Reservoir model of science policy
The dominant model for public research funding in the United States was largely established in the years after World War II. The most famous – and still prototypical – articulation of this model can be found in Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report to President Roosevelt titled Science, the Endless Frontier. This document is in fact an apologetic – an apologia - in the sense that Bush gives an explanation and defense of the scientific enterprise. Bush argues that progress in science will result in societal progress: “New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature, and the application of that knowledge to practical purposes” (Bush 1945, 1). But the way knowledge benefits society in Bush’s formulation is important. Bush insists that the path of knowledge to benefit cannot be anticipated or controlled, but that by adding to the reservoir of scientific knowledge, benefits will automatically ensue. Therefore, though Bush justifies the public funding of science by pointing to future societal benefit, he simultaneously claims that it is inappropriate to use societal needs or priorities to determine or guide the use of that funding. In the Bush model one must simply take it on faith that science funding will always result in societal benefit. And though this model has been called into question over the years, it has shown remarkable longevity and influence in terms of how national science policy is pursued and justified.
This is especially true in terms of policy for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the funding mechanism for basic science in the United States. In the Bush model (reservoir model), basic (non-applied, non-targeted) research is the primary limiting factor for societal progress, including the growth of wealth, full employment, relief from disease, and national security in both wartime and peacetime.
An implication of the reservoir model is that since funding research in science and technology will result in societal benefit, it must follow that more funding will result in even more benefit. Science policy scholar Daniel Sarewitz calls this assumption “the myth of infinite benefit.” Sarewitz writes: “Recitation of past research breakthroughs demonstrates that science and technology are important components of a vibrant, growth-oriented society, an assertion that no responsible observer would deny. But understanding the value of a healthy research system is quite different from the expectation that an ever-larger system will yield ever-greater benefits for society. The distinction between these two points is rarely made, yet it is crucial because it determines whether the principal focus of R&D policy should be the size and cost of the system or the relationship between the structure of the system and the needs of society” (Sarewitz 1996, 19-20).
It is not enough to assume that budget increases will automatically result in societal benefit. Indeed, this sort of thinking has a deceptive quality to it: the public is asked to pay for more science with the understanding that their lives will be better off as a result. But no one mentions the fact that new science and technology are accompanied not only by benefits but also by new, often unanticipated, societal problems. Also, the benefits of science and technology often flow disproportionately to the most privileged in society – those who can afford to pay for the “innovations” that arise from basic and applied science. It seems we all are willing, if not completely self-aware, participants in a federal shell game: increases in science funding are used as a surrogate for real societal change.
