The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created just over a decade ago to provide a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas about issues, problems, and promising opportunities that are facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. The open dialogue and informal exchange of ideas preclude a process of making formal recommendations or offering specific advice. Instead, the Roundtable seeks to stimulate new approaches by dissemination of its discussions, and pro-active contacts with organizations that may want to build on the idea base it establishes. After introductory material on the structure and operation of the Roundtable, accomplishments on current projects are described. Projects include: Stresses on research and education at colleges and universities; Formulating US research policies within an international context; The Federal Demonstration project, designed to improve the management of federally-funded research; Analysis of the costs of research in industrial, academic, and federal labs; Industry-university research collaborations; and Public stakeholding in America's investment in science and technology.

The Roundtable was created in 1984 to provide a unique forum for dialog among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas regarding issues, problems, and promising opportunities that are facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. These annual reports begin by describing the purpose, structure, and mode of operation of the Roundtable. There follow sections devoted to the council activities, major projects, and follow-up planning, and the activities of the Roundtable working groups. Meeting agendas and publications lists are also included.

The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created just over a decade ago to provide a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders in the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas about issues, problems, and promising opportunities facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. In 1996, Council meetings focused on the following: (1) the impact of information technology on the structure of research and educational organizations; (2) ways to improve communication between the science and engineering community and the public; and (3) new approaches both to measuring the results of research investments, and to communicating those metrics to non-technical decision-makers and to the public. Significant milestones were also achieved in four major projects, representing, impart, follow-up activity from previous Council Meeting discussions: (1) facilitating the Federal Demonstration Partnership, designed to maximize the efficiency of the federal research support system; (2) compiling results of a regional workshop on experiences in industry-university collaborative organization; (3) publishing the results of a study comparing the cost structures for research performed in the industrial, academic, and government laboratory sector; and (4) catalyzing, and participating in, a series of campus-based convocations on stresses being experienced in the research university environment.

The major accomplishment of the past year in the Roundtable's continuing work on issues of concern to the academic enterprise is the preparation of two documents - Science and Technology in the Academic Enterprise: Status, Trends, and Issues and Perspectives on Financing Academic Research Facilities: A Resource for Policy Formulation. The significance of these two publications is that they both organize a large amount of complex and often controversial material in a way that is useful for further discussions and, in some cases, action by the government and higher education communities. The test for the Roundtable now is whether it can stimulate these follow-on activities. The model in this regard is the Federal Demonstration Project, where the Roundtable stimulated specific government-university joint actions in streamlining research grant administration. All of these activities are described below in greater detail.

The United States faces a new challengeâ€"maintaining the vitality of its system for supporting science and technology despite fiscal stringency during the next several years. To address this change, the Senate Appropriations Committee requested a report from the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine to address "the criteria that should be used in judging the appropriate allocation of funds to research and development activities; to examine the appropriate balance among different types of institutions that conduct such research; and to look at the means of assuring continued objectivity in the allocation process." In this eagerly-awaited book, a committee of experts selected by the National Academies and the Institute responds with 13 recommendations that propose a new budgeting process and formulates a series of questions to address during that process. The committee also makes corollary recommendations about merit review, government oversight, linking research and development to government missions, the synergy between research and education, and other topics. The recommendations are aimed at rooting out obsolete and inadequate activities to free resources from good programs for even better ones, in the belief that "science and technology will be at least as important in the future as they have been in the past in dealing with problems that confront the nation." The authoring committee of this book was chaired by Frank Press, former President of the National Academy of Sciences (1981-1993) and Presidential Science and Technology Advisor (1977-1981).