of presentations and discussion and ask you to help me think the panel for explaining most of those difficult feminism and sol

media. she spoke in an event at the university of georgia in athens, georgia.

[applause] >> thank you. when you say i do all those things now i know why i am tired. [laughter] when you become a feminist activist i haven't had a chance to wash my hair in 30 years. [laughter] i'm just giving you fair warning. i'm so glad to be here and i'm stunned and delighted and humbled by the enormity of the attendance and it's very special particularly to hear that you do throughout the year and clearly the women's studies presence. there's enough energy in this room to light a city block. clearly throughout the year that you don't just settle for women's history month which i had my moments of ambivalence about because there is black history month and there's women's history month and then the other 10 months are pell-mell month's?

[laughter] so we need to have a little available room and spread. we are going to cover a lot of ground so i'm going to leap right in. i thought that for some of the fresh lemon and women's studies we would do a short basic of where we are coming from and what we are up against in the world today. can you all here okay today? just to have some perspective and that i want to move on onto positive things because i don't want you to get psychotically depressed. what we are up against is considerable. two out of three of the worlds illiterates are women and while the general letter c. rate is falling the female illiteracy rate is rising in no small part due to our friend religious fundamentalism which of course feels wherever it's coming from that women reading is a danger which in fact it is. one third of all families in the world are headed by women.

in the developing countries almost half of all single women over age 15 are mothers. only one third of the world's women have access to any contraceptive information or devices and more than half have no access to trained health during chip pregnancy and childbirth. women in the developing world are responsible for more than 50% of all food production on the african continent alone african continent alone women do 60 to 80% of food production. in many african language the word for farmer and the word for woman is the same word. in the industrialized countries women are still paid only half to three-quarters of what men earn at the same jobs. stiller getaways into lower paying so-called female intensive job categories and still otherwise -- in europe and north america women constitute over 40, 40% of the paid labor force. in addition to contributing more

than 40% of the gdp in unpaid labor in the home. as of 1982 and has persisted straight on into the 2000 30000000 people and it rose actually were unemployed in the industrialized countries and 800 million people in the third world were living in absolute poverty. the vast majority women and children. you know about the feminization of poverty rate if you don't, you should. approximately 500 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. the most seriously affected are children under age five and women. 20 million people die annually of hunger related diseases and causes and 1 billion in chronic undernourishment. the majority are women and children. not only are females most of the poor, the starving and the

illiterate that women and children constitute more than 90% of all refugee and displaced persons populations. women outlive men in most countries. god knows how but we do and therefore we are the world's elderly as well as the primary caregivers for the elderly as well as the primary caregivers for children, for the sick and for the dying. the abuse of children is a woman's problem because women bear the responsibility for children in all cultures and because it is mostly female children who are abused. since women face such physical changes as childbearing and lactation and in addition to the general health problems we share with men health and the crisis in world health is a woman's problem. toxic pesticides and nuclear waste and deadly pollutants take their first toll as cancers of the female reproductive system and in stillborn births and

deformities. the pacific island women's movement for example was created on the pacific island with women noticing when the french were stilled doing the weird tests in bikini island they were giving birth to an epidemic of what they termed jellyfish babies, children born with no spines and out of that the pacific island women's movement was born. and as always we are the first and worst affected in the last and least consulted on solutions. i don't know about you but i get a little paranoid when the same folks who brought us the problem are offering is the solution. deforestation for lumber sales as export or construction materials results in a low ring of the water table which in turn impacts on women because women are the primary fuel gatherers and water haulers of the world.

when angry business moves into an agrarian situation and usually with large tools and money for men and hiring men what it does is totally disenfranchise the women farmers who then without land sometimes follow their men to the city where they are considered less educable and less employable so they wind up in one of three job areas either multinational factories for approximately 1 dollar a day if they are lucky, domestic servitude including rape and battery or prostitution i could go on but i think you get the picture. so we are up against still after 40 years of contemporary feminism a crisis that affects most people on the planet. when it's addressed and you give grants or microcredit two men

they use it for themselves culturally, cross culturally. when you give it to them and the whole family eats and it took a while for the world bank which is a little bit slow to learn this and where feminists were our day saying it for 50 years. the theme though of this women's history month is women of courage, commitment and what's the third one? i'm getting like rick perry. character. thank you very much. okay so this is in the don't get psychotic we depressed department before we get into the social media. it has all of these things tied together. i want to share with you a fistful of international women who existed long before there was social media or even in some

cases legacy media, what we now call legacy media. these are the internationals and then i'm going to bring it all back home for the sisters here. this is your heritage. you wonderful young women in this room and you men of conscience. either you are men of conscience or are smart and just wanted to be on the women's side or you thought what up great place to meet smart girls. in any offense you are here and this is a good sign. i want to share some of these women with you because they are your heritage. how many people here for example know that condi's nonviolent resistance tactics work knowledge to tactics work knowledged even by him to have been copied from the 19th century indian suffrage movement or that it was a woman's action which inspired the contemporary solidarity movement that

or the 70-year-old woman who organized the uprising against the british in kenya in 1911. or such women of the ashanti people of ghana. they are not familiar to us. and even women in their own countries. what pride might we feel if everybody knew about the waves of female rebellion in china's enormously long history? how it was a woman. her dates are 1768 to 7097 who discovered the loss of lunar eclipses or -- led far -- 40 armies of 2500 women each fighting for women's rights during the 1851 taiping rebellion. i want to know where they now that we need them given the war

and women in the united states. i would like 40 armies of 2500 women each. or how the 19th century feminist poet teacher and revolutionary dressed in men's clothing for freedom of movement founded a girls school and was arrested and executed in 1908 acres she refused to compromise your beliefs. and last what inspiration might all women draw from claiming as a form other a woman of indonesia who is forced to leave school by religious constraints at age 12 who educated herself competent who spoke out against polygamy forced marriage and colonial oppression who founded the modern indonesian women's rights movement and who started a girl school which had in a moment of 120 students by 1904 all before she died in childbirth at age 22.

these are your shared heritage. they are joined by thousands of other women who struggles the loom in our lives. the first woman doctor in the country, the first woman journalist, the first woman accountant, the first woman notary. just stop for a moment and think about it. think of the hours of work. imagine the nights of despair. think about the years of endured ridicule and rejection. think of the personal cost. think of the exhaustion. think of the stubborn vision of just one such life. and they are doing it today. the radio show which is yes it's on cbs but more importantly it's on line.

it is with itunes in 110 countries and it set wn sea life.com. we have had many famous guests on. we have had acted this, movie stars obviously sister co-spirit or jane fonda and cathy bates and deborah winger but they have to be activists. lily tomlin. we have had great generals like christian amanpour. we have had the united nations high commissioner for human rights. we have had pulitzer prize-winning journalist and we have had three african-american congresswoman. clearly in my vision they would all be women and african-american. maxine waters and i'm trying to remember who else. eleanor holmes norton of course from the days when the two of us were the women's caucus in the student nonviolent coordinating

committee. we have it all sorts of shiny famous people but as our more important are the gas that i have on who are not and you don't get media space. these are some of them. we don't even use her last name for security reasons. she single-handedly got linked in, you know the site linked in other policy changed because she was being stalked by a man who had raped her and when she went to them and said i want to keep them from knowing where i am and i can't do that. you can do that on facebook and other sites and they said no, no, no we don't do that exist it's important for us -- that is why we are called linked in. so she went to change.org and made up a petition and she went on line and she called women.

within four months there were thousands and thousands of signatures and linked in changed their policy. or like julie burkhart who in the face of death threats is reopening dr. tillers -- slain dr. tillers -- or other incredibly wonderful young bloggers that are on the show a lot. a young smart and funny loves red shoes and formed the red shoes project to address hiv/aids and african-american young women. these are women who are using new tools in old and new ways. it makes my teeth grind uncontrollably when i'm told that younger women aren't interested in feminism. obviously i am hallucinating all of you here today and i clearly

have a good imagination because it's auditory. it's physical. it really seems like the room is full of terrific young women and a few smart man. [laughter] but clearly i am imagining that because the people who say that don't know where to look. some of my generation even feminists are a little luddite and don't know where to look either. so we have to educate them and bring them along. this was not a problem for me because i love words and anything that has to do with communicating in being communicated with i'm there and i want to learn it. except for twitter where i flag because frankly i thought somebody with my first name maybe shouldn't tweet. [laughter] but i got over that.

and it's beyond a tool. it's right up there with the printing press. let me get back to this and then i'm going to kerf back around. among the people that we have had on the show who are not so well-known are the women who made facebook sit up and take notice. i don't know if you know but facebook of course because it's an open platform not really open but it portends to be an open platform prides itself on so-called free speech. free speech which is always there for the pornographers and the and not for the women apparently included rape rooms and rape dungeon pages. for years feminists have been complaining to facebook that this was horrific and this was like propaganda for violence against women. facebook said there's nothing we can do about it and also that you have a sense of humor? some of us spent months on the

phone with people at the top level trying to educate them in trying to explain what a rape culture climate was and they didn't do this in terms of anti-semitism. they wouldn't do this and shouldn't do this in terms of latent racist propaganda. why were they doing this but a group of three young women organized and didn't go after facebook. they went after advertisers on facebook. i don't know if you know that the algorithmalgorithm s are set up that when you go to a page on facebook the ads that pop up are the ones -- i see people nodding. some people do not know. the ads that pop up are the ones that will interest you. not the ones that are key to that page. the algorithms follow use a with the young women did was to organize and go to the advertisers and say do you know toyota and sneakers manufactures

and do you know that your advertising is running on sites that show women being beaten up and being raped and treated as a joke and treated as fun and treated -- how to rape a woman. so advertisers began pressuring and guess what what? facebook's now entered into negotiations. they are training the people now they said if women complain we will take it down and the women said no we don't want to have to bother to complain. if you take it down they just put it up with another name. we want you monitoring at the way you monitor other offensive sites. this is your responsibility. it turns out do you know who most of the monitors are for facebook? young irishman. in ireland. so they are being educated now and they have to be educated in myriad ways because some of it is so skewed. it is surreal. for example they will run

pornographic sites but if a woman is nursing a baby that comes down because the site at the bare but if the baby is on the that's acceptable. if the baby is half an inch away from the that comes down. we are working with them. we have enormous patience. [laughter] we have been at this 10,000 years you know so we really have enormous patience. the other thing that they took down were women who had had mastectomies and you had courageously had tattoos or you know in some way were affirming their bodies. these were taken down his pornographic whereas sites of women being tortured will left up. it's a sensibility that is the culture and the culture in general on line as any woman he was an outspoken woman and two tweets or posts or even just read knows is not a friendly one

to women. it's a young male largely white terrain. 15 to late 20s and sometimes it can be incredibly hostile and quite vicious. those of us who have been getting threatening notes for years and years and years used to have the luxury of -- it would come in the mail. they'll come to your publisher. they would have to exert themselves and write it down. now it's so easy. there they are in their jammies with their fritos. [laughter] just male supremacy in a way. and the threats and the viciousness toward local feminists on line is huge so mammon -- women have been mobilizing about that. one of the things that interest

me and delights my soul is that the strongest feminist presence on line is a woman of color. they are the leadership. they are the women who are taking no prisoners. they are the women who are doing the most creative blogging and organizing on line. and i'm not even dealing at the moment now internationally because internationally you have people like mustafa who is in kurdistan and using the internet to build the first feminist, the first and largest feminist library in the middle east. i mean pretty amazing. i want to give the name said give your pencils out of some very special sites and bloggers that many of you may know about but maybe some of you may not. i want to publicize them because they are fantastic.

so black twitter if you haven't heard of it is a whole development on its own and it is led by women by kimberly ellis who is on line name is dr. goddess. i love it. she is a ph.d. and probably she is a goddess so why is she not a doctor goddess? and black twitter is an entire on line perception of reality that european americans if they are very lucky can listen in on and learn from but it is witty and marvelous and i assure you that if you visit it you will not, way unchanged. internationally you must understand that this is not a luxury. this is the lifeline to the world. there are villages in the african continent in asia and

the fatherless of rio de janeiro where there is no electricity. there is no television. there is no newspapers and that there were some of the women are not literate but somehow, amazingly they have cell phones particularly the young ones and they are using them. ..

