NEON, the big program with the colorful acronym that has been bouncing off the walls of various institutions over the past several years, has become a motivational carrot in some circles, a phantom pariah in others, and a punctuation mark in the saga of ecological research funding for all.
The path toward funding for the National Ecological Observatories Network, or NEON, reached a critical juncture recently when the Senate appropriations sub-committee that includes funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) crossed it off the list. An evening session at the recent Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting (August 2002, Tucson, AZ) proved that despite setbacks, the program is far from dead.
The first order of business at the ESA NEON symposium was to further define the program. Not a simple task, as ecological research has a profound tradition of defining science as it is developed. The NSF has described NEON as a "network of networks that will develop the capability to conduct integrated ecological research at regional to continental scales." The overall message is "that we don't have enough information to address ecological problems or to predict ecological changes," says Joann Roskoski, Executive Officer, NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences.
NEON is a tool for the community to ask research questions, Roskoski says. "For example, invasive species: how fast will they move and why and what will happen as a result?" Each observatory will be run by a consortium of institutions. Observatories will have a heavily instrumented core site, with lab facilities and satellite sites which together provide a regional "footprint" to address a wide variety of pressing ecological issues, Roskoski says.
The process began in 1999 when NSF supporting the first of nine community-based workshops in which the research community developed the research capability, infrastructure needs, and management protocols of the proposed network. "We rely heavily on the community for input and feedback" says Scott Collins, Ecology Program director at NSF.
Through these workshops the community helped to define the goals and scope of the project. "The information technology component of NEON will facilitate the flow of data in real time," Roskoski says. "And it will stimulate development of new technology."
The President's most recent budget request included $40 million for two prototype observatories, $12 million in FY2003, $12 million in FY2004, and $16 million in FY2005.It was approved and sent to the Senate Appropriations sub-committee, which includes funding for NSF and other agencies such as HUD, EPA and VA. The sub-committee removed it from the budget for FY 2003.The bill's next hurdle is the House appropriations committee. "We're hoping we can convince the House to leave NEON in [the budget]," NSF's Roskoski says."Then the final decision will be made by the House-Senate conference committee."
(Despite budget increases in other areas of science (NIH budget ‘doubling' and double-digit increases in other NSF directorates), the Senate appropriations sub-committee recommended only a 3.4 percent increase for the Directorate of Biological Sciences (in which ecological programs are located) for the October 2002 through September 2003 fiscal period.)
Placing a dollar amount on such a large-scale, amorphous project has been a difficult challenge. "The total number of observatories appears to fluctuate," Roskoski admits. "Current estimates are for 17 observatories, 16 in the United States and one in Antarctica. Each observatory would cost about $20 million to construct," a sum not usually dealt with in ecological research. "It's something new to think about —tools at this scale," Roskoski adds. "Selection of sites will be based on peer review."
Vince Versage, a Federal Relations Representative for the University of New Mexico among other prominent research institutions, reminds the session attendees that the onus is upon the community also to promote funding increases in their discipline."It's not the President or NSF who decide how federal money is spent," Versage says. "There was not a tremendous noise from supporters crying out in favor of NEON. The Senate must hear from the community, on this and all funding issues. They really do listen. And silence can be just as loud."
"This is a huge wake-up call," says ESA President Ann Bartuska. "We need to get out of the lab and into the public policy arena."ESA has tools and expertise to assist scientists who are interested in making such noise in Washington, including several template letters on their Web site (www.esa.org). One of the letters addresses the DEB directorate, and includes a paragraph on NEON. "If you are interested in doing congressional visits," Bartuska adds, "we'll help facilitate your meetings when you're in D.C."
Part of the common misconception of NEON is that it will preclude other research funding says Scott Collins. "But this is just a great mechanism for NSF to go after big money for ecological research: to do research at different scales, and to open additional research funds for getting involved. But if you want to get big money it requires a lot of work. It can happen—we just have to mobilize our efforts."