June 30, 2008

Minerva Takes Flesh: Pentagon and Science Foundation Sign Social-Science Deal

In a memorandum of understanding that was signed today, the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation agreed to work cooperatively to support social-science research on topics of interest to the Pentagon.

As widely expected, the NSF has agreed to help review proposals submitted to the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative, a fledgling program that will offer grants to university-based scholars to study the Chinese military, the records of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and other specific topics.

The two agencies will soon — possibly within a week — release a joint request for Minerva-related proposals. Those proposals will be judged by the NSF’s typical merit-review panels, though both the science foundation and the Pentagon will have the right to nominate experts to serve on those panels. (The Pentagon is also accepting Minerva proposals through a separate pathway known as a broad agency announcement. Proposals that are submitted via this second track will reviewed through the Defense Department’s usual processes, not by NSF panels.)

But today’s agreement is broader than Minerva: It also creates a mechanism through which the Department of Defense can help to finance other national-security-related proposals submitted to the NSF. In such cases, scholars will have the option to decline the Pentagon’s money.

“We’re delighted,” said David W. Lightfoot, the NSF’s assistant director for social, behavioral, and economic sciences, in an interview. “We’ve always been concerned to do research that helps to secure the national defense. That’s part of the NSF’s charter. This new agreement will allow the Department of Defense to help us to do more of that kind of work, subject to the usual NSF merit-review process.”

Mark L. Weiss, the NSF’s division director for behavioral and cognitive sciences, said that Minerva projects would meet the agency’s usual standards of transparency. “All of the work that we will be supporting will be unclassified,” he said. “And there will be no constraints at all on the researchers’ freedom to publish results.”

Some scholars have expressed deep skepticism about the Minerva initiative. In an essay published last week, David H. Price, an associate professor of anthropology and sociology at St. Martin’s University, warned that military-financed social science would crowd out other forms of academic inquiry. (This week’s Chronicle Review contains a selection of opinions on Minerva.) —David Glenn

Comments

1. In his article, “Minerva Takes Flesh: Pentagon and Science Foundation Sign a Social-Science Deal” David Glenn says “NSF has agreed to help review proposals submitted to the Pentagon’s Minerva Research Initiative…” Very simply, we have not agreed to help review proposals submitted to DoD. At this point in time the DoD’s Broad Agency Agreement solicits proposals related to Minerva, and NSF is not involved in the activity.

   What we have done is to sign a Memorandum of Understanding which provides a vehicle for collaborations with the DoD. Collaborations might involve joint sponsorship of workshops to discuss topics of mutual interest. Likewise it allows for development of joint solicitations and should such a solicitation be issued then the proposals would be submitted to NSF and our criteria for intellectual merit and broader impacts would apply. We are discussing a joint solicitation that would provide funding for basic research on topics related to those the Secretary outlined in his American Association of Universities speech on Minerva (April 14, 2008), but this solicitation is still under discussion.

   The blog article goes on to say that “The two agencies will soon – possibly within a week – release a joint request for Minerva-related proposals.” Development of a solicitation is itself a very rigorous process and any solicitation will be released only after careful internal discussion and consideration. There is no likelihood that a solicitation will be available within a week.

   In addition, my status is incorrectly listed. I am Division Director for Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences which is located within the Social, Behavioral and Economic Science Directorate.

   — Mark Weiss    Jul 1, 03:14 PM    #

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