of Columbia University recently pointed out: "What is arising today ... is a 'postindustrial society' in which the source of innovation and the basis of power are the research sectors of the society ... The strength of a society becomes increasingly dependent on the quality of its research and scientific effort." Thus we are faced with the challenge as to how society can best establish its goals, policies, and programs to bring the fruits of science and technology to our "postindustrial society."
It is obvious that inasmuch as science and technology are heavily funded by government, the science problem is really a political problem of major concern to all citizens and all levels of government -- from the federal through the state to the local level.
Those science policy studies which have been conducted to date have dealt primarily with the relationship between science support and the federal government. Yet many of the problems facing the citizen actually dominate at the state and local level. To help fill the existing gap in the utilization of science and technology, several of the states and major municipalities have initiated strong science programs. However, most of these groups are still searching for a philosophy of operation and are trying to determine how their organization can best interface with the federal government and with the individual citizen. Although much has been done in establishing a foundation for state and local science agencies, much more remains to be accomplished to make such organizations viable and effective.

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9

INTERGOVERNMENTAL SCIENCE RELATIONS: THE STATE OF THE DISCUSSION
by
Irwin Feller, Program Director
Center for the Study of Science Policy and Associate Professor of Economics The Pennsylvania State University
I. The progression from the conception of an idea to its acceptance as public policy involves advocacy, education and analysis. The proposals to strengthen the capabilities of state and local governments to use science and technology in their operations and to increase the role of these levels of government in the formulation of national science policy are midway in this progression.
This nation has increasingly been forced to realize that its achievements of the nineteen-sixties - economic growth of record duration and manned voyages into space - have not lead to comparable advances toward other national objectives. It is increasingly being argued that to achieve these objectives, in housing, health service, transportation, environmental control, for example, it will be necessary to direct more of our national output and more of our scientific and technological skills into these areas. Moreover, for the most part, these problem areas are ones in which, historically, state and local governments have had the major political responsibility. It is therefore being argued that states and local governments should be accorded a larger role in determining the national policies that will direct efforts at providing scientific and technological solutions to this catalogue of domestic problems.
At present, the science activities of state and local governments are limited, both in terms of expenditures for R & D and in terms of the ability of these levels of government to readily produce and assimilate scientific information and advice. A need, therefore, is seen to strengthen these capabilities within each unit of government, and to then, if necessary, restructure existing federal-state-local arrangements which relate to science policy.
These propositions have been advanced for approximately the past three years. They have been advanced by a select group of state science advisors, state officials connected with science and technology foundations, and individuals within various federal agencies. Efforts have been directed at educating officials, within the states, from the Governors down to the legislatures and through the various state departments, of the need for greater attention to and support of science related activities. At the federal level, this effort has taken the form of (1) educating federal agencies and legislators to the fact that states "exist'' in the area of science activities; (2) convincing them that states
10

can play a constructive role in the formulation and implementation of national science policy; and (3) obtaining support for the federal legislation and expenditures that may be necessary to create and sustain state and local science efforts.
These combined efforts at education and advocacy have been carried out in a series of regional conferences on state science activities and the application of science and technology to public problems, the visits and briefings in several states during 1969 of the Committee on Intergovernmental Science Relations of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, and the formation of a National Governor's Science Advisory Council. The calling of a National Conference on Goals, Policies, and Programs, of Federal, State, and Local Science Agencies, in a sense, represents the culmination of this phase of the progression. It represents an attempt to ascertain whether a consensus exists on the desirability of the objectives of strengthening state and local science capabilities and whether this consensus can be carried over to the support of an agreed upon set of recommendations for legislative action.
Throughout these efforts, concern has been expressed over the lack of detailed information on how the present pattern of federalstate-local science relations effects the production and utilization of science and technology in the public sector. Moreover, it was recognized that however valid and effective the initial arguments were in calling attention to the case for greater state and municipal participation in national science activities, there would also develop a need for systematic and on-going analysis of the existing pattern of intergovernmental science relations and of the likely effectiveness of the several alternatives which were possible. Finally, beyond the analysis of state science activities which have been provided at professional academic meetings, such as those of American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1969 and the American Political Science Association in 1970, a need was felt for an institutional basis which would facilitate a continuing academic interest in these science policy questions.
These considerations led to the establishment in 1969 of The Center for the Study of Science Policy at The Pennsylvania State University. Initial support was provided by the National Science Foundation, The Pennsylvania Science and Engineering Foundation, and The Pennsylvania State University.
The Center's primary research thrust has been on the role of state and local governments in the formulation of national science policy. During 1969-70 the Center's work involved: (1) an investigation of the role of state and local governments as sponsors and aonsumers of scientific and technical knowledge within a national system of publically funded research and development; (2) an investigation of the organization and direction of research and development activities within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania1 ; (3) a workshop on Pennsylvania's Science Policies2; and (4) a workshop on the Evaluation of State Science Activities.
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The Center has provided an organizational umbrella for researchers in a variety of disciplines to work on policy issues related to state and local problems. The oft made charge that university researchers, particularly those in the physical sciences, are not interested in applied problems, and that when they do engage in policy questions it is only with federal agencies, probably reflects more the lack of satisfactory institutional arrangement to channel academic concern and expertise into these neglected areas than it does a lack of interest. Involved in the Center's activities are faculty from the following departments: Economics, Political Science, Chemical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science and Nuclear Engineering.
Based upon its initial work the Center has now undertaken studies into the effect of interoovernmental relations on the allocation of research and development funds within the public sector, initially in the area of air pollution research, and on the impact of R & D on regional growth. In addition, work has begun on the policy and personnel issues involved in the confrontations between federal agencies and state governments over the establishment of standards for technological processes. Minnesota's challenge of the exclusive rights of the A.E.C. to set nuclear radiation emission standards and New York and Missouri's challenge over the designation of air basins within their states raise the question, beyond the technical and constitutional issues clearly involved, of how states can develop the technical expertise to negotiate with the federal government over such issues.
II. Summaries of the conclusions of some of the Center's studies are presented below. The first set relate to the general role for state science activities. The second set relate to state policies of supporting R & D as a method of stimulating economic growth.
A) There are several reasons for strengthening and expanding state science activities and realigning present intergovernmental science relations. One must, however, recognize that, in general, state science efforts to date have been ineffectual, that where effective they have such shallow roots as to be unable to weather the slightest unfavorable political breeze, and finally, that the arguments shaping present efforts to enhance state science activities are too general to guide future policy.
The beneficial aspects of state science activities can be grouped under the following headings: Evaluation and Education, Efficiency and Expertise.
Evaluation and Education
State science advisory boards provide a technological forecasting and technological assessment capability.
Such a capability is essential both to enable a state to benefit from technology which would be prevented by public resistance
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and to prevent or restructure that unregulated technological change which would impose avoidable costs on the state. State advisory councils have a responsibility to undertake, in conjunction with relevant state agencies, educational programs when public issu~s arise over the safety or other spill-over consequences of proposed technology.
Efficiency
Greater state participation in the determination of research priorities, including project selection, may lead to a more effective allocation of R & D within the public sector.
If concerted efforts are to be made to utilize science for society, then care must be taken that a portion of these projects be of an applied and developmental nature, and that the process of discovery be tied to the process of diffusion. An efficient allocation of public R & D is one which produces solutions which assist state agencies in their provision of public services and which presents solutions in a form that makes possible their ready acceptance.
Expertise
Where decisions are made or defended on scientific grounds, the possession of information and expertise is a political as well as a technical issue. Situations involving federal-state negotiations over policies where scientific considerations are an important component, seem increasingly likely. States must develop their own in-house technical capabilities if they are to effectively represent their constituents.
B) State support of science and technology is based in large part on the belief that research and development has been and can be a major factor in shaping the economic growth of a state or a region. Despite the seemingly self-evident nature of this relationship, buttressed by the oft-sited examples of Route 128 and Palo Alto, there is no clear-cut theoretical explanation why this relationship should hold. Moreover, the empirical work on this relationship is surprisingly scanty, and then is often of a casual nature. To the extent that such a relationship has existed over the past twenty years, it was probably due primarily to federal expenditures for defense and space related activities. There are major differences between the relationships of the federal government and the private sector and those between state governments on the private sector which vitiate much of the state's endeavors to recreate the R & D - economic growth process.
Four state strategies for stimulating economic development through the support of science and technology have been followed.
(1) States have supported R & D directed at developing new processes and products for their natural resources. By focusing on those products in which it has a comparative advantage, a state insures itself that the benefits of any research investment
13

