Sethuraman Panchanathan has a lot to celebrate this week as he marks his first anniversary as director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). President Joe Biden has asked Congress to boost its current $8.5 billion budget by 20% in 2022, and a bipartisan majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives has embraced the idea of making NSF the lead agency in a massive increase in federal research spending aimed at helping the United States outinnovate the rest of the world. Lawmakers also want to give NSF a new multibillion-dollar directorate tasked with developing new technologies.
“This bill pushes NSF to be its own best self,” said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D–TX), chair of the House science committee, shortly before the panel voted unanimously on 15 June to approve legislation that would turn the agency into an $18 billion juggernaut by 2026. The committee’s top Republican, Representative Frank Lucas (OK), otherwise a staunch fiscal conservative, gushed about “preserving what makes NSF great” while giving it the resources “to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