if you don't know about them, feminist is the go to basic place which will send you on to different categories, different subject matter. all issues are women's issues. if your talking about the majority of the species, how can and not be. when i hear the phrase women's issues makes me crazy. so it's a real base kutcher. also the minister in, which insure your offered no. the f on started when she was, i think, 15. now coming to the women's media center and bring the f on with her. it's a team side for young women and women ,-so that there is their own voice. the unwise latina taking off

from the soda my air statement when she was being vetted by congress, it's a wonderful website which is a go to place for latina feminism. the current collective, if you don't know about it, it's really primary. it is an african american feminists site with everything from feminist theory the feminists strategy and and an incredible energy and ingenious inventions that i could not recommend more. then there's some of the basic ones going backward, but also going forward, the ms. feminist plot. this is not your mother's oldsmobile. this is a blocked. jezebel, which you probably know about, and women under siege is

a spin off site from the women's media center, a project of the women's media center. it is focusing on sexual assault, sexualize violence against women in conflict zones or post conflict zones. so at present it is focusing on syria. the first concert -- crowd sourcing direct reporting of data live and interactive. so it is an amazing sight to check out. that brings us to the women's media center site itself. and when gloria and jane and i founded this like a years ago, i guess, it meant we had no idea that it would grow this exponentially and with this much energy in this -- is buried it. so we do media training. we have a sort of war room.

we monitor sexism in the media. we have the ones who got apologies for chris matthews. there is the name it change the project which is about sexism that is levied, particularly against women running for office is a training program, progressive women's voices. there is if she sores, which makes it impossible for brokers abundant shows to ever again say, well, we would, but we can't find a qualified women. it is now the largest data base in the world of women. every subject from aardvark to zimbabwe. and then there's the w and see live, which is the radio show and hot gas. you can download stream, or go to itunes and subscribe and then it comes automatically. and then there is a holler back, which is one of the primal

places. there are subjects specific size the very important. by the way, there are three gaps that we were behind in the beginning. and at which you can get and simply download for free which addresses that moment when you're walking alone somewhere and your footsteps behind. they sound like a man's footsteps, and you don't know. could be a perfectly nice man, but you don't now and be a start, maybe it's a parking lot, maybe it's a village path colombians on your way back to a dorm. everyone knows this experience. appalls began to sweat commission begins.

she's on alert. she does not feel the same way if it's a woman's footsteps behind. and no man experiences this. is a uniquely female experience. all right. this apple, which you can download first of all the minute they touch it, it sends a signal that you might be in trouble to the nearest police. secondly, it tells you exactly what is open, where, and in what direction. there are two or three of these. this is the kind of organizing and women who work on line on the subject brought about. and then there's my particular love, the international feminist not. this is just to be very happy about. this is a group of women who got together and realize that there are millions of us, and we don't know where we all are.

and everytime demonstrations began we sort of reinvent the wheel and alerting of the like-minded groups, the hon. rate in india last year were of a woman died in the five men can repair. the women took to the streets. the students followed, and then. rather than go back to that each time alerting people around the world will you join us on this, the feminist map which is the feminist network project, although if you do will international feminist map it's going to come out to more international feminist network. is a world map. and you can add the doubts by putting yourself in. they have constructed with real wisdom if you are in an authoritarian country and don't want to use your name as a way

to do that. if you want to register as a group as a way to do that. immediately you are network by the city, state, country, region, world. it is fascinating to see where there is and a dog which doesn't mean there aren't feminists. it just means they're not able to be visible yet. and going doe wind of. want to leave you with the electricity of a tool in your hands and an emerging the access of the tools that are not technological up that everything in our society and in pitcher he will tell you not jackson's.

passion, humor warriors. i like to say that i'm not passing my torch. get your own damn torch. we, ala boss, need more and more torch's to bring this down. and hanging on to mine. i will be waving my. carry yourself as someone is going to save the world. the truth is without hyperbole will. when i talk about young feminists and the invented war, and sometimes it's real. sometimes they can be bullying and take a tone. i had to walk 6 miles in the snow wearing only socks. you don't know how good you had. sometimes gender feminists will say he never dealt with racism

when actually most of us, at least in the 60's and 70's, came out of the civil-rights movement. they're is a tremendous and ignorance. it's like a cross cultural dialogue that has not happened yet except now and has been happening. what i'd like to say is don't think it's because, you know, when you reach a certain age people, but tree like a pop chart and a museum. but they say, thank you for what you've done for me. it is nice, and i know they mean well. it is nice that women honor women. normally women don't get honored very much. men are much better about honoring each other. a do parades, metals, guns go off. they know how. we just don't. so it's nice when anybody thinks any woman for almost anything. but the truth is you don't really a was anything. we didn't do it for you. we didn't do it for future

generations. we did it for ourselves. we did it because we've reached a moment of insult so profound that we didn't even know that politics was not about just equality but about, in fact, saving the planet. we did know that, but we knew we could not not act. we did it for selves. so you don't owe us anything. you know what, you owe yourself everything. you fight for that. so i think you for coming out. i thank you for your and will you do and the electric tool that's in your hands. let it sank. use it for real purposes and communicate across barriers that have no right being there. the genius of patriarchy is to normalization and separating. the genius of feminism lives in the connections.

thank you. [applause] [applause] >> we do have some time for questions. no, good. i raced toward the end because i want to hear from you. yes. >> in thinking about the ways that when women are portrayed positively commit social media, i'm curious about your ideas when you we are we contextualizing history is celebrate our heritage and when we hear advancing and knowledge in women of color as the people are meeting was happening now how do we keep the larger understanding of what is

accomplished from being reduced or misunderstood or represented as being a white woman accomplishment in the way that often has been the past? >> well, one of the problems here, and i think it probably is not one that you necessarily share because you have an amazing women's studies program, but one of the problems i encountered a lot of places to academia which is a woman will stand up in qa and say, once they have given a list of books to read. never saw these authors. all say, really. what is a major? inches and women's studies. well, i don't know why you haven't heard of them. and in some other woman will racer and then stand up and say, i've heard of them and i've read all of them. really? what is your major? women in development. or third world women. there is an almost arbitrer

separation that has gone down. a lot of this, i have to say, put at the foot of blame of deconstruction as an. the construction is and which is an arcane -- i don't want to go there. but it has done a lot of damage. i mean one of its basic thrusts, and i do use the word of verizon , has been that since nothing really has any meaning and everything is an abstract the recession. that's all very well when the theorizing, but what it breaks down into in reality is of nothing has any meaning it becomes profoundly reactionary. it is also, in part, responsible i am so thrilled that you still call it women's studies your. i have to tell you, there are a

lot of places where it's women and gender and sexuality studies and gender and gender and gender . since when was when not good enough? and since when does everything get smushed under the banner of women? obviously there's not enough to say about women. you have to put other subjects and because it can. so what you have is a situation where there is of subtle and sometimes not so subtle reinforcement of divisions and racism. and then and academic means of addressing that law which is sometimes useful, but the intersection now the is not new. it's a new word, and so it becomes a vote word, but is --

if one is an organizer and approaching this as an organizer as well as an intellectual person one simply notices that different women have the same experience across race, ethnicity, sexual preference, differing abilities, page. but our experiences of that experience differed. that is a subtle distinction and an important one. and i like to say that the sex and the cost in change but the plot is tediously the same. but until we make those connections, the compartment was asian works. so when white feminists of a global more began organizing in a bountiful way about the mountain of the mutilation town

and the global sow there was backlash because the have not done their homework and did not know the there had been organizing by indigenous women. and because they also did not bother to do their hallmark of london in the united states as late as 1940 is the procedure was performed on women. it makes you crazy. and when you have integrity in both meanings of that word, antril and integrity in a women's studies department that is probably calling itself women's studies, go athens, georgia. you are able to have those connections simmer and electrically conductive back and forth. but when it is an approach that

is based on nothing really means , it is all abstract and reinforces difference, that's a problem. and i think there is problem as well, the particular pet peeve of mine and does feed into racism and does feed in the sexism, which is secondary and tertiary sources. i can tell you how many times somebody will stand up and say, but that is not what you used to say. you have changed your position. i will say, actually, no, i am tediously consisted of this particular subject, whatever it may be. i really your. i'm in the room. and then finally i will say,

have you ever read me? and almost invariably she will answer, no, bushes and secondary or tertiary sources analyze it. so one way to break down this communication, and here i will address specifically white feminists because that is to your is to really do your homework want to read as much as you can have the billion work of women of color, feminists of :, and to engage. and now with the availability online, that is exponential. another way is language. and for drawing this african-american, one not say european american i think that the realization of the energy

and is so cool and is causing -- calling itself feminist. it used to drive as crazy some years ago in mislay is the 80's. although many don't have trouble , not one of a maddening thing or woman will say i know from us but did i got to apply or about, you know, i don't care . i use the word. and know it's incredible social justice history. i'm proud to use it, but if a woman wants to call ourselves a world that is. even in more black women were using the word feminist and warmest and other parallel words then when women wore. now on line of of feminist

forces on-line is african-american women. so it's there for people to do there mark and the acquainted with it. then reach out. the time is a right to reach back and be patient. it's a very exciting time to be young. i don't envy you. [laughter] >> yes. >> my thoughts on what? >> what are your thoughts on the campaign? >> well, funny you should ask.

so cheryl sandburg is a friend and a sort of colleague and she has been involved in the facebook negotiations and trying to move them along. you know, power is relative. to me it seems that when you're a billionaire and the ceo of facebook that that is enormous power. of course the men don't honor all the time. you could be -- wire you wasting your time. she gets a lot of flak. she's been a friend to the women's media center and a real support, and she is a feminist. that said, she sometimes -- and i've said this to her, women's media center live, sometimes she reinvent the wheel and stands back and says, look at that.

it's round. it rolls. part of that is not our fault because this country is very a historic. it's like a tissue box. does not register. not a bad thing. it's okay. as a writer and someone who loves language, i have trouble banning any word, any word, ben and word because to me the problem is not in the word, particularly if you know its history. the problem is how it's being used. it's so convenient for people to say the n word in a plan of the are not racist. so this banning a word, to me, is sort of meaningless. what is behind that in their campaign is not a bad thing, you know, to get teachers to encourage the liberals, to give

families to say, yes, you can do it. i guess it comes in at a level of marketing sophistication that makes me as a grass-roots organizer nervous. but it should not make me nervous as long as we on to it and use it. i think we have to understand that would -- the movement is at an interest in place, which she did not ask. the movement is at a place where women who have real power, not relative to men who have more, but real power to where women have been announced covering from as. interest. and sometimes it's hard to figure out when you're winning in when you're being coopted. sometimes it's a case by case, you know, at least for me a case by case situation because we

want women to all power, and we want women to mentor of the women. this is a different kind of powerful woman and the tokens we used to kick in the face in becoming a behind the. they get it. that is a huge leap forward. but they still are coming from a place of assumption and entitlement. and that makes me a little nervous. i don't mean this particularly about cheryl. there are a number of people. it comes in at a superficial level. part of me thinks, it's better than nothing and all and it reaches women of that ilk. the problem is when they fall in love with their own rhetoric and think that it reaches all women because when you say this is what feminism looks like and just come from, whatever, you're massage or being wrapped in

something like that, this is not what feminism looks like if you have three kids and work on a factory floor. it's not. so until and unless it comes home and all of us coming together on this one are now becomes an and and there's no planet, it's a problem. and i forgot to mention before, and i do want to have this and, as a perfect example of somebody who has power and after a long time or sort of getting it up and not, hillary rodham clinton gets it. she ain't perfect. she is not queen of the woman's movement, and if she does run and she will wear and she does win, and she will -- [applause] she will bring that with her.

she won't be perfect and there will be times we disagree. but here's the thing. and she was secretary of state should it's something that albright had not done, something that connally is a rise definitely never had done. when she looks in the marriages is workman. but politics seem to reflect that. minium on. a beautiful pianist. but none of these -- bagram the previous in no secretaries of state did what every did which was to put women and women's rights centerpiece in u.s. foreign policy. not only because it was just, because it was good for security and i must recommend a book to you that is brilliant on this, that finally makes honest women of those of us in a been saying this for the past 40 years.

it's a beaut of women and world piece. on sorry, saxon world piece. is by academics, by valerie hansen and three other academics as a 12 your study of a number of countries. i forgot how many now. once and for all of the arbiter of a country's peacefulness or aggression is none of the things we have been told. it's not civil society, not democracy, mount natural resources or geopolitical situations where it situated. it's not gdp, it's not level lectures in poor regions of those things. the ardor of the country's security. aggression or pass a dozen copies woman's.

this is an issue of world security. sex and world piece, called the university of the publisher about lori hansen. this is the doctrine. that is a roundabout way. no longer tokens, but also not a critical mass which is him and how to negotiate. i think we negotiated with vigilance. the trust but verify.

i don't normally "reagan. [laughter] and we verify because we don't want to see the composition of the women's movement. we don't need that. i think we have topman you one more. i can't see. there you war. a carry. >> my question is, my passionists related to the transferability of knowledge from the academy to women in may never pick up your books and how, if you had to pick one thing from the context of the would be easily transferable and the time the remove. well, that's why i'm doing a radio show, broadcast.