will be realized within its borders.
(2) State strategy has focused on the competition for the location of major federal R & D installations. Here state policy is directed at effectively organizing its political influence, often on the basis of an alleged "inequitable " distribution of federal R & D expenditures. (The fallacies in the "have not" argument have not been adequately exposed. The general relationship is for those states which receive the largest percentage of federal R & D expenditures to pay the federal government more in per capita taxes than they receive in per capita expenditures.)
(3) State science and engineering foundation expenditures have been directed into the support of higher education in an attempt to develop the M.I.T.-Route 128 nexus of the future. For several reasons, this is the riskiest of all the possible state strategies cited.
(4) State foundation can underwrite "public goods" research. By supporting such projects the state not only solves its problems, but also provides a market for the new technology. Hopefully, from the state's viewpoint, this initial impetus assists firms within the state to become the technological leaders in their industries.
In terms of these approaches, the policies of the science foundation in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania suggest that:
(1) State science and engineering foundations have tended to rely too heavily on the support of graduate education in the sciences.
(2) Where an increase in the research capabilities of universities is desired, this could best be done through the support of centers, rather than through the enticement of star professors or awards of unrestricted grants.
(3) State foundations should avoid fellowships and what are essentially instructional equipment grants. Such support should more properly be handled through state appropriations to education.
(4) Inadequate use is being made of foundation-initiated studies, particularly into applied problem areas, and of "public goods" research.
1The Organization of Research Programs Within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Irwin Feller and Jon Nelson, with Robert Friedman and James Mead (Center for the Study of Science Policy: University Park, Pennsylvania 1970).
2Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Science Policy Workshop, 1970, (Center for the Study of Science Policy: University Park, Pennsylvania 1970).
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STATE SCIENCE POLICY AND THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SCIENCE , TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY
by
Dennis Barnes, Associate Director
Center for the Study of Science, Technology and Public Policy Universi t y of Virginia
Introduction
One of the growing interests of the University of Virginia's Center for the Study of Science, Technology and Public Policy is the role of higher education in the development of State policy for areas in which science and technology are important factors. Workin g with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the National Science Foundation, the Center is directing a program to develop a mechanism which will enable Virg inia's institutions of higher education to make an effective, coordinated contribution to the development of policy and to the solution of problems of environmental quality in Virginia. This program is being conducted in conjunction with Governor Holton's Council on Environment. The experience gained should be very useful in bringing academic expertise to bear on a variety of problems facing Virginia.
Ba~kground and Concept
The Center for the Study of Science, Technology and Public Policy was established at the University of Virginia in July 1968. This undertaking was and continues to be supported extensively by the National Science Foundation. As Director, Mason Eillrich, Professor of Law at the University, has guided the initiation, organization and development of the Center.
Public policy is the primary concern of the Center, including the study of the institutions of policy formation as well as the invention and evaluation of policy alternatives. The approach is interdisciplinary and problem-oriented. Our .attention is focus ed on important problems which confront or will confront human society , rather than on a particular aspect of a social prob lem or a category of human knowledge.
The Center is based in the School of Law, but has University'''ide dimensions. For law faculty and students, the Center is an important vehicle to relate themselves and their work to other schools and departments within the University. The focus on interdisciplinary policy studies of important social problems helps to meet the need for increased concern with policy in both the research and teaching phases of legal education. Lawyers in practice, especially in public service, frequently function as the architects of the institutions of policy formation and coordinators

