Defeating an Early Attempt to Eliminate National Science Foundation Support for the Social and Behavioral Sciences
In July 1981, two months after its founding, COSSA established itself as a lobbying force by organizing the social and behavioral science community to defeat an amendment sponsored by Representative Larry Winn of Kansas. The amendment would have negated the House Appropriations Committee’s restoration of funds for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) budget for social and behavioral research, which the administration’s budget had almost entirely eliminated. The London Times reported on the vote suggesting that COSSA had “bloodied the nose of an administration which wrongly assumed the social sciences to be political defenceless.”
Establishing the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation
By the end of the 1980s the late Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winner in economics, and others were asserting that the social and behavioral sciences deserved increased recognition with a separate directorate for these disciplines at the National Science Foundation. Since 1976 they had been part of what was called the Biological, Behavioral and Sciences directorate that had always been led by a biologist. With a major effort led by COSSA, within two years Simon’s call had become a reality. Sociologist Cora Marrett served as the first head of the new entity. She was succeeded by psychologist Bennett Bertenthal, former University of Chicago Provost Norman Bradburn, and currently former Dean of Georgetown’s Graduate School David Lightfoot. The Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE) has played an important role in enhancing these sciences as equal partners in the nation’s scientific enterprise.
A Role at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
At about the same time as the creation of the SBE directorate, COSSA convinced then-Presidential science adviser Allan Bromley, that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy needed an Assistant Director for the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Bromley, who had been President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1981 and had spoken out against the Reagan administration cuts, agreed to create the position.
Creation of the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research at the National Institute of Health
While all this was occurring a growing recognition of the importance of the social and behavioral sciences in the health policy arena also took place. An Institute of Medicine report noted the relationship of behavioral and social factors to the leading causes of death. COSSA and its allies convinced the Congress in 1993 that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) needed a behavioral and social science office to coordinate a research agenda that examined that relationship. The Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR), established in 1995, is playing a significant role infusing the rest of NIH that health research includes behavioral and social factors that impact individual and societal well being. Norman Anderson, Raynard Kington, and David Abrams have given the Office distinguished leadership.
Thwarting the Science Committee Chairman
Despite these advances, in 1995 then House Science Committee chairman Robert Walker decided that it was time to challenge the social and behavioral sciences again. He led an attempt to abolish the SBE directorate at NSF. With strong support from the NSF leadership, particularly Director Neal Lane and Deputy Director Anne Peterson, and groups across all the sciences, COSSA led a successful effort to thwart Walker’s intentions. The directorate survived. Walker left Congress in 1996.
Threats to Peer Review
In 2003, former Representative Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania led an effort, through an amendment to the NIH funding bill, to defund five already-awarded grants at the NIH and attacked research on sexual behavior and sexual health. COSSA mobilized strong support from the science community, which saw this as an attack on peer review at NIH. It also urged NIH director Elias Zerhouni to publicly support research on these topics. Toomey’s amendment was defeated. The aftermath of this activity led to the formation of the Coalition to Protect Research, co-chaired by COSSA Deputy Director for Health Policy Angela Sharpe.
SBE Threatened Again
In late 2005 Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas gave a speech in which she suggested the National Science Foundation was placing too much emphasis on the social and behavioral sciences. In 2006 Hutchison held a hearing of the Subcommittee on Science and Space, which she chairs, in which she argued that NSF had its priorities wrong, attacked its support for social and behavioral science research, and suggested that perhaps support for this research should be removed from NSF. COSSA again led the reaction to Hutchison. Working with its allies in the scientific and higher education community, COSSA helped Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey prevail upon Senator Hutchison not to move forward with her suggestions.