and because if he makes it so that there is somebody famous of their that maybe someone has heard about the war with is a principled one of. then unix servers also someone in there is doing, you know, who is a survivor of trafficking or who is a mobs against comes. then it's something that they can grasp on to and say, might that. i can do that to lead is not the point of this of the she says i can do that. what do you find? >> i find that because i actually passed on rules community. many of them don't have the technology. i'm particularly interested in things that can be -- that can cross in terms of media and written documents, those are in the trenches can actually share

with people, women in their communities that can therefore impact change. >> is probably comes out of them mostly. i don't know what you, but i've never found, you know, the myth that feminism is fill in the blank, white woman's thing, norton and mr. thing. it's a crap. i don't know if you can say that . it -- i have never been anywhere where if you listened to women that don't already know. they know. and when there is space to brief and somebody says, well, here's where i'm coming from and not really angry, they're intercoms and rises. the vision, and whether it is around the cookstoves and an african village roller heads and the refugee camps of the middle

east, those women on a hobo. they're really, really are. it's not hyperbole or melodrama. it's just a non pompous kind of that does not even call its of. no white papers, no conferences, there is such a way to it as well. we indulge ourselves in generational interactions and problems, but i've seen -- saw a march in a sedan at one point that was led by three women arm in arm. a grandmother, mother and daughter. the grandmother was monitoring. his daughter was doctor.

but time is 15, a generational difference. so in so many parts of the world and so many places in this country, the a time for games. to me that's where the heartbeat of feminism always has been if we listen for. there are lucky to be working with you because you're listening. thank you. thank you so much. [applause] >> clearly i have not mullen. ts

and 40 minutes. >> good afternoon. we will come to order. this is the first full committee hearings of 2014. the full committee rarely holds hearings. usually it is done through are very dynamic subcommittee. we do hope -- will full committee hearings and they're issues of national importance.

today we feel that the topic of innovation and the question, are we running an innovation deficit or incest have awful committee hearing and look across the subcommittee that what is our nation facing. we believe america is exceptional, and we are exceptional in many ways. the hallmark of our dna has always been in discovery, entrepreneurship, and the protection of the intellectual property. today we want to year from now leaders and some of the agencies that run in the -- lead the way in innovation knowing that it is not the only agency that participates, but in the interest of time to do this. before i do want to note that this is the last official hearing of the deputy staff clerk on this committee. she has served in the senate for

18 years. she is going to be leaving the committee to become the staff director of homeland security. why she would think she needs to go to disasters and terrorism out of this committee, i don't know. i would like, staff here his mount will work with her, but skin around of applause. [applause] >> thank you. we will have a bipartisan issue. bipartisan with every president at served under. a bipartisan on this committee. i want to particularly note of the other side of the aisle senator shelby, lamar alexander, call and blunt, all here have

been each in their own way spoken up about innovation and particularly and life sciences or agriculture or another our virginity that other saves lives, save the planet, or helps us be more competitive. on our side and, of course, we have the eddy of joining with our colleagues, it will to double the nih budget. we know that we will be joined by senator harkin, durbin who himself as a new bill, senator crones who really has been a leader in innovation and applied innovations. so we look forward to hearing about this today. earlier this morning a stop to johns hopkins. it was for my annual eye checkup at a warmer eye clinic. i wish all members of been there.

did people come from all over the world. all over the world. use in the waiting room, some people who might be there. some people might be there for medicare. some people a just flew in from the airport. you see wardrobes of the global and though it's a global waiting room, literally they come here for american medicine, american know how that depends on american research. whether it's the gifted scientist, commissions, or even the technology used not to avow u.s. or to help us, it's indeed stunning. think about what we really would focus on innovation what it would really mean. discovery is part of our country. when president thomas jefferson commissioned louis in part to find the water route to the pacific what did he call the mission? he did call it the land route to measure the metrics across the rivers.

he called the discovery. discovery. discovery is part of our nation's dna. it is what makes america great. but have innovation we need to fund research and development, invest in human capitol, and protect intellectual property. we also want to encourage entrepreneurship we come up with new ideas, new processes, and product tow create new jobs. we want our scientists to win the nobel prizes, and we want our business as to when the market. we have seen amazing innovation from research clusters around the country, silicon valley, research triangle, a digital car door in baltimore to washington. so many incredible discoveries come and from our great wonderful scientists have come because of federal labs. the national institutes of health and the fda, the department of energy, nasa.

so all of these are agencies that could do the kind of risk capital discovery that, perhaps, our private sector could not undertake. i have been troubled, and that many of my colleagues on both side of the aisle. are we burning and innovation deficit? yes, we have to focus on our budget deficit, but are becoming so austere we could be tapping -- capping of future growth. we invited this distinguished panel the talk about the innovation budgets cannot be running in innovation deficit and where are the best places that we can make wise and prudent use of taxpayer dollars. we want to hear from our expert witnesses. and then feel they have adequacy for research and development? do we have a pipeline to really help our young people get the education that they need to be able to pursue scientific careers or are we so smart and are found in that young scientists don't even have a

crack at getting those research grants that might come up with new refreshen breakers. this is not do one subcommittee. this is across the board. every subcommittee as a rule. two dozen different federal departments and agencies in a bid we spend a total of $1,305,000,000,000 that sounds like a lot of money. but the u.s. chair of research and development is declining. the u.s. was just 30 percent of worldwide r&d in 2011. the united states was just 30 percent of worldwide r&d in 2011. that is down from 37% and 2001.

meanwhile, the continued to expand from 25% to 34%. r&d spenders part of our gross national product this committee wants to year we had to say. remember, the budget deficit might not be your only deficit. allen now like to turn to my vice chairman, senator shelby, for any remarks that he might have. >> thank you, madam chair. i look forward to working with you this year to move appropriations bills for in our ongoing effort to restore regular order. i am hopeful that the committee will have the opportunity to bring individual bills to the floor under an open process.

the bipartisan budget act provided that topline numbers for defense and nondefense spending which should pave the way for a smoother, hopefully appropriations process. as part of this agreement, discretionary spending will be constrained to a level that is not much different from the year 2014 spending. we have already proven that the spending limits are feasible. and it is imperative that we stick to the budget. if we cannot practice fiscal discipline to day we will pay a much higher price in years to come. the bipartisan budget act is, by no means, a panacea for the level of indebtedness we face. the congressional budget office projects that federal debt will rise to 78 percent of gdp by 2024, ten years, which is about twice the average of the past

four decades. net interest payments to finance this debt will almost quadrupled in the next ten years. discretionary spending, though, if we adhere to a current law, will shrink as a percentage of gdp. this highlights something that we are all aware of, mandatory spending growth is that true driver of our debt. indeed, entitlements are expected to grow by over 80 percent in the next ten years far more beyond that. unfortunate consequence of this is the crowding out of the important parts of the federal budget, such as spending on research to find a cure for diseases like cancer, diabetes, alzheimer's. even this year will have to make some tough decisions on what research and development programs marriage funding in our appropriation. budget pressures will, again,

force us to prioritize these programs so that we can spend taxpayer dollars wisely. only through due diligence and oversight of the federal government so-called investment can we fulfil these years possibilities. if we are to call them investments, which i have, we should be especially concerned that taxpayers are getting good returns on their investment. today we will hear testimony on the budget requests of several important agencies said the support federal research and development programs. some of these represent areas of curricle innovation. they have long been a proponent of the research conducted by the national institutes of health, for example. even in a constrained fiscal environment, ensuring that nih has the tools to the advanced biomedical research is an investment with broad benefits to society. in addition, the importance

cannot be understated of dart of contribution to lifesaving technologies for such as unmanned systems disarmed explosives. not all government r&d investments are created equal. a recent government gao office report notes was will insure that federal research dollars cover the program that hold the most promise. i encourage federal agencies to look for ways to promote public, private partnerships, as many of

you have done. many of which stretch taxpayer dollars for thereby tapping in to the innovation in the private sector and i look forward to madame chair, to hearing the testimony today and hope we will make some very positive decisions in the future. >> that like to thank all of you for coming. each and every one of you has played an important role in promoting innovation. we're going to your from our witnesses, and we will move along according to the order of arrival. we ask each one to hold their questions to about five minutes. if we have time then we will do a second round. we're now going to turn to our witnesses. as i said, they have been chosen because these are the areas where some of our most important research is done. also the areas where it is anticipated by just about every

analysis, the growth industries will come. we want to hear from john alden. dr. aldrin is the science adviser to the president who we have asked to give an overview. it is a rare appearance for him because he does not usually present a budget, but it will give us the overview. we will hear from the department of energy, dr. collins from the national institutes of health, well-known to so many of us, dr. cordova, our new head of the national science foundation, a small agency, but one that has really been so much a power house and was actually initiated under the eisenhower a ministration. and we're again in our country defense plays an important role in developing not only weapons of war, but also weapons against disease and other innovative things, to relieve the creation of the internet. we look forward to hearing what

your views are, and we will be taking -- our colleagues will then participate. the way i would like to suggest it is rather than long winded, fancy introductions let's get right to you. why don't we start and then just work down. >> well, thank you. chairman, ranking member, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be discussed with you the importance of federal investments and research development and innovation for our nation's future. president obama continues to place high priority on science, technology, and innovation. his 2015 budget proposes a balanced portfolio of r&d investments to meet the full range of national goals to which those investments are during. while the caps in a bipartisan budget act of last december were challenging constraints on what this budget could propose for

r&d, i think it's a measure of the priority the administration gives to science, technology, and innovation that the increase for r&d in the presence of why 15 budget over a 414 enacted is considerably larger in percentage terms than the increase in discretionary spending overall. while the base budget in the president's commission for a flat 15 comports with the caps in a bipartisan budget act, he has also put forward a vision for stronger investments in america's future in the form of a supplementary $56 billion opportunity, growth, security initiative. while requiring additional congressional action, the initiative would be fully paid for by spending

how an early stage of applied research across all the names of science and engineering. it is critical that the independence and integrity of nsf peer review grant making process be protected and preserved. the focus is listed first in its 1950 organic act, namely to promote the progress of science and to initiate and support basic scientific research cannot be reshaped to fit a different set of preferences by one group or another. to try to fix what is not broken would ms. -- risk eroding the cornerstone of american scientific and engineering excellence. i would like to offer a further and related caution, although

the united states remains theward leader in science, technology, and innovation we cannot take that for granted. number of other nations most notably china have been ramping up their investments in r&d. china will pass the united states and r&d funding in a matter of a few years if recent trends were to continue. now, as a general matter i welcome the efforts of other nations to build the capacities and science, technology, and innovation, to address the many challenges that societies are on the world face including combating disease on developing cleaner energy options and coping with climate change. the pace of progress in such domains and in the pace of advance in basic science of the benefits of the globalization of science and technology. it is also the case that intensification of r&d efforts in other countries presents challenges for the united states in the demands of economic

competitiveness and national security. it is therefore essential that this nation maintain and grow its world leading science and technology enterprise. doing so will require continuing attention, not only to the federal government's direct investments in r&d, but also to the incentives the government provides to the private sector to support research, experimentation, and innovation. the obama administration recognizes that across the frontiers of scientific knowledge is not nearly a cultural tradition but an imperative. the administration is committed to ensuring that america remains at the epicenter of the global revolution in scientific research and technological innovation, and we will continue to propose budget and policies to meet that commitment. the president, the science and technology focus departments and agencies across his of ministration, and my office all look forward to working with

congress to get this job done. all be pleased to answer any questions the members have. >> member of the committee, the department of energy has long been one of the nation's premier agencies driving innovation, economic growth and energy security, environmental stewardship and a clear national security. my written testimony and accompanying documents provide numerous examples of how sponsor research is benefited the nation substantially. this afternoon i will focus on a few examples in some key areas. we will take supercomputing is an example. supercomputing is fundamental to the scientific research and is the cornerstone of the nation's history chip program and the absence of nuclear testing. supercomputing enable scientists to engineers to conceptualize

and test the hypothesis and engineered systems. as a direct result of the decade's more than half of the world's 500 computers including five of the top-10 fastest of located in the united states. supercomputing continues to give our country in edge for science, manufacturers, security while the driver for the supercomputing effort historically was the nuclear weapons program. if one looks at our fy15 budget request one sees this shift toward science and energy applications as now become the dominant driver. one example of how this works is the partnership we had with cummings, for example, to develop advanced decision engines followed now by a super truck initiative that includes that kind of engine in class eight trucks would 61 percent improvement in freight efficiency. if fully developed these trucks

would save an estimated 260 million barrels of petroleum per year. in our fy15 budget we have highlighted a push to exit scale systems, the next frontier, and only through a sustained and strong federal commitment to the pursuit of advanced computing can we stay ahead of other nations in this critical area. ..

