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Home > National Science Foundation

government agency responsible for supporting basic science research. It operates mainly through the establishment of research grants, particularly to universities or through individual grants (including to professors and graduate students).

1 History and mission

The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. The stated mission of the NSF is

"To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense."[1]

In this day and age, the NSF is less concerned with national defense, and more concerned with the previous two items.

The NSF is generally considered by historians of science to be an inept compromise between too many clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government. It has suffered from chronic underfunding for decades, even after the passage of the controversial Mansfield Amendment, which was partially intended to reaffirm the role of NSF as the primary civilian government agency for the funding of basic science.

NSF has traditionally competed for funding with defense research agencies like the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

2 Fields included

• Astronomy/ Astrophysics (as part of Physical Sciences)
• Behavioral science
• Biology
• Chemistry (as part of physical sciences)
• Computer science/ Information science
• Economic science
• Science educationScience education is the field interested in sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the science community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or general public adults. The field of
• EngineeringEngineering is the application of science to the needs of humanity. This is accomplished through knowledge, mathematics, and practical experience applied to the design of useful objects or processes. Professional practitioners of engineering are called en (all types)
• Environmental scienceEnvironmental science is the science of the physical, chemical, and biological conditions of the environment and the effect of this on organisms. It is an interdisciplinary science that relies heavily on the natural sciences. It uses physics to study ener/ Environmental education
• Geoscience
• MathematicsMathematics is commonly defined as the study of patterns of structure, change, and space; more informally, one might say it is the study of "figures and numbers". In the formalist view, it is the investigation of axiomatically defined abstract structures, StatisticsStatistics is the science and practice of developing human knowledge through the use of empirical data. It is based on statistical theory which is a branch of applied mathematics. Within statistical theory, randomness and uncertainty are modelled by proba
• PhysicsPhysics (from the Greek, physikos , "natural", and physis , "Nature") is the science of Nature in the broadest sense. Physicists study the behavior and properties of matter in a wide variety of contexts, ranging from the sub-microscopic particles from whi (as part of physical sciences)
• Polar research
• Social sciences

3 Special programs

The NSF attempts to promote various special programs, at times to help increase the participation in science of under represented minorities. For example, the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program provides grants to research institutions for the purpose of providing undergraduate students the opportunity to perform research for a summer. This program targets women and minorities at many of the participant universities. The GK-12 Crosscutting Program provides money to universities with graduate students for the purpose of having graduate students interact with K-12 students. The goal is to increase student retention in the sciences starting at an early age. Other interdisciplinary programs unite various subfields of science, or the NSF and other funding agencies. And at this time all NSF grants carry with them a mandate to perform some form of outreach . See science education.

The NSF also funds projects of the National Science Digital Library.

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