bn

15

of the policy process. Legal education needs to do more to prepare future lawyers to function as effectively as possible in these roles. The Center is an effort to move in this direction.
The Center and Public Policy for Virginia
The first year of Center operations was devoted primarily to a concerted effort at program development, althotigh limited research results were achieved. During the second year, the Center began to focus more attention on problems of science and technology which are of specific concern to the Commonwealth of Virginia. This focusing was prompted by several considerations besides the obvious ones of location, familiarity and obligation as a State institution.
At present, Virginia has comparatively little capability for coping with the implications for public policy of science and technology in areas such as housing, environment, transportation, public health, etc. At the same time, the Commonwealth is experiencing and anticipates rates of industrial and population growth above the national average. Not only will the intensity of existing problems increase, but new problems will appear, in part as a product of Virginia's shift from a rural to urban state.
Virgin~a's Urban Corridor
As an experiment, the Center organized and sponsored a study, by University members, of the growth of the Boston-Washington urban corridor into Virginia. This subject seemed particularly timely since an increasing proportion-already more than half - of the State's population and economic activity are concentrated in the coastal corridor running from Washington through Richmond southeast to the cities on the Hampton Roads at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The study team included two lawyers, a political scientist, a physical scientist and a geographer.
At the outset, informal contact was made with the Division of State Planning and Community Affairs in the Office of the Governor. We hoped thereby to develop a symbiotic relationship which would produce more enlightened state policy in a number of areas.
The objectives of the summer study were to provide a preliminary survey of the corridor and a catalogue of its problems. And a further objective was to develop recommendations concerning
specific in-depth studies to be undertaken as part of a longer term effort. The group's work extended through the 1969 Fall semester and led to the publication in March, 1970 of Virginia's Urban Corridor, A Preliminary Inquiry.
The report contains a detailed confirmation of the existence of an urban corridor in Virginia based on an analysis of population, housing, manufacturing, transportation, and governmental characteristics. It also highlights a number of critical problem areas such as governmental structure, public finance, land use, housing,
16