the for studying matter at the atomic and molecular scales and are enabling to us create new materials, mow effective batteries and new cures for disease. these tools have important commercial makes. for example, data from -- a third area, renewable technology and energy storage, our national laboratories have been crucial to the develop of technologies from wind turbines to today's solar technologies. one example. our national renewal laboratory with first solar, developed a

novel depo signifies technology and it's a thin film solar mad all'ver. ed a -- advanced manufacturing, another focus area. we're working as part of an interagency group to support a national network of manufacturing innovation institutes. these bring together universities, small and large businesses, and research organizations to advance key enabling technologies for 21st 21st century manufacturing. we want an edge in these manufacturing dough mains. two have been awarded to doe funding, one in 3-d printing and one in wide band gap semi conductors, another will be coming on advanced composite materials. i did bring one prop, this robotic hand created using 3-d

printing at our oak ridge research center, combining fluidics with this manufacturing technology, reduces weight by five x, reduces cost, reduces process time by 3x, this is the kind of enabling technology that will give us an edge as we go forward. and finally, -- i'm sorry? >> what does it do? >> this is a -- is my clock suspended for the time? >> i'll suspend it. does it win the world series? we'll take ten. >> i did the out a first pitch for the first time in major league baseball game last week, and i can see now i'm becoming obsolete very quickly. but this is a robotic handthat can also be used ultimately in a prosthetic situation with manipulation through fluids. it has enormous strength and is easy to use, and this mesh technology makes it very, very light and faster to manufacture.

so it's great technology. i'll just end saying that the department's investments in r & d have far-reach can impacts but preserving scientific vitality, taking advantage of the enormous reservoir of talent in this country, positioning ourselves competitively and training the nexten racing of stem workers -- next generation workers requires strong budgets sequestration can restrict our vitality. we -- thank you. i look forward to the discussion. >> your robotic hand is -- which really could be used by our returning wounded warriors, to people with accidents, which ties right into nih.

so -- >> we're partner. good afternoon, madam chairwoman, vice-chairman shelby and distinguished members of the commitee. an honor to appear here on this panel of dedicated scientific leaders to discuss how the federal government drives innovation in science and technology. on behalf of the nih and the find medical research enterprise i want to thank the members of this committee for your continued support of biomedical research. nih had beened a vanning our understanding of health and disease for more than a century. scientific and technological breakthroughs general at it bed nih supported research are responsible for many of the games you see here our country has enjoyed in health and longevity. over the last 60 years deaths from heart disease have fallen by more than 70%. cancer deaths have been dropping. 's one percent annually for 15 years. these are life expects tenancy si gains that saved our nation trims of dollars. likewise, h.i.v. a.i.d.s.

treatments are enabling us to vision the first a.i.d.s.-free generation since 30 years ago. reported produced by the milken institute, batelle and others are providing solely -- solid data. analysis con them the two to run return that occurs in the first year after a grant awarded. some returns are truly dramatic. according to battelle our government's 3.8 bill initial investment in the human genome project has now resulted in a nearly $1 trillion economic growth. that is 178 fold return on investment. not bad. nih supported advances in public health and the resulting economic gapes have been accomplishinged threw a relentless focus on innovation, working together with the agencies represented at this table. you shouldn't just take our word for the critical role that government plays in scientific

innovation. i'd like to highlight a recent book called the entrepreneurial state by an economist, the press reviewed this back rather enthusiastically, concluding there's a strong economic case for the federal government's role as the u.s. economy's indispensable entrepreneur. as our own investments in r & d have struggled to keep up with inflation, other cubs are scaling up, seeking to replicate our track record and threaten our dominance. as you can see here, a recent published analysis of global investments in biomedical r & d shows a dramatic discrepancy between the trajectory being followed by the u.s. and by other countries, especially in asia, and these data were collected before the sequester. while we welcome investments by other countries to the global research enterprise, surrendering our leadership will

have serious long-term consequences for u.s. health and economic success. while i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge with gratitude the bipartisan effort of the united states congress to double the nihs budget more than a decade ago. but those glory days are now a distant memory and success rates for grant proposals from young investigators or mid-career investigators, have plummeted to historic lows. tighter competition for funding has put the squeeze on young scientists with fledgling labs, causing many to delay independence or consider alternative careers. this is a huge blow to our scientific capacity, considering -- the current fiscal deficit is a threat to our future but the growing innovation deficit is an even greater threat. what we desperately need is a new bipartisan plan to secure a study funding trajectory for biomedical research and ensure

long-term stability for nihs mission. the u.s. must continue to lead because scientific opportunities have never been more promising. for example, we are exploring what has been called the most complex structure in the known universe and biologiys final frontier, the human brain. nih is deeply engage he would along with nsf and darpa in this brain initiative, and this initiative will revolution fundamental neuroscience, providing a pratt form for major advances in alzheimer's disease, autism, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury and other disorders. the creative genius of u.s. scientists will be need for the discuss of this audacious expert but they're up to it. let me show you juan example. traditionally researchers studied the postmortem brain by cutting a specimen into thin slices. while all that slicing generates

neat two-dimensional images itself also makes its impossible to reconstruct the connections of the brains tens of billions of neurons. what if we could study the details of the wiring and the location of specific proteins in transparent 3-d. using a chemical cocktail researchers at stanford university, sported have figured out houston to do that. in an extraordinary technical feat the team made possible what you're seeing here, 3-d tour of an intact mouse brain, illuminated by a green dye that marks the knew rones, clarity which is now being applied to human brains will undoubtedly advance the brain initiative as will many other technological innovations yet to come. let me close by putting a human face on the scientific advances now made possible by u.s. innovation. kayla has been traveling, from illinois to the nih clinical

researcher in send since she was a year old. she suffer nomy d which is results in hearing and vision loss, cognitive impairment and physical disable. it is often fatal. and nih researchers discovered it's caused by overactive of an immune protein, drug that blocks that protein had been developed for possible treatment of resume today arthritis. she was win of the first patients enrolled in a clinical trial to see if this trial would work for her. the response has been amazing. and here's kayla today. a happy, healthy ten-year-old. she was going to be here today in person except the weather kept her plane grounded in shuck. she his the face of biomedical research innovation made possible by investment by entrepreneurs. this committee, government

scientists our nation's creative universities and businesses, our brain trusts and the american people, we have the right stuff. so help us to unleash it. thank you, mad dam chairwoman, vice-chairman shelby and members of the committee. i'm pleased to answer any questions. >> dr. cordova. >> thank you. madam chair, ranking member shelby, members of the committee, and senator cochran with who i have worked. i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify about the national science foundation and the critical role that plays in keeping the nation at the forefront of the world's science and engineering enterprise. it is personally grad identifying for me to appear before you as nsf director because full disclosure, i have had the pleasure of testifying in the presence of senator

mccull ski before. almost two decades ago i was at the witness table as the chief scientist, in this role i encouraged scientists to never us pas the biggest challenges the agency could tackle. they identified trying to understand the origin of the universe through observation, identifying habitable planets orbiting other suns and visiting the neighborhoods of our sun and planets to better understand their nature and origins, and today, they have certainly made a lot of progress on all of those big challenges. i'm pretty sure my testimony at the time was to paraphrase lincoln, little noted nor long remembered, but to me, senator, seems like just yesterday since that experience, one constant has stayed with me, my belief in, and my advocacy for, the pursuit of fundamental scientific research. this is the cause i bring before

this committee today, and i am happy to let you know, too, that the national science board, which has oversighted the national science foundation, is represented here by many members, including the chair and vice chair. in my written testimony, i gave you dozens of examples of important inventions that had the roots in nsf funding. today i have time for only a few illustrations. senators, i invite you to ask with me, what ifs. what if we had no ipads or smartphones with touch screens, that instantly connected us to a worldwide clearing house of information? what if there were no internet that provided the connectivity and ban dig to the clearing houston? what if there were no mris that enabled physicians to diagnosis diseases without

cutting through human flesh? what if there were no advanced weather forecasting that provided warning of tornadoes, hurricanes, and snowstorms. what if there were no municipal water systems that delivered water to countries and reduced water-borne diseases in poor countries. what if there were no cyber security efforts to protect our computers from hacking, on even what if commuter development itself were still stuck back in the 1960s. do you remember the batch computer roaring punch cards? i do. and finally, the biggest what-if of all, what if in early 1950, after several false starts, senate bill 247 authorizing the creation of the national science foundation, had not been

approved by both houses? and signed by the president? what a different world we would be living in. fortunately, the president did sign the bill into law, nsf began its work, and today we can take for granted all of those what-ifs as preconditions of modern life. those technological breakthroughs have made our country more productive, created millions of jobs, vastly improved our halve, health, and raised our standards of living. they caused to us pause and wonder as nature reveals a more complex and beautiful universe. all of those what-ifs have one thing in common. they can all trace their development back to fundamental scientific research knickly fund ed by the national science foundation. for northern sex decade nsf

investments in fundamental research have fueled the fires of scientific, technological, and engineering innovations. they have fostered long-term economic growth, inspired and out cadeed the next -- owed indicated the next generation of scientists and engineers, directly addressed national needs, and addressed the very human need in each of us to learn, to discover, and to apply our new knowledge. through its support of fundamental research nsf focuses the nation's technical talent on solving important challenges facing modern society. some local, some global, some both. as a result of our long-standing and world-renowned merit review process, nsf has encouraged the development of innovative ideas in science and engineering and supportedded the people who

generate them. as this committee knows so well, nsf's research and education investments have been vital to our country's prosperity and will be even more important to our future. they will continue to be a critical factor in maintaining the nation's technological leadership through the 21st 21st century and will bradley impact long-term economic health and vitale of our nation and the world. thank you, madam chair, and ranking member shelby, for your unwavering support of the national science foundation and our efforts to maintain and enhance america's technological preeminence. i'd be happy to respond to your questions. >> thank you very minute, bad dam chairwoman, vice-chairman shelby and members of the committee. i'm so pleased to be here with my colleagues and appreciate the chance to talk with you. darpa is part of the defense

department science and technology investments and part of a much larger national ecosystem for r & d but win the communes we have one very special role and that role is to make the pivotal early investments that change what is possible so that we can take big steps forward in our national security capables and that role traces back to our foundation in the wake of sputnik. we were formed specifically to make sure we avoided that kind of technological surprise again. we have fulfilled our mission by creating a few surprises of our own over the last 56 years, and while our output is technology, we really count our mission complete only when those technologies change outcomes. so, every time a stealth fighter evadeses an air defense system, everytime a soldier on the ground is able to place himself precisely with gps and get the

data he needs, every time that a radar on an aircraft carrier allows to us see a threat a carrier strike group before it sees us, that's when we count or mission complete, because in every one of those cases, darpa made that pivotal early investment that showed that those technologies were possible, and what followed from that was equally important and that was the investment often by our partners in other parts of the defense department and the military services, their science and technology investments, their development investments, their acquisition programs. many in industry were involved deeply in those efforts, and ultimately to make those technologies into real capabilities took our war identifyingers. now, along the way as we focused on our mission of these investments for national security, we have also, in that process, planted some of the

seeds that form the technology base that our commercial sector has built on top of, and so france has this really great cell phone line but every time you pick up your cell phone and do something as mundane and miraculous as checking a social network site you're living on top of a set of tech untiles that trace back to the early work we did. so public investment laid that foundation. private investment, billions of dollars of private investment, and enormous entrepreneurship built the industries and changed how we live and work with these technologies. so that's something of darpas history. our mission of breakthrough technology for national security is unchanged across five and a half decades. but of course the world in which we're investing and pursuing the mission that changed. so let me just give you a few examples of some of the things

we're doing that really reflect the national security and the technology context that we're operating in today. in one arena, we see information at massive scale affecting every speak of national security, and so if you look in our portfolio you'll find game-changing investments in cyber and in big data programs, one example is work that we're doing to tackle the networks that drive human trafficking around the world, just as one example. in another arena we're looking at what is happening with the cost and the complexity of military systems today. we recognize that they are becoming too costly and too inflexible to be effective for the next generation of threats we'll face around the world. so at darpa today we are investing in programs that are fundamentally rethinking complex military systems. we're making investments in things we believe will lead to

powerful new approaches for radar and for communications and for weapons and for navigation. >> and then in a range of research areas, we can see the new seeds of technological surprise. one example is where biology is intersecting with engineering today and in areas like that we're making the investments that will lead to new technologies like sin the kick biology and neurotechnology. so, i would love to speak at any length about the things we are doing. at a little bit of an introduction to the work we're doing. that i want to just enmeds -- end my remarks by stepping back. we're living in very challenging times. technology is getting more and more complex, it's moving at a very rapid pace. other nations are jockeying for position in global affairs. many of them as we have discussed here, are making their own aggressive moves to build

their own science and technology capables, and then, of course, meanwhile here at home, we are dealing with constrained resources, dealings with the effect of sequestration jessica, -- sequestration but when i step back and look at what we have done over many decades in the country i would observe we have had a long and very successful commitment to investing investing in r & d as nation and when we make that investment, we are investing in two things that are deeply american. one is the kind of creativity that is sparked by the open society that is a hallmark of this country, and in this case, it's the creativity of our scientists and engineers that we're investing in. the second is this drive to create a better future, and in many ways, in a sense this is the most product kind of

