Science and Policy Home
Adopted by Council April 1996
Revised and reaffirmed by Council May 2000 and 2004
A proper balance of government support between science carried out by individuals or small teams of investigators and large scientific data gathering programs is critical to maintaining the health of scientific research. The scientific enterprise has always shown the highest levels of success because of the synergism generated between these two activities. Research done by individuals or small teams of investigators, sometimes called "small science," has been crucial for many of the important discoveries made in all branches of science. These discoveries provide the fundamental basis for the application of scientific knowledge to national economic and societal goals. Small science helps define the goals and directions of large scientific data gathering projects. In turn, these data feed and are often best synthesized and interpreted by the long-term efforts of the small science community. In addition, because small science is typically done at universities, it provides students with an integral involvement in defining and solving scientific problems. Any erosion in government support for small science would therefore weaken not only the entire scientific enterprise, but also our future ability to utilize scientific information for the national good.
A healthy balance between small science and large scientific data gathering programs should be a national strategic goal of the highest priority.
The success of science is due in large part to its diversity of scale and motive. Important science is done both by individual investigators and by large data gathering efforts. Research projects may be motivated by commercial interests, pressing societal problems, or the desire to understand nature. Scientists of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) contribute to society through research on a wide range of problems, including those related to energy, water and mineral resources, natural hazards, and environmental change. Such research is done by scientists in universities, government, and the private sector. Scientists in these same venues also carry out research designed to understand the history of the Earth and planets and the processes that affect them and their environment in space. It is the synergism between all types of research, large and small, basic and applied, which leads to scientific advances that are important to the economic future and well-being of society.
Small science, much of which is carried out at universities, is especially well suited to student training. Small science provides the "hands-on" experience that both excites students and teaches them how to attack scientific and technological problems creatively, from inception of the research idea to presentation of the final results. Research on a small scale is also the primary way that young scientists can establish a record of personal achievement, thus providing the best students with a powerful incentive for pursuing a scientific career.
From a strategic perspective, any erosion of government support for small science is unwise because it reduces the diversity of scientific inquiry. Diversity in scope is one of the essential elements of a successful scientific enterprise, because it is rarely known in advance which research will result in the most important scientific discoveries.
Permissions: Members everywhere are encouraged to help inform the policy making process in their home locales with thoughtful presentation of scientific viewpoints. Council adoption of position statements is one way that the Union can assist in this process. Any member may use an AGU policy statement in discussions with local or national policy makers as an official statement of the Union. If you use excerpts from a statement, then you should not attribute those as a Union position. Societies anywhere may use an AGU position statement with or without attribution as a basis for developing their own statements.
|
|