Big Facilities Account Is Big Headache for NSF

RESEARCH MANAGEMENTBig facilities have become a big headache for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Some researchers whose projects have been approved but haven't made it into the agency's budget have convinced members of Congress to order NSF to fund specific experiments, and last month several influential U.S. senators asked the National Academy of Sciences to review how NSF decides which projects to fund. If that were not enough, NSF's own inspector general recently issued a report questioning how the agency manages existing projects.