restlessness you can imagine. two very american things. so, i'll just say along with my colleagues i very much appreciate and continue to ask for your support to make this vital american investment in the next generation to make that a high priority. thank you very much for the chance to be here. i'll look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much. and then to all who testified. we have had great attendance and some have had to leave. i will take my questions at the very end. i really want to get to members who have been waiting patiently to be able to proceed. i want to turn to senator shelby and then we'll alternate here and get right into it. before i do, though, i want everyone to know there was a tremendous interest in wanting to have large public witnesses. over 138 organizations contacted us. they have all submitted testimony. i'm going to ask unanimous mouse

consent they be included in the records but that shows everything from the scientific coalition to biotech, tech america, women in engineers, it really shows the passion in our country to have this unique american restlessness to create a better future. and i want to have a continue our better bipartisan relationship, so i turn to senator shelby who was always been so keenly interested in this area. senator shelby. >> thank you, madam chair. dr. cordova you meninged in your testimony the national science foundation funded research initiatives. have led to numerous innovations in the commercial markplace. we understand that. progressing from basic research by way of the national science foundation to the commercialized products that impact our daily

lives can often take years. can you explain just briefly the process for turning government investments in basic scientific research into broader commercial applications? i know you have a litany. >> we have a litany of examples that has happened very successfully for sure, senator. but the basic thing to remember is that an innovation, starts with new knowledge and a discovery. there's something fundamental at the basis of everything that we use and that we take for granted, and nsf's role is to do and to support that fundamental or basic research. so that is just the beginning. we like to say that nsf is where discoveries begin. but then there's a long process

and often it's a random process. it can be very quick and we have some methods and some centers that we have been funding, and then this new icorps initiative in order to make that much faster. and get students to understand how to do market research -- >> complain what you just mentioned. how you make it faster. >> okay. well, let me give the example of icorps. because nih has adopted this model, and this is a new way of doing this that involves students doing market research with their professors and mentors, and then the students are required to make customer calls to a manipulate of 100 potential customers based on their discoveries. so they have discovery, they have something they think can go eventually to market. but how do you spied that up? that's your question.

so, students are learning that in order for that to happen, somebody has to want to use it, and so it's an exploration in what is the market want and need, and how receptive it will be to their invention. and so by doing this process again under the mentorship of others and 0 a lot of companies are participating in this as well -- these students get a very fast way of knowing and understanding what it's going to be to get a lot of input, feedback. feedback is in the process of learning, just so essential. so, we have had some real wins in just a couple of years iocorps has been stann -- established. we have examples of where big companies, for example, drop box, bowing a small thing that was invented through the method. so that's just one example. but i know our engineer and research centers and other

entities that we fund at universities are very concerned with bringing stuff to market more quickly. ... we also have international collaborations in the mix as well as partnerships with the private sector and with philanthropy. the initiative is a probably decade or more effort because what we are talking about is the

most audacious kind of science to understand how the circuits in the brain actually do what they do. how do we lay down a memory and retrieve it? how do we process information? how when i hear someone talking down the hall even if it's someone i haven't seen for five years i know who it is just by hearing their voice. it's pretty amazing to contemplate when you start thinking about it. driven by the city 6 billion neurons inside. we have put together through the brain initiative at nih a working group and it has representation from nsf and darpa as well of some of the best and brightest and most visionary neuroscientist we can identify and it's an amazing team. they have been hard at work for the last year putting forward exactly the kind of answers to your question what should be the milestones and what should read the deliverables? we will hold ourselves accountable. they gave us an initial set of recommendations which gave us a chance to issue no less than six requests for applications which

we have now received. that's very exciting bunch of scientific applications and they will in june lay out a five-year plan with very specific intention to those kinds of milestones which we let presented in our open meeting. i think it will be ambitious but it has to be achievable as well great it's going to take a lot of tools, a lot of new technologies to make measurements we need. >> how do you work with the biologists and the engineers in this area? >> a great question there as well because i will be critical for success. there's no single discipline that will be able to do this. we need engineers and computer scientistscientist s. we need biologists. we need physiologists. we need than a technologist and other kinds of robotics approaches. certainly with our colleagues who have some access to those disciplines and that's part of the fun. it has the same flavor perhaps as the genome project did 20 years ago trying to bring together disciplines that haven't necessarily have the chance to work together.

we have to mix their cultures up with an amazing thing things start to happen. that is what we are about. >> senator harkin. >> the thank you very much madam chairman and these are the kinds of hearings without to have more of. but then again i think about this and all the brilliance here before us and i'm reminded of the fact that congress disbanded some years ago the office of technology assessment. that used to inform us on science and technology and quite frankly i think madam chairman we have to revise the office of technology assessment to give senators and congressman -- it was bicameral -- to give us more permission that we need to make their judgments. but anyway that's a little aside from this panel but it brings to my mind that we need that her information on a science basis

and technology basis than what we are getting. this is fine but there are just a few of us here. and more senators and more congressman need to. dr. collins i'm glad you brought up the book. i was interested in that case he often makes of the federal government takes reinsurance risks that private investors would never touch. we have have to understand that the basic researches. we don't understand that is going to lead to anything. it may lead offshoot someplace else. and it reminded me of the early meetings on the genome project when i first met you. relate for us again how easy it was to raise private sector money to pursue the human genome project back in 89 and 90 and 91. >> that was an interesting time senator and you were right in the middle of those early

discussions with legendary figures like jim watson who is the initial leader of the nih component and we did this charlie with their friends at the department of energy. you know there were interests in the private sector at the early point of something like the genome project. this was considered very high-risk and those interests were often in the direction of well maybe if the private sector could just do this quick we all of the data that would be tied up in a database we would have to pay to see and i think ultimately that would not have been a good outcome. frankly nobody knew how to do this. the technology for weeding out 3 billion letters of the human genome had not been invented. the idea that you would have to do something at that scale was a prodigiously audacious idea to say we could get that done. but it was a great opportunity to bring technology needs in front of the academic investigators and ultimately companies. nature magazine recently wrote an article about this crediting

nih in particular the genome institute for coming up with the right model to encourage investments by creative small companies about how to take dna sequencing and turning it into a high-frequency facility that would be dropping the cost down prodigiously. the outcomes include things like this dna sequencing machine that i'm holding up right now. the size of a postage stamp originalloriginall y. this was like a phonebooth but look at it now all because of this investment in technology. reason i asked the question is in the early days there was a private money to do this but the private money came later. >> yes. >> again tell the committee the study that mattel did and relate for us again the investment that the taxpayers put into the human genome project and what that spun off in the year 2000 to 2010.

>> about $3.8 billion went to the genome project to train nih and d.o.e.. the assessment by mattel just updated said that resulted in $970 billion in economic growth and united states even if you throw in inflation that's 178 to one return on that investment. i have to tell you despite how wonderful that it's been for our country look where we are now. where is the largest sequencing company in the world? it's in changing china. it's not an united united states. >> one last thing. dr. said 30 said three at one to to ask a question about funding dod. i know we have a clear responsibility to clean up contamination. the legacy of our nuclear weapons production but i do not understand way we are spending 40% of her d.o.e. budget on nuclear weapons activities. that's nearly as much as d.o.e. research budget. that's as much as your entire

research budget that we are spending on nuclear weapons activities. so again i'm not convinced this is the most appropriate balance of investments. could you help us out here? why are we spending so much on nuclear weapons development? >> clearly one of our responsibilities is to maintain a safe and reliable weapons stockpile. >> how much does that cost a year? >> the weapons program per se. >> to maintain the program. >> about a billion dollars. >> eight million? >> yeah so as long as we have the weapons and we are decreasing in numbers but as long as we have them we have to keep them safe and reliable and of course we do that without tee reasons are science and technology enterprises so critical. in fact if you would permit me sir i would just make a comment adding to francis' comment was

senator udall here as well to note that actually the first meeting for the human genome project was in los alamos with nih scientists and i think what it showed was exactly this feature that we have to work across our boundaries because we brought a technology-based that nih shouldn't have been nih of course have the problem set and it was a wonderful collaboration. thank you. >> i'm going to turn to senator alexander but i think i want to just show the bipartisan efforts that have been here. i think senator harkin and senator specter doubling nih. senator kit bond and i worked on doubling bnsf but i think rather than picking in a teensy like noah's arc to buy do we go to champion it we have to use the overall innovation. senator alexander. >> thanks manager and thanks for your long support for this and this hearing. i would like to make a preamble and then ask one question.

here is the preamble. in 2005 that was sitting at the end of a long day of the senate budget hearing and i was watching and listening to the rise of mandatory spending in two-thirds of the budget and wearing about the other third of the budget which included all the things we are talking about today. i remember it reminded me of my time as governor 30 years ago when i was trying to hold down medicaid spending so i could put more money into higher education. i walked down to the national academies and said i believe if you would tell us 10 things to do that would make our country more competitive we would do them. they gave us 20 in something called rising above the gathering storm. 70 of senate bipartisan way ports and it took us two years to pass it. it made progress but as obama funded it her goal was to double our funding in national science foundation d.o.e. and nst. compare that to going to china

with senator stevens -- stephen inouye in 2006 and we went to the blew the top men in china and after we left they were talking about competitiveness. they went down to the great wall of china and set a role for the next 15 years of war% of their gdp for what we have spent two years trying to do. we spent less than 1% of our gdp. now there are differences. that is the kind of competition but the point i want to make in this preamble is what senator shelby said. we have to face the fact that the real truth is that unless we deal with the mandatory spending side of the budget we are going to squeeze out all the money for all the things you're talking about. that's not an obama problem. that's been true were 10, 15 or 25 years. we cannot let the two-thirds of the budget go up 80% over the next 10 years in the discretionary side go from 35 to 23 is that we'll take your

funding down not up. although 135 agencies and the people who are here together are going to have to help us deal with this problem. we on this committee are going to have to do it. i met with ms. burwell this morning the new head of the health and human services if she is confirmed. she's going to be in charge of spending more money than the entire congress will madam chairwoman. she spent over chilean dollars that's automatically on mandatory spending and if we do our job will barely appropriate that amount of money for everything we do. i'm not saying this is a political statement. i'm just saying based on what i've seen over 30 years of the state and federal level we have to find a way to agree on that. we are going to render our engineering and science and research and a good it is obsolete and we are going to render this committee obsolete. that's a very important part of what we have to do. another thing we have to do is to make sure of the money we spend, we spend it well and my

question is of dr. prabhakar and secretary moniz darpa and arma e. a fledgling cousin in the department of energy you have a little different method of funding and a little different method of accountability. it's been enormously successful. the internet gps stealth and all these things. what can we learn from the way you fund and hold your investments to accountability that might be applied to other agencies? first darpa and then arpa-e. >> thank you senator alexander for the question. i know well your support of arpa-e building on the darpa model and it's been a delight to see that young agency get off to such a terrific start. i believe that there are a few core reasons that darpa has had outsized success over a number of decades.

it begins with our mission which is to focus on breakthrough technologies. we are not in the business of incremental improvement. we are really looking for things that can create huge advances in capability. in our case of course that is for the national security. that mission has allowed us to do a number of things that i've led to our success. one is to bring people in from the broad technical community, not to service full career in government but to come to us typically for three to five years to bring their passion, to bring their insight and their perspective, their hands on knowledge of a specific technical area. that has been incredibly valuable. coupled with that has been their ability once they are at darpa to go engage the entire technical community. we don't have labs in infrastructure of our own but that dean's the world is our oyster. we are able to go find amazing talents and universities and

labs of all sorts in companies large and small. those are some of the factors that have been really critical in our ability to make these investments. at the end of the day our mission means we have to reach for a huge impact in that inherent in that is taking risks. we don't like risks. we try to beat it down and tried to get out ahead of it but at the end of the day we know that some of the things we invest in are going to fail and we are going to -- willing to tolerate doubt that because the ones that s

the arpa-e managers also work with the awardees at every stage of the process. it's quite different from the way a standard grant is issued. furthermore another feature that is different is their ease a specific crow graham. it's essentially a mentoring program of the awardees on tech to market because that is ultimately the breakthrough happening. so far in a relatively young program there are 24 companies that have been produced in the

program. still too early to get the final scorecard but it looks very promising. also something i said earlier. i think the program really got the entrepreneurial spirit in the country energy technologies going. if we were called the very first solicitation in 2009 which was an open solicitation. it was across-the-board for a novel potential breakthrough technology. the funding level was 1% of the applications. roughly 37 out of 3000 plus. we have a lot of talent out there ready to go if we can help a little bit them get going. >> we are now going to turn to the next few people will be senator coons and senator

collins. >> thank you m let me just turn for a moment if i could do to specific areas of interest to me because i think if we're going to have a more sustainable and secure energy

future, better protected consumers or better national security, find our ways to innovate across incredibly broad array of things we need the whole ecosystem of innovation to be stronger and you play a central role in making that happen. if i could within nsf there is program that supports science engineering and education for sustainability. enginee within it is a sustainable chemistry initiative that has dramatic potential i think in terms of replacing where repl strategic minerals with more constantly available ailable reengineering the basic processes of industrial production and making them of ae lighter footprint and morest cost-effectiverial for us, the united states. and more cost-effective for us in the united states. tell me if you would how you see that cross disciplinary issue making a difference going forward. >> senator i don't know a lot about the details. i know that it's been a high priority.

