Science and Engineering Innovation Legislation

Posted on December 18, 2005 5 Comments

Ensign, Lieberman Introduce Major Bipartisan Innovation Legislation – the press release from Senator Lieberman’s office indicates Science and Engineering Fellowships Legislation we mentioned previously, has been introduced:

Our legislation will significantly increase federal support for graduate fellowship and traineeship programs in science, math, and engineering fields in order to attract more students to these fields and to create a more competitive and innovative American workforce.
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China and India alone graduate 6.4 million from college each year and over 950,000 engineers. The United States turns out 1.3 million college graduates and 70,000 engineers.
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Expands existing educational programs in the physical sciences and engineering by increasing funding for NSF graduate research fellowship programs as well as Department of Defense science and engineering scholarship programs.

The recent report from Duke, explains that the figures on science and engineering graduates used are not accurate (see below). Still, this seems like a good idea. The press release also includes a list of organizations supporting the legislation including: Athena Alliance, Business Roundtable, Council on Competitiveness, Council of Scientific Society Presidents. From the section by section details included on the web site:

The Director of NSF will expand the agency’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program by 250 fellowships per year and extend the length of each fellowship to five years. Program by 250 fellowships per year and extend the length of each fellowship to five years. The bill authorizes $34 million/year for FY 2007- FY 2011 to support these additional fellowships. In addition, funding in the amount of $57 million/year is authorized for a similar expansion of the Integrated Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program by 250 new traineeships per year over five years.
The Tech Talent expansion program encourages American universities to increase the number of graduates with degrees in mathematics and science. The bill authorizes $335 million from Fiscal Year 2007 to Fiscal Year 2010 for continued support of this program.
This section extends the Department of Defense’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarships program through September 30, 2011, and authorizes $41.3 million/year over 5 years for the SMART program to support additional participants pursuing doctoral degrees and master’s degrees in relevant fields. This section also authorizes $45 million/year over 5 years to be appropriated to the Department of Defense through 2011 to support the expansion of the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship program to additional participants.

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