transportation, industrial development, environmental pollution, social welfare, and education. Public policy decisions for each of these interrelated problems, taking into account the entire corridor as a phenomenon, appear to be already overdue. Yet indepth analyses of all these problems and their interactions will be 'needed if sound public policy is to be developed regarding future urbanization in Virginia. The report contained specific proposals for further work in two areas: transportation and environmental quality.
Copies of Virginia's Urban Corridor were made available to state governmental officials, members of the legislature, private businesses and interested citizens in Virginia. The report evoked considerable favorable comment from the press and members of the state government.
Environmental Quality in Virginia
With Virginia's Urban Corridor the Center demonstrated that there is an audience for a useful and otherwise unavailable input by higher education to the development of public policy in the Commonwealth. On the other hand, we also recognized that our activity had been primarily unilateral and relatively uncoordinated with those agencies of the State with primary responsibility for public policy affecting the urban corridor.
Consequently, we have undertaken another experiment in which we are attempting to interact more effectively and formally with agencies of the State government which are primarily responsible for the development of public policy .
One of the highlights of the Center's report on Virginia's urban corridor is the critical need for comprehensive planning to provide effective environmental management in the face of accelerating population and industrial growth. The report points out that the State's policy priority thus far has been industrial development. Public policy related to education, highway construction and taxation has been influenced by its impact on the State's ability to attract and hold new industry. While State policy for industrial growth is relatively well developed, there is no cornparable policy for environmental quality. The closest approximation is the uncornprehensive and largely uncoordinated operations and plans of several State agencies responsible for particular segments of the environment. Unfortunately, the people, powers, and money to develop the requisite State policy are not likely to be available in the near future at anywhere near the level required to meet growing public concern.
The largest source of highly trained scientific and professional expertise in Virginia is found in her institutions of higher education. Public service is an acknowledged responsibility of these institutions. Acting through the State Council of Higher Education, they recently have begun to perform studies affecting State policy. The academic community thus presents a
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logical, needed and essentially unequalled resource for environmental planning and problem solving in the Commonwealth.
The Center proposed a program for the State Council of Higher Education and the National Science Foundation to develop a new mechanism which will enable Vi~ginia's institutions of higher education to make an effective, coordinated contribution to the development of policy and to the solution of problems of environmental quality in Virginia. Dr. Dennis W. Barnes, Associate Director of the Center, is the Project Director.
While the Center is providing project direction, faculty from several other state educational institutions, public and private, are participating in this undertaking. A steering committee of representatives of several of the institutions of higher education and State agencies has been formed to guide the program. Currently several studies are underway to identify and substantiate the roles which industry, citizens' groups, State agencies and the educational institutions, themselves, see higher education playing for environmental quality. In the process of identifying appropriate roles, we are also establishing linkages which will pemit us to more effectively realize these roles.
A particularly close association is being maintained with the Governor's Council on Environment which was announced recently by Governor Holton. The membership is composed of the administrative heads of eleven state agencies and three laymen, appointed by the Governor. One of the primary objectives of the present Council is to recommend suitable permanent organizational changes within the State government to effect the optimum utilization of Virginia's resources.
While colleges and universities do not claim a mandate for determining public policy beyond their mvn educational role, they are qualified to generate and analyze policy alternatives for a broad range of problems affecting the State. This capability is recognized in the bylaws of the Governor's Council which calls for the "use of the resources of the Commonwealth's institutions of higher learning, calling on them and special agencies as they might develop for study and research into aspects of environmental problems beyond the range of authority or competence of the Council".
With the Governor's Council representing the State agencies most concerned with the environment and the State Council of Higher Education representing Virginia's colleges and universities, there should be considerable focusing of attention, capabilities and resources for coping with Virginia's need for environmental planning and problem solving.
Conclusion
The Center believes the academic community in Virginia can play a necessary role in the identification, analysis and solution of present and emerging problems in Virginia. The experience
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gained in our program on environmental quality should be very useful in bringing academic expertise to bear on a variety of other pressing problems facing Virginia, e.g., housing, transportation, and health care. Appropriate solutions for each of these problems, as well as environmental quality, will require a much more effective utilization by the State of scientific and technical resources than has occurred in the past.
Institutionalizing participation of state universities and colleges in roles which support the development of state policy regarding the broad range of problems having a large science or technology component may be important in other states where the development of such a capability within the state governments has not been practicable. The mechanism developed for the State Council in Virginia could, therefore, serve as a prototype for development of comparable mechanisms elsewhere.
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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE
by
Richard N. Foster Warren D. Siemens
Urban Development Applications Project ABT Associates Incorporated
1. Introduction
The role of science and technology in the American economy, once thought to be so obvious that it did not require explanation, increasinly has been the subject of public debate. The SST, defoliation in Viet Nam, pollution, nerve gas and urban transportation are topics as familiar to the factory worke~ as they are to the top executives of business and government. The radicals are on the offensive and, more often than not, the moderates recoil defensively, noting that they too recognize that science and technology are not effective ways to solve our most pressing problems.
We often hear that, "the technology exists today to essentially eliminate all the pollution in our water and air, if only the government would grant the funds" (or substitute, " .... if the people were willing to pay for it"); or "technology is not the problem in housing; unions, restrictive codes, and high interest rates are the problems". It is the contention of this paper that these views are oased on a greatly simplified view of the American system and that, in fact, science and technology have a critical role to paly in our most pressing national problems. To say that "we have the technology to solve the pollution problem, but the people do not want to pay" is to say that we do not have the technology; for if we did we would have it at a price that the public was willing to pay. Technology can not be separated from economics and social values. To say that "technology is not the problem in housing" is to deny technology the opportunity to assist in avoiding the 5,600 deaths and 500 times that number of injuries that occur each year in our homes because of fire. Science and technology do have an important and critical role to play in solving the problems that face our country today. Science and technology are not all that is needed, but neither is legislation, popular opinion, business sympathy, or a lower cost of capital. All of these elements are necessary, and they must all be used in unison, exploiting the particular strengths of each such that the problem is solved.
This paper will then take a positive approach, presuming that science and technology do have a role, an important role, to play in solving our material problems. After a short discussion of some methodological points, a discussion will be given of current problems to which science and technology can make a contribution. Following this, some thoughts will be presented about the particular
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strengths and weaknesses of science and technology for solving these problems.
II. Some Definitions and Hypotheses
The nation is facing many critical problems today. The National Goals Research Staff has recently published its report and has listed several well recognized problems. The National Industrial Conference Board in cooperation with sixty-six business, government and university leaders has defined another set, generally more internationally oriented and looking towards problems that are somewhat more general in nature.
Science and technology can contribute to each of these problems to a different extent. Clearly there are many more technological "elements" to the pollution problem than there are to the problem of campus unrest. An examination of the way in which science and technology contribute to these problems, reveals that the process is subtle and takes place at an intricate level of detail. It is the accretion of many scientific and technological contributions, from diverse fields, rather than one act of legislation or a single change in the discount rate, that yield a solution. Because of this, one must proceed from the general to the specific, traversing many levels of detail.
Neither is the task over when it is found that a technological solution to a problem exists. One must also ensure that the technological solution is sufficiently unique and cost effective so thatits introduction into the mainstream of economic activity is reasonably certain. Without the existence of a market instrument that can provide this introduction function the technology will remain unimplemented with no economic and social impact. It is the match of the three elements; 1) a problem with an important technological component, 2) an appropriate technology to contribute to the problem, and 3) the existence of a market instrument to economically provide the technology. Most significant problems do have a technological component and where the component can be identified generally there will be several alternative technological approaches which will adequately address the problem. The difficulty, more often than not, is the existence of a market instrument which is appropriate for the application of the technology to the problem. The market instrument must have available the proper capital base, production capability, marketing channels, and a proprietary position before it will proceed to undertake the project. As we move into a decade when public sector problems are dominant, and government participation will surely be more widespread than in the past, the nature of these market instruments and their relationship to their customers and suppliers will change a great deal. ScientifLc and technological policies have the potential to make a substantial input to the reshaping of these relationships and thus upon the ultimate realization of the potential of science and technology in the public sector. Perhaps inclusion of the market instrument is wider in scope than science policy has enthusiastically addressed in the past. The topic is certainly
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concerned with areas outside the traditional competence of scientists and technologies. (It is not clear whether it is more effective to educate a scientist or technologist in the operations of business and government than it is to give a non-scientist an appreciation and the detailed understanding of the technical aspects of the conversion of science and technology into social and economic value) .
Thus, when speaking of the utility of science and technology for addressing our national problems we must pay a great deal of attention to the details of the process from both scientific and non-scientific perspectives.
III. Critical Problems
Our work and experience in this field has been in close affiliation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Technology Utilization Division. NASA's enabling act mandated them to use the science and technology developed in the program for non-aerospace uses.*