it was a one-time program that would last for a certain number of years. i believe on the order of the decade. we put a lot of investment into it and then it would have seats that would initiate other programs. so i know that we are still continuing to fund it. it has a life course and then it will -- what is produced will be taken hold of another ways that we are learning from that model. it's been as you said enormously reductive thing. actually it's one of the things that has been explained to me and this is my first month as director. a new kind of more risky initiatives that we do for a certain amount of time that can guilt our great fruit. we take from that lessons in order to be able to have calls further proposals that use the same kind of methods. but in perhaps a different way. speeders increased interest and

investment in the private sector to the point senator harkin made earlier. doing basic science is about taking risks that the private sector won't take in scaling up the things that have been developed as a sustainable chemistry initiative. it strikes me as well worth our time if i might dr. said three. the idea in the core programs are of interest to me because they broaden the circle of who can compete for and are just debate in federally funded research. speak to me for a moment if you would about how as core has made a difference in broadening the range and reach of research institutions and individuals and strengthening the innovation pipeline to the united states. >> thank you senator coons. one editorial remark. the kinds of materials that you raised. obviously we got a rude awakening a few years ago with the chinese and rare earth and i

think any people did not realize how ubiquitous the rare earths were and now we have a major hub at the ames laboratory at iowa state which is focused exactly on that problem as well i think very complementary to the nsf. with regard to ebb score i frankly am a fan of ebb score. i was actually involved in the first years of ebb score in south carolina. so with ebb score we have a chance to have states that do not have as much funding in research as others with some matching funds develop programs competitively. i will give the example that i was involved in and ended up with the biology program and a physics program. the latter became nationally competitive as a result of that. another thing i like about ebb score so much and i think we can increase our focus on

undergraduates participating in the research because frankly we have undergraduate talent all across this country and many of them don't have the access to their resource opportunities that others do. >> i appreciate your comments and continuing to work in partnership to build out and strengthen stem disciplines at the undergraduate and graduate level research capabilities at a water range of colleges and universities in the tech transfer capabilities of the national labs is something worthy of all of our attention. you mentioned in passing hubs. i would simply say manufacturing hubs that allow us to coordinate federal investments in cutting-edge technology research and translated directly into advanced manufacturing and i stayed strikes me as a strategy well worth our time. thank you very much madam chairwoman. >> senator collins. >> thank you madam chairwoman. dr. collins first of all i wish

you really were my cousin. we joke about that every time i see you. >> we could discover. with a little dna testing. >> who knows kongo right? you mentioned in your statement that tremendous progress has resulted from the biomedical research into heart disease cancer, hiv and aids. i am concerned that we are not making that same kind of concerted investment when it comes to alzheimer's disease. today 5.2 million americans suffer from alzheimer's. that is doubled the amount that was -- the number that it was in 1980 and if nothing is done to change the trajectory of the disease it is estimated that as many as 16 million americans will be living with alzheimer's by the year 2025.

and in addition to the human suffering that is caused by alzheimer's the cost of caring for people with alzheimer's is absolutely at norma's. it's estimated that the costs this year will be $214 billion and $150 billion comes from the federal medicaid and medicare programs. so at a time when the cost is soaring we are spending less than a third of 1% of that $215 billion on alzheimer's research. i know that you are very familiar with a national plan to address alzheimer's which has as its primary goal to prevent or effectively treat alzheimer's by the year 2025. the chairman of the advisory council created by that law with whom i have talked extensively

says we really should be devoting $2 billion a year to alzheimer's research instead of just 600 million. we are falling so short of the amount that has been recommended by the experts. what is your judgment? it seems to me as a talk to researchers there are a lot of promising ideas out there. the problem is not a lack of ideas. it's a lack of funding. could you comment on whether you believe we should be doing more in this area? >> i would be happy to put up on the screen the scary numbers that you just referred to. the green line projecting how many will have alzheimer's if nothing is done and you will see it's up to a frightening number close to 14 million people compared to 5 million now. the blue bars are what we'll be spending over a trillion dollars predicted by 2050 if nothing is

done. we have to find a solution to prevent and treat this disease. i'm passionate about this as i know many of the members on this committee that i have spoken to about this over the years. we are taking an exciting scientific time. we have come up with new strategies to understand what happens early on in the alzheimer's brain to trigger this process and what we might do to intervene. i would not have been able to say that quite as confidently a few years ago. new technologies including imaging and genomics for giving us insights into the fundamental process that we need to figure out how to prevent and reverse. on top of that new ideas about therapeutics are coming along. we are running dozens of clinical trials. most of them will fail. one of the things we are doing right now it becomes important to assess whether something is working or not is to start clinical trials at the earliest moment even sometimes to four people have symptoms at all but who are at high-risk of alzheimer's. if you wait until somebody

already has substantial evidence of cognitive problems and he knows you have party lost a substantial fraction of their brain cells. with the ability to make predictions about who is at risk we can start the treatments earlier. we can use biomarkers to access access -- assess if they're working. a new project is a partnership of the pharmaceutical industry where they have agreed to put money in the table. nih is put money on the table. we are working together and open access fashion to see can we identify every possible strategy that anyone can think of for alzheimer's disease. this is not been tried before quite this way with lots of milestones and deliverables put in there. your question are we spending enough? i would say it was wonderful that this congress came up with an extra $100 billion in the current fiscal year and there are people on this committee who had a big role including madam chairwoman in making sure that was there and that was a substantial increment they gave everybody a real push in my

professional judgment. do we need more if we are really going to push this at the level that could be? yes we do. it's hard to say though over the course of this 20 out of 2025 timetable before the alzheimer's plan exact way what is the funding trajectory necessary to get there. clearly if we are going to succeed at this we will need the best and brightest scientists taking risk and we at the present time are not really doing as much as we could. >> thank you. >> senator murray. >> chairman mikulski and ranking member shall be thank you golding is hearing. i'm really glad to hear this conversation happening especially about how innovation strengthens our economy and the steps we need to take to secure our global leadership in many arenas. i've always been a strong supporter of research and development and providing stability and relief from sequestration for federal

research is part of what chairman ryan and i were to do this we crafted the bipartisan budget agreement. when budgets get tight it seems funding for research and development is among the first priority is to be cut. i'm glad that are bill was able to restore certainty to the budget processes in the eight tutsis tutsis and i really hope we can build on that bipartisan foundation. we have got to do a lot more now to ensure the 20th century ideas and products are developed and manufactured here in this country. now we know there's a strong relationship between the amount that it spends on r&d and the amount of technical innovation that results from that. today in terms of non-defense funding for r&d as a share of gdp the united states ranks sixth from the bottom out of 34 nations. benchmarked by the urbanization and tracking corp. development. we have recent data reported

that suggest r&d investment in china is projected to surpass u.s. r&d investments by 2022. i want to ask the panel is today how do u.s. federal r&d investments stack up against the amounts that are biggest global competitors are investing in r&d today and what areas are those that we are losing out on. whoever would like to jump in and dr. holdren if you'd like to start. >> the united states remains the largest funder of research and development in the world in absolute terms but as you point out in terms of a fraction of our gdp or the rate of increase we are well down the list. we need to worry about that as i pointed out both in my oral statement in my written testimony. we are in real danger of being overtaken by china as you remarked senator murray. they are increasing their r&d investments at a range and rate of 20 to 25% a year. if they keep doing that and we

stagnate as seems very possible in light of recent trends they will pass us well before 2022. now there is more to science technology and innovation than just total spending. the chinese continue to envy us for the creativity of our system and away we seem to be able to inculcate creativity even in our educational system so we are innocents getting more bang for the buck. ultimately we have to expect that they will learn from our playbook there as they have in other areas and we will narrow the gap and effectiveness of their spending and the effectiveeffectiveness of their stem education. we are going to have a real challenge on our hands. as i noted in my testimony there are of course many domains where it makes sense to cooperate with china and with other countries. we do a lot of that cooperation in areas like epidemic disease and areas like climate change research and areas like disaster

response and recovery. but in areas that affect competitiveness and national security we need to be very alert to the challenges that are emerging and other countries around the world. in my judgment at the moment is that we are not doing enough. >> we are going to take one other answer that question. stay with us add to john's excellent points with a national security perspective and it has to do with not just where the technologies are being invented but where they are being adopted i see it in my national security round today at darpa as we are watching the global access to very powerful technologies to information technology to semiconductors that allows all kinds of actors. sometimes nation-states but sometimes just individuals

working in venture capital it's very clear to me there as well over and over again we had this phenomenally powerful research base in the country, but that the manufacturing, the drive to commercialize those technologies was something that was inherently global, clearly we don't have a monopoly there, and with that shift i think, some important moral abilities for our country. those are some of the factors that are very much on my mind in my roleim at darpa. s the others could respond butr if -- other senators are waiting. >> i would just like to add --

>> if it's a crucial question. >> yes, it certainly is. and probably the biggest impactd is on who will practice science and engineering in the future. we have a responsibility to our grandchildren the to communicate how beautiful ann interesting these fields are and why they matter. they and if they don't sense the ma excitement of an investment and there are practitioners out there talking about their discoveries and their dis inventions, then they're not going to be encouraged to go into those careers. we are really -- this hearing to me is about the future of science in engineering and how we're going to broaden thatare n participation.ipation. it really is an investment. it's not an expenditure. it's an investment in thenditur. future.me >> very quickly because i know we don't have a lotnt of time e

a lot of time i did want to show this beta slide which comes from a recent article in journal argued -- article. in terms of what is happening biomedical research and you can see the contrast is dramatic especially with asia but not just asia. europe despite their economic woes have decided to protect scientific research and increase it because they see that as the best remedy for that economic trouble. >> senator mikulski said she had trouble seeing it. the second from the top is the red and china is on the bottom. >> the china is increasing their investments in biomedical research by 30% per year. i imagine that's compounded year after year and you can see where that is headed. this brief sequester the u.s. is dropping off. after sequester that red bar would have been further to the left. it's a dramatic contrast. >> if i could add one brief

comment on energy. there's a simple benchmark. we are at about a third of that benchmark. a country like japan for example has added and when we consider there is a trillion dollar a year market developing globally for these technologies we should be ahead of the train. >> thank you very much and senator we owe you and senator sessions we really appreciate the fact that one of the most important things was you were able to give us a budget and you also for two years and it is sequester which i think i'm going to ask about the corrosive effect on that shortly but thank you very much. as we turned to senator blunt dr. colin sino he is a bio guy.

it's not only what china spends. that's a billion people but it is what singapore spends and 6 million, that's million and they are spending i think that the rate of 10%. so little singapore with less than just about the same population of maryland is a leader. senator blunt. >> the thank you chairman and thank you for holding this hearing. i think we'll have a sense that their research and our ability to compete and are brought ability to solve the problems that impact people's lives as a central thing that the government can be part of. dr. collins i don't know if you had a chance. i had to step away for a few minutes to talk about this or not but the alzheimer's question brought this back to my mind. the people that argue and

comment advocate for us with disease specific research always make a compelling point and there is a great inclination to say well of course we are going to target that and the defense research and health and defense. there are lots of things around in various budgets. i was in the house of representatives had a time when we essentially doubled in the age research funding and the discussions you and i have had about that, no the concern about that is when you get to the end does that mean you are done and does that mean you are done for a long time? my question would be one have you had a chance yet to talk about an idea where we could reverse that trend and how we do that on annualized basis and two anything you would like to say that helps us understand those research decisions may be better made by nih having increased

funding that they can work with rather than too many directions for the congress for the reasons we think you should be working on. >> senator i appreciate both parts of that question. certainly we have learned over the years that advances in one area of disease research don't always come from projects we thought were relative to that. many of the things we are now excited about in terms of cancer were discoveries that were made studying some other aspect of basic science or even some other disease. the more we learn about the molecular patterns that undergird diseases the morphine realize they are overlapping and now there are drugs we develop. it turned out to work great for totally different disease. maybe one of the worst things we could do if you want to find a cure for alzheimer's disease is to say we will spend all of our money on things we know are exactly what we understand about

that disease. we would miss the opportunity for that unexpected discovery to come from another direction. the importance of having a broad landscape investigation because we are not smart enough and nobody else on the planet is either to know exactly whether whether -- where the discoveries will lead. we appreciate over the years that congress is understanding that and very reluctant to do what you're marking for medical or scientific research. ives should've said the hundred million dollars put into the budget for fy14 for alzheimer's was for alzheimer's and other diseases of aging in part because the congress wanted to be very clear. you were not making this a very precise. it has to be exact way on this one thing and we appreciated that also. in terms of what you are asking about what would be a stable trajectory and that is the main point i would love to make it this hearing the worst thing you can do for biomedical research or any scientific researches this feast or famine this rollercoaster where you ref up the engine and you take away the fuel. the young scientists are left

wondering do i want to stay on this rollercoaster or do i want to do something else? science is not a 100-yard -- it's a marathon and need that stable predictable support for people take risks to do research that's going to have to pay off but not next year. maybe five years from now. we have not had that kind of situation. if you look at the projection that i'm putting up now for what has happened with the nih budget what i'm showing you there and in jell-o is the actual spendable dollars corrected for inflation since 1990. you can see that doubling in the middle there. that was 1998 to 2003 but then you can see what happened after that. we basically have been losing ground ever since and we are we are now down 20% from where we were 12 years ago. >> that is based on spendable dollars and inflation. >> and inflation. the dotted line is the course that nih was on before.

if we had simply stayed on that course which had been true since 1970 which is about inflation plus 4% we would actually now be $10 billion above the budget at the present time. you can see why those of us looking at that situation really have wondered if we are talking about a future. maybe we should talk about a stable predictable trajectory that would give scientists a chance to take those risks to make those investments to approve the best and brightest of the lubbock confidence of the grid to follow. i don't quite see why something like scientific research has to be in the hobbled state that it is by progressive cuts. is the health of our nation discretionary? i think the average person in this room would go really? that seems like a funny label to attach to all of this and that is the end of my speech. >> thank you chairman.

