SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES $65,840,000

The FY 2002 Budget Request for the Social and Economic Sciences (SES) Subactivity is $65.84 million, a decrease of $260,000, or 0.4 percent, from the FY 2001 Current Plan of $66.10 million.

(Millions of Dollars)

The SES Subactivity supports research to develop and advance scientific knowledge focusing on economic, legal, political and social systems, organizations and institutions. In addition, SES supports research on the intellectual and social contexts that govern the development and use of science and technology. This includes the fields of economics, decision, risk and management sciences, political science, law and social science, sociology, ethics and values, science and technology studies, methods, measurement and statistics, and cross-disciplinary activities. NSF funding provides a substantial part of total federal research support for basic research in all these fields and the major part in some of them, such as political science, law and social science, and ethics and values in science. Indeed, the applied research funded in these areas by federal program agencies are often based on findings and methods developed with SES grants.

SES-sponsored research often has important practical results and societal benefits. For example, theoretical and experimental research into decision making has produced practical societal benefits as diverse as improved medical diagnostic systems, more accurate eyewitness identification in criminal proceedings, and more effective monitoring of nuclear power plants. In addition, research on the labor market, environmental systems, and the regulation of transportation, communication, and energy has, by influencing public policy, contributed greatly to economic growth.

In FY 2002, the SES Request of $65.84 million will support a range of activities, including:

• A $100,000 increase will support expanded research into the human causes and consequences of extreme events, such as floods, famines, earthquakes, or ethnic violence.

• Continued support for new research on the sources of scientific discovery and technological innovations, and how the results of these processes diffuse through organizations and society by means of, for example, human capital formation in students and workers.

• Continued funding of the highly successful Infrastructure competition, taking advantage of new computational and communications technologies to support expanded development of shared databases, web-based collaboratories, and advanced research approaches that provide fundamental infrastructure for large, diverse, scientific communities.

• Continued support for the Information Technology Research priority area. This research will focus on application of new research techniques, such as Internet-based data collection, and on the socio-economic implications of new technologies.