To this end NASA has been actively encouraging the transfer of aerospace technology to other areas. Initially they disseminated literature in the form of Tech Briefs and Survey reports about various items of NASA technology. Later they established Regional Dissemination Centers which permitted access to the NASA data bank by both public and private clients. Since that time they have established teams of individuals specializing in various problem areas (e.g., biomedicine, air pollution, mine safety, urban construction, etc.) for which it is felt that there is a high potential for the application of NASA technology.
At Abt we are focusing our efforts on the transfer of NASA technology to problems of urban construction and planning. We are also, under other contracts, assisting government and private clients in Europe with problems of the application of new technologies to established problems. It is from this perspective that we suggest the following problem areas in which we feel science and technology can play an important role. (Our work has been concerned primarily with urban housing and so it will be covered first. Other areas mentioned have been addressed in most cases by other NASA contractors.)
*Space Act of 1958, "(that NASA) provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof."
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1) Housing -- With a deficit of 1.6 million housing units per year developing and prices climbing it is clear that the provision of adequate housing for all Americans must be a top priority area. Present building codes, which are based on mat~rial specifications, are being replaced by performance codes opening up many technological opportunities in life safety, structural integrity, mechanical fixtures and -appliances, the acoustic environment and so forth. Specific materials and devices
not in use today in homes will be necessities of the future.
For example, rapid flame spread in homes accounts for many tragic deaths and disabling injuries each year. NASA's experience with ablative heat shields was drawn upon to advance the state of the art of intumescent paints. These are paints which, upon exposure to high temperatures (about 400C) , intumesce or react in such a way that they expand to many times their original volume forming a thermally insulating layer which protects the substrate and prevents further flame spread. The coatings also issue fire quenching gases in the direction of the heat flux assisting with fire extinguishment. These paints hold great promise for a safer home.
2) Crime -- Recent FBI figures have indicated an alarming rise in the crime rate. Technology, through telemetry, electronics, EDP and other areas, can play a more significant role in prevention, effective pursuit and post crime detection.
3) Pollution -- It is clear that in all aspects of the pollution problem, air, water, solid waste, thermal, radiation and noise are amenable to technical solution. Science and technology has been and will continue to be instrumental in establishing the extent of the current problem, setting standards, surveillance and reduction of pollution. Recent advances such as the Bureau of Mines process to reduce cellulosic garbage to a petroleum like oil are indicative of the way in which science can potentially change the pattern of future economic activity.
4) Privacy -- Intrusion into our personal lives through computerized data banks, intrusion into our homes or other private property can be prevented through the creative use of technology.
5) Consumer Protection -- Product quality and safety in consumer products, (drugs, microwave ranges, televisions, etc.) can be ensured through technological approaches.
6) Transportation -- Air, land and sea traffic can all be aided through technology. The greater safety of airport runways through the use of grooves p~rpendicular to the direction of landing is an example of technology transfer from NASA. Similar grooving of highways will do a great deal to eliminate hydroplanning. There are many other areas however where changes in the entire transportation system will be necessitated and technology will be called upon.
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7) Energy Crisis -- The energy crisis in our country is the result of many factors. Availability of fuel at any price is not the problem. The availability of an economic fuel which does not aggravate the environment through thermal, air, or water pollution is proving to be difficult. Advanced technology such as plasma gas dynamics promise to alter the characteristics of this sector of the economy.
8) Health -- Medicine and health are currently undergoing many changes because of the new capabilities of electronics and electronic data processing. Many more innovations can be expected. Improved health care delivery systems offer a particular challenge to technology.
9) Poverty -- A creative science policy can encourage economic development in the poor rural and urban areas. Anticdotal evidence now seems to demonstrate that while this road is a difficult one it is not impossible.
These problems are just a sampling of those that could have been noted. Their order is not meant to imply priority; all are critical problems whose solutions are urgently needed. The potential scientific contribution to these and other problems is not always obvious and there is a need for a systematic process to identify the problems, define alternate technological approaches to them, provide the technology, and to implement the solution. Abt Associates is now working on such a process from a variety of perspectives.
IV. Strengths and Weaknesses of Science and Technology 1n Solving These Problems
The examples above, particularly in housing, show the potential for the use of science and technology as an instrument of social and economic policy and change. The major strength of science and technology is their potential for more efficient utilization of scarce resources which will permit man to raise his quality of life through a higher standard of living and through the pursuit of more intellectually satisfying work. The emergence of the computer industry has shown us the potential of this approach.
Science and technology alone however cannot realize this potential. It is clear from a brief scanning of the above examples that social and economic policy changes must be made in concert with the application of new technology to achieve a significant effect. It is not sufficient for science to define its goals in isolation. These goals must be defined in coordination with the goals of other Federal, State, and Local agencies. The goals must explicitly consider the options available or the exercise will be sterile. An objective must be to develop a system that can flexibly deal with the problems of change. Science and society work in a push-pull mode, each responding to the strengths and
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weaknesses of the other . Science policy, in conjunction with social and economic policy must prepare for this.
Science policy must take more explicit recognition of ar~as like patent policy, creative Federal funding of applied research projects which are too costly for industry to undertake but which industry will benefit from, overall Federal agency policy (such as NASA's policy to use proven technology) and science and technology policies for states and large urban areas.
The problems facing our nation have many dimensions, of which the technological requirements comprise only one dimension. A solution to the technological component of a social problem is adequate only if it satisfies the requirements of the institutional, political, legal, and economic dimensions of the problem as well. Unless the technology is assessed in terms of the other components of the problem it is likely to remain unimplemented and fail to "solve" the problem. In this sense, though still misleading, it may be said that technology is not the problem.
Science by itself is powerless to improve the system as are all other individual disciplines but science has the special advantage that it deals in the creation of the goods and services which are the vehicle through which man experiences his world. As such science is in a unique position to increase the quality of man's life.
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ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS IN CREATING PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
by
Chandler Harrison Stevens
M.I.T. Operations Research Center Science Advisor to Governor of Puerto Rico
Needed Reform Within Technological Universities
No public relations campaign could alleviate the present anti-science mood in the United States. Technology is too dominant a force in our society to be camouflaged. For example, it is quite obvious to people that science and technology have been used in the name of economic progress more to cause pollution than to rationally dispose of waste by-products of economic activity. Young people in particular are beginning to question the unresponsive quality of the bureaucratic-corporate-urban institutional structure which has evolved.
While the rationality of science has been applied to the building of physical systems, societal systems have been left to evolve on more of a hit-or-miss basis. There is no well-developed academic discipline today which is concerned in broad terms with the design and development of more rational societal systems.
Various branches of social science are concerned with the study of past and current societal systems but seldom with the design of future societal systems. While economics is concerned with the price mechanism and political science with the voting process, neither is likely to be too concerned with the application of new communications technology to citizen feedback systems, even though such systems might supplement the price mechanism and the voting process. The design of societal systems would seem a bit too action-oriented or "idealized'' for most social scientists. For they, like physical scientists, are trained primarily to observe existing phenomena rather than to develop new systems.
Even the more philosophical implications of the Communications Revolution would not be receiving much attention now if it were not for a maverick such as Marshall McLuhan who boldly suggests that the medium which dominates so much of man's life deserves considerably more attention and analysis. Yet even Marshall McLuhan is an observer and a predictor and not a designer. He does not develop models principally for the purpose of developing more rational societal systems than might otherwise evolve. Practically no one does.
It is true that there are several applied disciplines which are concerned with particular aspects of societal decision-making
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--e.g., urban planning, public ad~inistration, business administration, management science, operations research, and industrial engineering. Yet these disciplines are concerned with the design not of general societal systems but of subsystems, which are further constrained by the underly ing assumptions of the bureaucratic-corporate-urban culture which they seek to describe.
During the Industrial Revolution, the profession of engineering grew, not only in quantity but also in quality, in order that society could build large and complex physical systems based upon principles generally discovered by physical scientists. Perhaps during the Communications Revolution, a similar profession of societal problem-solvers wiil evolve to apply knowledge uncovered by social scientists. Perhaps we have seen its beginning in the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty. However, these innovations of the U. S. government have possessed more in the way of good intentions than in follow-through techniques.
Perhaps the needed societal problem-solvers could come out of people-oriented professions such as medicine, law and education. Yet these information-based professions train their members to act more as individual case-analysts than as societal problem-solvers. Can we expect doctors to design new systems for the delivery of healtp services? Will lawyers be able to apply technology to control technology in order to protect the right to privacy, the right to breathe clean air, etc.? Will teachers even accept, let alone develop, educational innovations such as "Sesame Street," the currently popular television show, aimed originally at ghetto children?
What seems to be needed in our universities, particularly in our technological universities, is a new discipline of societal systems -- systems for societal communication, decision-making, and development. Societal systems should draw on or even serve to integrate elements of the following disciplines: social science and humanities (the latter because societal feedforward must in the best sense be both informative and entertaining) ; the system aspects of medicine, law, and education; planning, management and related interdisciplinary programs concerned with decision-making (e.g., computer sciences and operations research); the problemsolving techniques of engineering, for example civil engineering's concern with large-scale transportation and other public service systems and electrical engineering's concern with the technology of the Communications Revolution.
The Communications Revolution and Protest Demonstrations
Television has made the citizen considerably more aware, giving him a sense of his whole environment, though that view might at this stage in TV's development be quite distorted. He sees in his own living room war being fought, often in television's "living"color. He may vote for a presendential candidate who promises not to escalate a war (as many thought they did in 1964) , but then later see that promise go unfulfilled. He sees elected
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officials more and more as the captives of massive, unresponsive bureaucracies.

