The single investigator with a small research team remains the appropriate mode for many fields of scientific inquiry. This mode has the advantages of pluralism, decentralization, and flexibility to move in new directions as opportunities unfold. Individual investigator support has been enormously successful for the National Science Foundation and productive for the nation. Its preeminence must not be diminished. Although not identified separately in the NSF budget, group projects receive a growing share of NSF research funding.
Groups typically involve a few researchers collaborating or simply sharing equipment.
On the contrary, they are already an important part of the Foundation's funding portfolio. In view of the need to support more collaborative research and build university infrastructure in many areas where progress is otherwise limited, centers should be expanded a component of increased research funding. It is in the context of the President's intention to double the NSF budget over five years that the panel supports the Foundation's Science and Technology Centers initiative. At the outset of its deliberations, the NSF Director assured the panel that, although he envisages a three-fold increase in the total number of NSF centers during that period, the centers will still represent only about 10 percent of the Foundation's budget. Awards to principal investigators for single and collaborative projects will continue to represent about 60 percent of the budget for research.