Engineering and the National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation

A National Science Foundation

Pressed by the exigencies of war time, prompted by the success of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and by the sincere, but naive, attempts at science legislation by Senator Kilgore during 1943 and 1944, and desiring to see what might be done further to promote the progress of science in war and in peace, the late President Roosevelt in November, 1944, requested Dr. Vannevar Bu...

National Science Foundation support for computer and information science and engineering

The National Science Foundation has supported research in the information sciences for 25 years, initially through its Office of Scientific Information, later through the Office of Science Information Service and the Division of Science Information, and most recently through the Division of Information Science and Technology. The Foundation has also supported research in computer science and en...

Measuring Interdisciplinarity at the National Science Foundation

Fostering interdisciplinary research is a priority at the National Science Foundation (NSF). To this end, the NSF has undertaken several foundation-wide initiatives and encouraged the development of multi-directorate programs. As these new initiatives and programs grow, so does interest in assessing the success of such experiments in fostering interdisciplinary research (IDR). A primary challen...

National Science Foundation: Origins, hopes, and aspirations.

The origins of the National Science Foundation were in the visions of many scientists and federal statesmen during a decade of profound changes in the institutions of American science. But the concepts that underlie the Foundation reach back into the beginnings of our scientific endeavor in Colonial America; Franklin and Jefferson, scientists and statesmen, paved the way for close association b...