In many political contests the voter may see little difference between competing candidates, as he agrees and disagrees with each on different issues. While he may realize that elections still provide the ~est means for integrating his views on various issues which concern him and for providing for continuity, follmvthrough, and representation on other issues which fall beyond his attention span, nevertheless he may have enough to say on a few high-priority matters that he finds the election process far from sufficient any more.

Instant news has short-circuited certain communication hierarchies of the past -- particularly government bureaucracies and political parties. Yet, while there has been considerable speed-up of communication from the center of society out to the citizen, little has yet been done to increase the speed of communications back in to the center from the citizen, who is still expected to "go through channels" with his inquiries, requests, complaints, suggestions, opinions, etc.

However, certain resourceful citizens who felt strongly about issues during the decade of the sixties found a way to be heard -the mass demonstration. Unlike applause, which shows approval, the demonstrations of the sixties showed strong disapproval -- disapproval of such things as war, prejudice, poverty, housing conditions, university policies, environmental pollution, urban highways,various neighborhood conditions, police actions, and judicial decisions. More recently, the "Honor America" demonstrations on July 4, 1970 showed a mixture of approval for general American policies and dlsapproval of previous demonstrations against some of those policies.

For decades, political analysts have complained of public apathy. However, around the beginning of the sixties, public inaction was seen by Boston University Professor Murray Levin and others as due more to feelings of alienation than to feelings of apathy. Later in the sixties, alienation seemed to give way in certain quarters to action in the form of protest, particularly with the development of the civil rights movement. Politically, the sixties can be characterized by this transition from apathy to alienation to protest. In the fall of 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium demonstrations were well-coordinated, nationwide undertakings. Many of these demonstrations belonged to a new generation who grew up in the fifties and gained a new awareness of societal problems through
I television. They had been exposed to a dramatic speedup in communi-
cations from the center out, and they completed the feedback loop when in the sixties they learned to use this same medium, television, as a weapon (and I use the term "weapon" advisedly) for communication back to the center.

