"You go to agency A and say 'We're from the NSB, we're here to help,' and they say there really is a problem and they point at agency B, which tells you the same thing, only about agency A," he says. "We're trying to stir these people [OSTP] into action."

Franklin paints a similar picture based on her past experience as a member of a DOE advisory panel.

"There's always confusion between trying to link up [the separate jurisdictions of] NSF and DOE," she says. "It's hard to get the information from both in such a way that you can connect it."

In fact, the challenge of learning to navigate the regulations of the various agencies can be an obstacle to young researchers.

"A young person on a NSF grant may then try to get some DOE money, but they say, 'Well, forget it'. In our field you're either DOE or NSF, and if you're DOE you're not going to get NSF money," Franklin says.

In addition, she says, agencies have different agendas regarding such issues as how much support to give to research conducted outside the country. Franklin says this can affect the way scientists apply for funding.

Harvard scientists confess that they do not always understand the political and bureaucratic machinery behind the agencies that support them. But they add that they are not interested in where the money comes from as much as what it can be used for.

"Whereas some of us are good at science, I wouldn't claim to be sufficiently expert at politics to foresee what will happen [in response to the NSB's working paper]," says Van Vleck Professor of Pure and Applied Physics Paul C. Martin '52, who is also Dean of the Division of Applied Science.

Some Professors also express fears that it might be impossible to improve the coordination of government research funds without harming science.

Jacobsen says he is afraid that a concerted government effort to prioritize research areas might lead to a ranking of basic fields such as chemistry, biology and physics and could increase demand for research that promises quick results and material benefits.

"The path to application isn't always a straightforward one," he says. "Sometimes you have to go through less immediate goals."

In fact, the NSB address this issue in its working paper, devoting an entire section to the distinction between research and development.

The paper notes that it was concern about the "non-commercial nature" of scientific research after World War II that led to the creation of funding agencies such as the NSF to support research without the expectation of immediate monetary returns.

With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of an information-driven economy, the world situation has changed, but the government's reasons for investing in science remain the same, the paper says.

Yet Martin is not so confident in the government's faithfulness to science for science's sake.