The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released the letter which was written by Dr. Burton Richter, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics, and signed by 58 U.S. Nobel Laureates, many of whom serve on FAS’s Board of Sponsors. Dr. Richter writes that “there is a bipartisan agreement on the importance of federal funding of long-term scientific research. The agreement exists because of recognition that this sort of research fuels the innovation engine that is essential to our economy. The entire federal research, development and demonstration enterprise amounts today to about one percent of our Gross Domestic Product and has steadily fallen over the years, while our rivals in Europe and Asia invest more.”
Dr. Richter underscores the importance of long-term scientific funding for future generations, stating that, “we Nobel Laureates are likely to do well in competition for a reduced level of funding. Our concern is for the younger generation who will be behind the innovations and earn the Prizes of the future.”
“The United States has far surpassed other nations in Nobel Prize winners in the sciences. The ability to foster such talent will be undermined with continued erosion of federal support,” said FAS President Charles D. Ferguson. “FAS is proud to circulate this letter on behalf of Dr. Richter and the Nobel Laureates to raise awareness of potential budget cuts to the United States science industry and future generations of scientists.”
April 9, 2013
Dear Members of Congress:
With the delivery of the President’s budget on April 10, Congress will begin the process of allocating funds to all the areas in the Federal Budget. One of those areas is long-term research and development in the agencies that fund the backbone of the U.S. scientific enterprise: National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology as well as parts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense. There is a bipartisan agreement on the importance of federal funding of long-term scientific research. The President emphasized it in his State of the Union speech and Majority Leader Cantor emphasized it in a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute. The agreement exists because of recognition that this sort of research fuels the innovation engine that is essential to our economy. The entire federal research, development and demonstration enterprise amounts today to about one percent of our Gross Domestic Product and has steadily fallen over the years, while our rivals in Europe and Asia invest more.
We Nobel Laureates are likely to do well in competition for a reduced level of funding. Our concern is for the younger generation who will be behind the innovations and earn the Prizes of the future. We urge you, even in these financially troubled times, to keep the budgets of the agencies that support science at a level that will keep the pipelines full of the younger generation upon whom our economic vitality will rest in future years.
Respectfully,
Dr. Burton Richter
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
1976 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Peter Agre
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2003 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Sidney Altman
Yale University
1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Kenneth J. Arrow
Stanford University
1972 Nobel Prize in economic science
Dr. David Baltimore
California Institute of Technology
1975 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Bruce Beutler
UT Southwestern Medical Center
2011 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. J. Michael Bishop
University of California, San Francisco
1989 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Gunter Blobel
The Rockefeller University
1999 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Michael Brown
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
1985 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Thomas Cech
University of Colorado Boulder
1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Martin Chalfie
Columbia University
2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Stanley Cohen
Vanderbilt University
1986 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Leon N. Cooper
Brown University
1972 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. James W. Cronin
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
1980 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Robert Curl Jr.
Rice University
1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Johann Deisenhofer
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Andrew Fire
Stanford University School of Medicine
2006 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Jerome Friedman
MIT
1990 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Walter Gilbert
Harvard University Professor Emeritus
1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Sheldon Lee Glashow
Harvard University
1979 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Roy Glauber
Harvard University
2006 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Carol Greider
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. David J. Gross
University of California, Santa Barbara
2004 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Roger Guillemin
Salk Institute
1977 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. John L. Hall
University of Colorado
2005 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Leland Hartwell
Center for Sustainable Health, Arizona State University
2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Dudley R. Herschbach
Harvard University
1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Roald Hoffmann
Cornell University
1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Louis J. Ignarro
UCLA School of Medicine
1998 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle
MIT
2001 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Brian Kobilka
Stanford University School of Medicine
2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Walter Kohn
University of California, Santa Barbara
1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Roger Kornberg
Stanford University School of Medicine
2006 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Leon Lederman
University of Chicago
1988 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Robert Lefkowitz
Duke University Medical Center
2012 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Eric Maskin
Harvard University
2007 Nobel Prize in economic science
Dr. John Mather
University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
2006 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Craig Mello
University of Massachusetts Medical School
2006 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Mario Molina
University of California San Diego
1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Dr. Ferid Murad
George Washington University
1998 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Douglas Osheroff
Stanford University
1996 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Martin Perl
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
1995 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Saul Perlmutter
University of California, Berkley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
2011 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. William Phillips
Joint Quantum Institute
1997 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. David Politzer
Caltech
2004 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Adam Riess
Johns Hopkins University
2011 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Richard Roberts
New England Biolabs
1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Brian P. Schmidt
The Australian National University
2011 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Phillip Sharp
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Hamilton Smith
J. Craig Venter Institute
1978 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. George F. Smoot
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
2006 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Thomas Steitz
Yale University
2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry
Dr. Steven Weinberg
University of Texas at Austin
1979 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Carl E. Wieman
University of British Columbia
2001 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Eric Wieschaus
Princeton University
1995 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Torsten Wiesel
Rockefeller University
1981 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine
Dr. Frank Wilczek
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2004 Nobel Prize in physics
Dr. Robert W. Wilson
Bell Laboratories
1978 Nobel Prize in physics