"Meanwhile, back at the center," complaints about public

apathy are seldom heard. In fact, President Richard Nixon now

l

praises those who remain silent, claiming that they represent a

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majority who approve of his policies. Vice President Spiro Agnew has moved more directly to discredit the mass-protest form of citizen feedback, as has been well discerned in the following newspaper column by M.I.T. Professor John Saloma in The Boston Globe:
The Vice President told the nation's governors at their mid-Winter meeting in Washington that the "overriding and compelling issue in the United States today (is): Will the government of this country remain in the hands of its elected officials or will it descend to the streets?"
It is now possible to discern several elements of the Nixon-Agnew strategy. One is to break the de facto alliance between the nation's media and the protest movement. This objective was largely accomplished by Agnew's attacks on the media last Fall. The national television networks vi r tually eliminated live coverage and analysis of the November March on Washington.
The President is a shrewd enough student of "the new politics" tc know that its highly ad hoc organizational forms require communication via mass media to be most effective. To drive the point home again, Agnew called the governors to lead a campaign "to drive these bi zarre extremists from their preemptive positions on our t e levision screens and on the f ront pages of our newspapers."
Street protests do not seem to be a desirable form of citizen feedback even to many who participate in such demonstrations, but what other forms of citizen feedback can be applied, in wh a t many see now as a crisis situation? Are other forms of citizen feedback --e.g., the telegram campaign, the petition drives, the t e ach-outs, the door-to-door canvasses used e x tensively during the Kent Cambodian crisis of the spring of 1970 -- are these rapid and effective enough to keep pace with the present rate of change within our society and with the speedup in communications from the center out?
A man who stands close to the center of the world 1 s stage, U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations, has been quoted as saying, "I do not wish to be overdramatic, but I can onl y conclude from the information available to me as Secretary General that the members of the U. N. hav e perhaps 10 years left in vlhich to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership, to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion and to supply the required momentum to world development efforts."
This cha1lenge for the s eventies must be .met in t he context of the Communications Revolution, which could come to hav e as great a significance as the Industrial Revolution. For just as the Industrial Revolution diminished the power of the economic elite that had been most concentrated under the Federal System , so also should the Communications Revolution diminish the power of today's
29

"knowledge elite" -- the so-called Establishment. In other words, the Communications Revolution should yield a more even distribution of knowledge and power, just as the ongoing Industrial Revolution has been yielding a more even distribution of economic power.
The process of redistributing knowledge power has already begun. Not only has television created social consciousness but also colleges and universities, bulging with children of an increasingly large economic middle class, are helping to create a "knowledge middle class." These young people are critical of a kind of education which suited previous generations,who were primarily children of an economic elite with relatively privileged futures not dependent on their college training. This present college generation is not so much a privileged elite as they are part of the increasingly large knowledge middle class. They are, therefore, suspicious of the old knowledge elite, of the Establishment, of privileged experts in government, of paternalistic specialists who continue to look down on what they once knew to be ignorant masses.
Anti-Science or Anti-Elitism?
This knowledge middle class might, ironically, be judged to be anti-science in its attitudes. However, their objection may be more to "secret science," to "privileged science," to "misused science," rather than just to ''science." If scientists would become less interested in offering undisclosed advice to high military , administrative, and elective officials and more interested in helping the average citizen cut through the complexities of pressing societal problems, then perhaps the current wave of anti-science feeling would subside. Scientists are badly needed to help articulate policy options, but they must resist the temptation to go peyond that mandate and to use science as a guise under which they make societal value judgements, which should be left to the people and to their elected representatives.
The perspective of the scientific expert, when viewing society as a whole, is limited by his own role as a specialist. On the other hand, the elected representative's knowledge on any particular societal problem is also limited by his own role as a generalist. Both of these limitations become more severe as society and its problems become more complex. If, in the seventies, a technological commitment to the solution of pressing societal problem is to be made, it is insufficient to speak of a partnership between science and government -- it must be science, government and the citizen.
Developing a comprehensive system for citizen feedback on government policies and in response to scientific feedforward cannot exactly be viewed as searching for the modern equivalent of the New England open town meeting, unless one recognizes that rarely have all citizens participated in decisions on all issues at such town meetings. Every private citizen suffers not only from limitations of perspective, as the specialist does, and of knowledge, as the generalist does, but also from limitations of time and incentive if he is not paid or otherwise significantly rewarded for
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pondering societal problems. It is only because modern communications make it feasible for all citizens to have easy access to cheap receivers and transmitters of information that any citizens who in fact have a stake in, some experience on, or a deep concern about particular societal problems can then make real contributions to the solution of such problems.
The contribution of the individual citizen need not be a well-articulated opinion or suggestion. A personal complaint, or even a well-directed inquiry by a citizen, can help trigger a change in government policy -- if only government will listen.
Towards More Rational Citizen Feedback Systems
In order to narrow the communications gap between people and the institutions which are supposed to serve them, existing citizen feedback mechanisms must first be inventoried and evaluated; these differ among cultures, among states, among metropolitan areas. The next step within the context of a societal systems discipline is to "design" an overall communications system, which both improves upon existing components (e.g., laws, regulations, administrative procedures, application forms, reports, civil service attitudes, policy review techniques, etc.) and adds new components (hardware such as telephone networks, software such as decision models and computer programs, new roles such as citizen aides and ombudsmen, new media such as interactive television, etc.).
The technology on which to base citizen feedback systems is rapidly changing. Hardware produced by the Communications Revolution is generally available much in advance of needed software. Exploitation of both hardware and software tends to precede public regulation of this new technology. As one example of the need for public regulation, there are early indications that the rapid spreading of cable television might breed a new generation of "Robber Barons ," just as did the spreading of the railway networks in early days of the Industrial Revolution. As another example, credit investigation agencies are clearly abusing the right of privacy of the individuals with their data banks which are inaccessible to the citizen.
Although regulation of this new technology is needed, so is the technology itself badly needed. Machine-smashing of the sort practiced by the Luddites in the early days of the Industrial Revolution would make even less sense now than it did then. For the technology produced by the present Communications Revolution even has the potential to help solve many problems left in the wake of industrialization. Factory-based industries have led to urban crowding which in turn has led to such problems as environmental pollution, transportation snarling, and severe psychological strains. As these problems begin to threaten o~r very existence, the Communications Revolution offers two potential outs. First, urban crowding could lessen if cottage-based industry again becomes fashionable with the advent of remote time-shared computer terminals, interactive cable television, and the like. Secondly, as has been suggested here, this new technology might be quite necessary
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to the societal decision-making process need9d to resolve urgent problems such as pollution.
There is, of course, a pessimistic view as well as an optimistic view of the Communications Revolution. George On,rell ' s 1984 portrays an image of Big Brother controlling our lives. Big Brother could in fact be the result .if the Communications Revolution changed only technology and not the culture which con trols that technology. However, the Cornflunications Revolution seems to be creating a new culture, less elitist than the old culture, less dependent for communication on the hierarchical channels of bureaucracy, less susceptable to manipulation by corporate managers and paternalistic experts , less likely to be herded along in great urban masses. Big Brother is an extrapolation of the bureaucratic-corporate-urban culture which begot the Communications Revolution. "Citizen feedback" (or societal control by Little Brothers) is a concept more consistent with the p articipatory cul ture which seems to have in turn been begot by the Comnmnications Revolution.
Such assertions as these should be tested scientifically. During the past several months, I have been work in g with three others to develop a research program on citizen feedb ack . One is a social psychologist who intends to evaluate citizen f ee dback systems in terms of t heir effects on alienation; another is both a mechanical engineer and an experimental psychologist who is involved in experiments on opinion formulation and societal choice using advanced communications hardware; the third is a physicist turned management scientist who is interested in multi-participant decision models which might be used in citizen feedback systems to understand if not resolve conflicts in societal choice. Interdisciplinary efforts of this sort are needed in the short run, but in the long run a new discipline or profession is needed for the des ign of societal systems.
Continuous Scientific Feedforward Also Needed
If the "public image" of science cmd tec hnology i s to be improved, not only is a new academic discipline or profes sion for the design of societal systems needed. Bu t also, once that discipline or profession h a s developed a modern citizen feedback system, science has a second, more continuous role to p J.ay in the operation of such a system. For a citizen feedback sys tem must provide for quality feedforward if it e xpects to achi eve quality feedback.
No longer can scientists restrict their educati onal efforts to teaching in the classroom nor their consulting effor ts to advising elite officials. Sci entists must play increasingly more important roles in public e ducation. Science must be used to cut through the complexities of urgent societal issues and to help articulate policy options about which citizen value judgments must be rendered.
A citizen feedback system should not be viewed as simply
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feeding back opin-ions already formulated by citizens acting independently of the system. The word "feedback" implies a closed loop where citizens affect policies (and projections) which in turn affect citizens, etc. Scientists too often in the past have seen themselves as having roles to play in open-loop planning, with little attention being paid to the possibility of continuously adjusting plans in accordance with continuous streams of results and of opinions from persons directly affected by such plans.