>> that's pretty good. we are now going to turn to our defense guys returning to senator durbin and that is going to be followed by senator cochran. it wasn't planned but there is a senator unit to this. >> thank you very much madam chair. i visited nih a couple of months ago with my colleagues with dr. cordova and dr. prabhakar and meeting with dr. moniz in a few days and dr. holdren thank you for joining us. i asked the same question the senator blunt just asked and that is what is the number? i gave me the number and i went back and wrote a bill. called the american cures fund. the number you suggest it was real wrote a 5% a year for 10 years. the question is in the biomedical research we committed ourselves to real growth for 10 straight years affecting nih,

cdc the department of defense and the veterans administration medical research and how much would it cost and the answer is $140 billion in 10 years total. senator collins brought it up and i'm glad you did. we spend over $200 billion last year on alzheimer's and the notion that we cannot afford to make a 5% commitment when we are spending these math -- massive amounts of money in the wake of human suffering just seems nonsensical. you probably know if you have caught the exchanges that have gone back and forth here there are differences on how to come up with money for research spending. there are profound differences. on one side you are taking for mandatory programs from social security and medicare and medicaid and we are glad to sign it. you can imagine that is not warmly received on this side. on our side of the table i would flat out say 95% on all tobacco

products would generate half the money we need and over the course of 10 years 900,000 americans will stop smoking. and it will save lives in the process. i would sign up for that in second. the question really challenges us is not to cheer you on, all if you you want it to come up with a rational way of increasing our commitment to research and innovation. i think if we can do it can't, if we can find a way to do it between us democrats and republicans who will have a profound impact on the united states in the world in the second i will make and i would like your comments whoever would like to if you wish it's not just about money. it's about people. the researchers, the talent and we need to have more homegrown talent in america for sure and i'm committed to that. we also need to tap into the enormous pool of brilliance from

foreign students who come to the united states to be taught and end up with advanced degrees in a variety of fields prater spoke to the student technology commencement a few years back. why the m. whited a lawyer i don't know but as i passed across the stage the man was trying to pronounce all of those indian names. we were figuratively handing a diploma and instructions on how to go to o'hare and leave america. what a waste that would bring this talent to america trained them and then invite them to leave. the immigration bill we passed in the senate which i helped to draw up a number of democrats and republicans said if you get an advanced degree in stem and you have a job that america you will get a green card. we want you to stay. if we can combine fat infusion of talent along with their own increased homegrown talent with a commitment to resources we can

recapture it in no time. it should not be behind us. there is a person here on the this side of the table that does agree with the premise. the internet through darpa. thank you. all of the work of the national science foundation. three the field of energy for sure but even in computer science in so many different areas. how complementary this all this and it just troubles me. let me just ask, you talk about losing the last 12 years or 20% of your spending tap -- power to award grants for research for biomedical research. what does next year look like? is it true that the amount that you were going to be allocating in the president's budget is 8.7% increase over the current budget? >> that's correct. >> and the anticipated inflation for next year's 1.7% so we will fall behind another year.

make it 21, 22 years falling behind. i don't know if the same is true for other agencies represented here but i would like your comments on the talent pool question on the h-1b visas on those coming to this country to study and how we can do our best to have the men and women we need in each of the departments. >> that's a great question and when you look at america's success story is remarkable how it has been benefited by her ability to recruit and obtain incredible talent from overseas. look at nova noble prices that have been given how many of those that are american citizens were not born and came to the u.s. to do their work. certainly today when you look at the exciting science going on in our laboratories it is increasingly the case that the talent that is there is not going to stay. i can tell you an example of an extremely talented postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory at the university of michigan. in many peoples view one of the smartest kids that is, along in

a long time is originally from china and speaks very clear and excellent english. in any other circumstance would be fought over by institutions in the u.s. but right now with everything so tight and jobs are hard to come by meanwhile at peking university who has offered this individual and incredible deal millions of dollars of research support beautiful laboratories all the talent he could possibly dream up because everybody wants to work with him. what is he going to do? he is going back to china and that story is being repeated over and over again in the current climate. certainly the visa situation is a big part of the issue. it would be great to get that fixed but even if that's fixed and people don't see there's a future

make a couple quick points in response to the same question, madam chairman? >> certainly. then we will go to senator cochran. >> let me echo dr. collins first of all in saint it's a great idea just stable a green card to foreign students to get advanced technical degrees in this country and that's the part of president obama's immigration policy. we are delighted that a version of that is in the senate bill but dr. collins is right that if we don't also provide the opportunities in terms othe funding and facilities for these people, that effort will not bear the fruit that we expect.te that's also true of a second a dimension of our approach to this challenge and that his f inclusion doing better at providingthe opportunities and his success for women and other underrepresented groups in science andlusion, engineering. r underrepresented groups in science and engineering. if you look at the numbers

there's a big talent pool in this country that we are not fully exploiting but again while we have a lot of programs do that and we are seeing some success we also need the opportunities and the salaries and the facilities to put those people to productive work. the third i would make very quickly as the opportunities both in security initiative and the president submitted to the congress along with his budget would have ended $970 million for nih in fiscal year 15 as well is nearly a billion for nasa and another 5 billion for nsf. we really hope the congress will take that opportunity seriously. >> senator cochran. you have been very patient. >> madam chairman thank you. my question is related to the natural disasters and we have

all witnessed on television and heard about or read about in the newspapers. my state and throughout the southeast caused by weather related disasters known as hurricanes. i wonder whether or not we have any research underway in terms of identifying and being prepared to withstand more effectively the effects and damages often caused by weather related disasters particularly devastating tornadoes and hurricanes. i wonder if there are situations where the federal government has undertaken specific investments of grant opportunities for this kind of research. would there be a market for or an interest in that type of

funding by anybody on the panel that you know about? to help us better predict and protect against and recover from natural disasters such as we have witnessed in the gulf of mexico. >> i can take a shot at that and others may want to add things. the federal government really has been making very substantial investments in improving weather forecasting to give more notice of events like the tornadoes that struck a substantial part of our country in the past few days. those investments include better instrumentation. they include investments in maintaining and enhancing our weather satellite system. they include investments in better forecasting models using our ever improving supercomputing capacity. it includes increased investments on weather and climate research. if you look at the most recent and tragic events they would

have been much more tragic had we not had close to six days warning that was produced by the u.s. weather service. the day six of their weather outlook predicted on april 22 that these events would be unfolding on the approximate timescale that they did. that warning was put to very good use. we have had dozens of deaths but the death rate would have been far higher if the governors and state authorities and the local authorities have not had the amount of warning they had. they had that in part because noah completed and upgrading of all 2200 radars of its weather radars with a new technology called dual polarization radar which is better at detecting and pointing tornadoes and extreme weather events hale and so on. there is research going on on a on on a more defense radar technology called multipolar

station -- phased array radar that will be the next generation of improvements in this domain and will give us more notice. the weather service no one has requested an additional $3 million in fy15 budget for the u.s. weather research program and i certainly hope that congress will treat that favorably because there are many further advances that can be made that will give us greater warning time in the case of tornadoes. it's the single most important factor in reducing deaths. there are other things we can do to better prepare and a number of those other activities are part of the president's climate action plan but we are really -- this is an extremely important domain and we are investing in that we would like to invest more. >> any other comments plaques.

>> i will go next. in the energy sector we were also putting a strong focus on these issues for increasing the resilience of our energy infrastructure when we have such events of the type that you mentioned. in particular this year we are having a major effort across the administration department of energy is playing the secretary role on looking at this energy infrastructure. it will have a very strong regional focus because the risks that we see are very different in different parts of the country to our infrastructure. as part of that this will develop an agenda. at the end of the year we expect to have the first part of the process completed. as part of it because the risks are so regionally dependent they will have a minimum of 15

regional meetings around the country. we have the first one of those i think it was last week actually in providence. we will definitely be down on the gulf coast sometime in the next couple of months for one of these meetings to understand what are the regional issues that one must respond to. i will give you technical example that we are already working on. in this case it's in new jersey post-sandy. it is the development of microgrids as a way of getting better resilience and the electricity system. put it in key areas so if the greatest going down key areas can be hopefully isolated and/or recover more quickly so those are the kinds of technologies also. >> senator cochran the national science foundation has an

18 million-dollar program in its fy15 request which is an interdisciplinary program that involves engineering and computer science and also the social and behavioral sciences as you know that they would have a big influence in a response in the case of a disaster. this program is focused on understanding and design of independent critical infrastructure systems and processes expected to provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause natural technological or malicious and to create the knowledge renovation in these critical infrastructures. the program is called critical resilience interdependent infrastructure systems and processes and you might wonder why it has such a long title but its acronym is crisp.

>> senator cochran. >> thank you. >> also a good bit of science research occurs at nasa. they are holding their appropriations this thursday. nasa has been cut $186 million. godard has been cut $200 million we invite you to come. you've raised a very important point. senator udall you bet been here for the whole program. >> almost. >> we are going to go to you and then senator moran and then i've got murkowski but since murkowski is not here we will go to mikulski. jack reed. yes. we have got you. sorry. ..

i introduced a bill last month to help the department of energy, help it, lab technology reach commercial jobs, the commercial market and create jobs. and i think this will help new businesses and startups. we have many entrepreneurs in new mexico green jobs by finding ways to commercialize r&d from our national labs but i really believe we can do much better and i think you do, too. the d.o.e. inspector general agrees a recent audit report has several concerning findings about the departments approach to technology transfers, including the department is still not finalized a substantive, comprehensive execution plan which he was

asked to do nearly 10 years agoe by the energy policy act of 2005. i understand that officials at the department occurred with thi igs findings and the estimated the department was complete each of the ig' ig's recommendations actions by july 31 of thisat ye. n by july 31st of this year. it is about three months away from the day in response i have three questions on this topic. but the first is his is the department on track to complete these actions on schedule? as conferred with the energy policy act? >> we will certainly try. yesterday we brought on board had outstanding senior

adviser for technology transfer and we have sat down and ready to lay out some myth that is promising to hear. >> will the deal we comply with the 0.9% technology transfer that the report that the doe had not done in past years? >> this is correct. the program did implement that for one year but looking forward we like to work force you and others as to how we implement that. there is a little ambiguity how:a signs that fund i would say around $30 million is the ball park. right now using a different mechanism, we have 742

cooperative research developments in the industry that constitutes more funding than the 30 million. we need to see witchhunt mechanisms we used most effectively. >> and reedy to look at our measurements. we can get together on that. >> the person you appointed is it the coordinator mentioned did in the statute? would you a point that individual in the near future? to make that is an additional appointments. we have the nominee for the of position and hopefully that will happen soon and we will make the bright transitions for addressing

the nominee transfer. >> we hope you can get that coordinator in place very quickly. and it sounds like it is headed in that direction. especially with the ad hoc basis. so to talk about photonics and bring you fracturing cubs looking at bipartisan in legislation and maya understanding is that doe is already moving ahead and will select a manufacturing institute based on advanced materials. the administration is considering other topics for other such manufacturing is to share its. of public-private consortium