The important role of scientists not only in producing feedforward but also in interpreting feedback can be seen if we consider one possible sequence in which various components of a citizen feedback system might be employed. Service feedback reports which enumerate complaints about various government programs might be used to spot problem situations before they reach crisis proportions. Governor Luis Ferre of Puerto Rico characterizes his citizen feedback system as "government by anticipation, rather than by crisis."

Once evidence of dissatisfaction with some particular government program helps to identify a societal issue, other components of a citizen feedback system might then be employed first to understand and then to help resolve that issue. For example, better understanding of an issue both by government officials and by the citizenry can be attained by creating a relatively tight feedback loop between specialists who present arguments about alternatives, and generalists who express their preferences among alternatives. This might be done in discussion meetings, participatory television or radio shows, newspaper issue ballots, or generally in whatever interactive media might allow a rapid interplay of issue analysis and opinion formulation.

In order to allow opinion formulat1on to proceed more rapidly, scientific analysis can to some degree be preprogrammed for example, by using keyboard and display terminals attached to a time-shared computer to accept "votes" by interested citizens and then to display the distribution of such votes among competing alternatives. Then, by having representatives of whatever diverse opinions arise further argue their cases, the issue can be further understood, and the same or a somewhat reformulated "vote" taken again.

Whether or not a better-understood issue can be resolved will depend upon whether differences of opinion stem from different degrees of education on the issue or from fundamental differences in values. "Voting" on issue alternatives is not the only way in which preferences might be expressed, nor is statistical feedback the only way in which scientific analysis can be preprogrammed into a dynamic societal decision-making system. Preprogrammed mathematical decision models, which might also be remotely accessible in a time-shared computer, could be used in a citizen feedback system to allow citizens in competing "interest groups" (ones with fundamentally different values or preferences) to play experimentally against each other in trying to determine how to resolve an issue. Such games could even be designed to be fun.

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In all of the above situations ranging from analysis of service feedback reports to articulation and analysis of alternatives in opinion formulation situations and then to modeling and experimental gaming of rnultiparticipant societal decisions, the scientist clearly has an important role to play, a role which
in the best sense falls in the field of public education. This is not "public education" in the propagandizing, indoctrination, or public relations sense.
The current tide of anti-science feeling will only subside when, in this sense, science is used "for the people" and "by the people."
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