came together to have photonics including the national lab and states and local governments and it is a key enabling technology that includes medical imaging, and next-generation display screens and wealthy -- with administration consider this for the institute? >> research of the photonics is a good example of the manufacturing technology. we receive funding for the

fyi budget. >> i am sorrysenator to new mexico to come and see how the nuclear weapons programs are kept safe and reliable and the commitment these two national laboratories have and how they do in a cost-effective way. maybe we will be able to bringhy them out and get him to see that. thank you. thank you very much. >> senator moran. >> chairwoman, thank you very much. thank you to you and the ranking member for your leadership ontod this issue. this is an aspect of federal spending, that is one about joy, one about excitement and opportunity that we have to ab improve the quality of people's lives, create the growing economy and to enhance the future of our nation. it's been a delight to the testimony by our witnesses today. i have the most familiarity with

the dr. collins. iliarity with dr. collins as we work together with the labor committee appropriation process palatable to many other witnesses to visit with me and my staff. if there are ways to be hopeful to have a better understanding to enhance research to our country and its people love it be very interested to work with you to accomplish that. we face tremendous challenges. but i am convinced regardless of your attitude this is a place that investment does matter. as i have said before you can be the most compassionate caring person for research or conservative and desire efficiency for

research. but we have introduced legislation to try to jump-start the economy with more start-ups in the entrepreneurship and clearly these are related if we can do research on going applicable to the business community that they could be commercialized our economy will grow. the challenges we face to appropriate so many things could be solved if we had a growing economy. that is a huge consequence. >> if you questions parts -- you were in front of the subcommittee not too long ago about the nih funding and still trying to figure out what role congress should play that you haven't monished us not to be

dizzies specific whereto rude conduct research jam up the science take as where we ought to go. but yet i know diseases out there have huge consequences. says still trying to figure out with similar issues what is the criteria what is the list of things to make a determination? you take cost, prevalence of the disease? the chance of success? how likely research will result? i assume as you allocate the funding that we provide there is no longer set of criteria. what are the things you might consider?

>> but you have already enumerated those trying to figure of how to make most of those dollars. but without cost to the economy that is why alzheimer's is so high on the list but opportunity is a big part of the mix that if we throw money at something give there is not credible ideas of where to go may not be a wise idea for the navy pilot efforts but not a crash program until you are sure you have a useful way to proceed. but if we focus on such things as prevalence the rare diseases would get lost in the shuffle. because of the wonderful work done in kansas because of rare causes of cancer

some time studying those rare causes it makes of a discovery that has broader implications that we have seen over and over so we want to be sure rare diseases, the present as with unique scientific opportunities get their chance. that is a constant struggle. we don't have to do a from top down all 50 states and some come for word every day. to subjects that to peer review which is the antidote from being toots' top down and heavy-handed. the critical part of what we do that information is vigorously pursued because that is the future where we have to make the discovery today.

it is a complicated calculus. i cannot answer is less than three days but i hope that gives some idea sematech is made more to think about before i have to ask the question again. [laughter] and very quickly if i can ask for help from the director the agricultural bioscience research facility is partially funded to be built in manhattan campus. >> but congress has appropriated money and the president's budget request that i hope we could appropriate this time. but my request is there is money ready to put into the project but we need a

contract. we need a discussion with the absence of full funding this project could be entered into. but homeland security says we cannot do that because of a policy and omb says:security has the authority for this past session talks about incremental funding. but the timeline is may 2014. that delayed only cost more money in precludes the state for putting their resources into the project. i need someone to bring them together. >> and was not familiar with the details of the contract discussion but since you have brought it up but i

will be certain to look into it to see if we can help bring the parties together because certainly in my office we join you to be interested to see this get done. i will see what i can figure out. >> the administration has been very helpful with the contract can be entered into and construction can start now. think you. >> let me think mr. moniz for his quadrennial review. i really appreciate it.

but dr. i had the privilege to serve with him at the smithsonian in to have someone of this talented thank you very much a doctor. we have talked about the future of this country and this then to take future also related to the economy but the localities. and historically we had areas they had built a couple betty scientificúllll infrastructure like boston cambridge, new york city we have invested. but there are at least two programs that have tried to provide institutional support and poillon is the national science foundation. but can you talk about what you do to make sure if way

raise up the budget levels to adequate heights this will be invested in a diverse way to institutions that are not just of boston or the new york city or, etc. >> i appreciate the question is something we are proud of what has contributed to sign an sale of a the earlier comments about what's in important program this is with trading because that next generation of talent does not grow up in boston they're all over the country i just recently met with the kansas program with research there it was exciting to see what was possible with those dollars with states traditionally did not have a high proportion of the institution. the current funding is

273 million in the budget and we use those to encourage universities to link up with each other and to develop core facilities to be used to make better training opportunities. it has been a successful enterprise. obviously we love to say it -- see it get bigger but we have to make the point we are based primarily on a a meritocracy but that happens all over and the idea is an emblem of the ways that can be supported. so to hope that is an incubator for researchers and institutions to find some solace in the upper ranks that is an isometric of success.

>> senator it is great to see you here today. committed to the program i personally want to be much more involved. because mr. holdren mentioned the untapped talent pool we have in this country mainly women and minorities and like to help that to be a role model for that. but falling on the point from dr. collins with the untapped potential just to

there's been made before more eloquent, it's not just about the science. it's also about the scientists. if we're not investing these dollars, they just won't go off to china because of the laboratories. they just won't get into science so we will miss them. i was up in brown, it was explained to me i if you don't t an nih grant or nsf grant before you're 30 you're not going to be an academic, you'll have to go someplace else and do something else either willingly or unwillingly second point, another resource which i think you've got to think hard about all of the events, one of the other aspects year is a supercomputing. and access to the type of power is not unique, it's not uniform

across the country. you've got to think of ways about institutions that might have good ideas could have access, can get that supercomputing. so i leave it with you and i thank you all for your service, doctor holden, thank you very much. >> thank you, senator reid. actually you're right, not all smart people are in boston. they are in baltimore. [laughter] >> when they're not in washington, d.c. presiding over the appropriations committee. >> first of all i would like to thank each and every witness who came forth today to share with us their thoughts and ideas and our recommendations. i would say that the united states of america is very fortunate to have people of your caliber serving at this level of government which i know at times with great sacrifice of both time, energy and even financial

reward. also there are many other, over 10 or 15 other agencies that are very active in research and development, and they range from nasa to noaa to even the department of justice, places where you wouldn't or don't think that they do research but we want to focus on these agencies because in some ways they are either the most basic or some of the largest, et cetera. so we want to thank you for your service and your dedication. you know, it's a great honor because in maryland we have some of the greatest federal labs that have ever been created in the world, the national institutes of health, the national institutes of standards, the fda, goddard space agency, and i could just go on. the other is i can look out my window and see johns hopkins

university, and i'm within walking distance of the telescope institute. event a week away from the university of maryland and the great and wonderful breakthrough work that they do. i'm essentially within walking distance of nobel prize winners. it's great to see these people, and what most of all when they talk to me is they want to make sure that they can do the job that they were educated to do, and they tell me that whether they are 28 or they are 68, whether they have presided over some of the greatest laboratories in academic institution, or whether they are the young scientist. and with -- what young scientist him is that they are scared that they won't have a future. it's one of things we talked about and it's going to go to my very first question. they tell me they go through what they call the delay in your

thinking. they get their degree and they're filled with delight. they apply for grants and they're disappointed. they apply for grants and they're discouraged. they apply for grants and they reached despair. and they give up applying for grants and the detour to other fields. it's great to do what senator durbin says, let's recruit people, you know, staple grain carts to recent graduates. we need use the graduates we have. we need to use the graduates we have and i hope, this goes to my question. we talked generally about the funding of research and development, 135 billion would essentially you're saying is we're holding our own but barely. but that's actually, you fund your grants and the grants that you do find are usually for

mature leadership or mature research. so my question is where do you think your agencies come from funding the young researchers. dr. cordova, could you elaborate on that $2 billion of it doesn't get funded and let's go to dr. collins, dr. moniz and dr. prabhakar and then anything doctor holter and. i'm interested in that group of people from the ph.d through maybe some people in your early '40s, with a just are really wonder, is there a future for them in science when we tell them that there is. >> we are all concerned about that, senator. in fact, take me just a few years back with part of the rise one group, that compose the a rise one report from the

american academy of sciences in which we identified two major things that we would hope that the coach would all pay attention to. and that was one of them with the funny of young investigators and the other one was high risk of research. and the nsf has a number, if not only has a number of programs to fund and awarded young investigators but we also keep track of the statistics on how well we are doing and, of course, blogging on the. i would be happy to give those data to you in more detail about how we are doing in funding young investigate -- >> but you said you couldn't find $2 billion for what the request? >> $2 billion of proposals come to the national science foundation every year that have a score after the merit review process that was ascribed that is at or highgher than proposals that we do find. so we just don't have the

funding. >> i would like to have a snapshot and i think the committee would of exactly where we are. dr. collins? >> this is the thing that wakes me up at night, senator, i'm glad you are raising it. our most critical resource is the talent pool and investigators ande future depends on this generation that's coming into the workforce, or we are going to definitely lose our lead and will have a very hard time bringing it back. once you turn some young investigator a way they are not coming back if things got better the next year. we are at serious risk of that. at nih with implement a number of programs to try to protect early stage investigators from the worst consequences but it gets harder after things like sequester to really limit the blow they are feeling. we have them compete against each other as opposed to against established investigators have more of a track rugged, maybe more experienced and how to write grants and that gives the early stage investigators a leg

up. we are still only able to fund less than 20%, it's more like 16, 17% of applications. >> so you say less than 20%, is that of all the people that apply to nih you can only find 20% of -- >> 16%. >> excuse me, 16%. so that means 84% of -- >> are turned away -- >> are turned away. and others, could you didn't share with that 84%, is this like the cordoba description which is they are rated very high by peter, your peer review process and then can you tell me where the younger investigators are maybe with new ideas, breakthrough ideas? >> and they're cut up in this as well. very much like dr. cordova has said, i can tell the difference between a grant that scored at

the 14th percentile and one that is scored at the 22nd. we have done that research to see and there is a difference in their productivity. we are throwing away about half of the really good stuff because we should be funding about a third of what comes to us. even that would be pretty stringent and we are funding 16. we know we are losing and losing particularly that young talent. we have programs we're trying to encourage people in that category to come forward with innovative ideas that they don't have to have a track record, they don't have to be precisely the and we're getting some great talent coming forward but it's a small fraction of what's out there. >> as you heard me say earlier, ophthalmology is on my mind, but i recall at this time last year when i was visiting you write ran sequester time, which i'm going to come back to in a minute, you created an innovation program in ophthalmology. there were 22 willie innovative grants from the bionic eye to whatever.

now, is that the kind of research you're talking about which is so come in some ways, not that all research is a bold in its own way, that is that the type of research you're talking about? >> yeah. the whole program called the new innovator awards close to what you're talking about but this is now across all of nih but it's a relatively modest program through the common fund. we also are trying to encourage investigators who have particular talent to go straight from the doctoral degree into an independent decisions we don't of this business of people not becoming independent and to their 40. these are the early independent awards which are turning out to be dramatically exciting but it's a small program because of the fiscal constraints. >> i see. dr. moniz, and then dr. prabhakar and then i have one other question. >> yes, madam chair. we've already discussed some of the issues in terms of the funding constraints. but let me talk about the

different issues in contrast to my colleagues, we have a large laboratory system and mission responsibilities. being able to nurture and bringing young people for that is critical if we're going to sustain those missions and obvious one being for example, the nuclear security issues. they are we certainly are trying to focus on bringing in these good young people, and advantage we have here. i mentioned earlier the 30 facilities that we have at the laboratories which are bringing in university researchers from all over the country doing research. it differently gives us a good opportunity to identify lots of good young people. the trick is we don't have enough liquidity in the system to be able to bring as many of them in as we would like and to fill the ranks that we will need to meet our mission responsibilities to the country

over time. so i think we are working at it and there are some good signs, but as always a little bit tight, shall we say. >> i don't know what a little bit tight means, so how many people would you like to bring in and what do you think you are inhibited from doing so? >> i will get some statistics for you, but, frankly, i'd like to see a turnover bringing in the order of between five and 10% of the size of a laboratory with young people coming in, either as post docs for a figures are young people who will come and grow with a laboratory and pursue our missions. >> thank you. dr. prabhakar? >> madam chairwoman, our starting point at darpa is that the elegies that will really make a big difference -- >> thatcher breakthrough. >> absolutely. spent a big impact. >> absolutely. so i think we end up in some of

the same concerns that a been expressed your but perhaps from a different angle, a different example that i would give you is a few years ago when cyber threats started becoming very visible and darpa set out to create a different trajectory for cybersecurity. that is an area where the people are working at the leading