The marine science dollar A total of $528 million in fiscal 1970

MARINE SCIENCES:

A High-Growth R&D Area At his final press briefing 10 days ago, former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who had served as chair­man of the National Council on Ma­rine Resources and Engineering De­velopment, talked about a subject near and dear to his heart—marine science. He expressed confidence that the na­tional effort in marine science will con­tinue to receive "priority attention" by both the new Administration and Con­gress. Commenting on the council's third annual report, Mr. Humphrey noted that there has been more growth in ocean science since enactment of the Marine Sciences Act in 1966 than in science generally.

The report, "Marine Science Af­fairs—A Year of Broadened Participa­tion," describes the state of marine activity in the U.S. and relates ocean resources to national needs. It high­lights marine budgets, policies, and programs proposed by 11 federal agencies for fiscal 1970.

For the coming fiscal year begin­ning July 1, the Johnson Administra­tion budget for ocean research and technology totals $528 million. This represents a $57 million or 12% in­crease (the most striking increase in the entire fiscal 1970 R&D budget request) over fiscal 1969 and about 22% over the previous fiscal year.

The bulk of the increase is slated for the Navy—where obligations will increase by $36 million, or 14%—and is mainly for the deep-submergence program, operating costs of new oceanographic vessels, and increased capabilities for mapping and chart­ing. Civilian activities call for an increase of 9%, mostly for oceano­graphic research sponsored by the Na­

tional Science Foundation, and R&D on advanced ships and systems in the Commerce Department.

Another area of increased emphasis is waterborne transportation. Fund­ing for maritime transportation devel­opment jumped dramatically from $10.6 million this fiscal year to $18.6 million in fiscal 1970. Under this program, the Departments of Trans­portation, Commerce, and Navy sup­port R&D in shipping concepts, ma­rine equipment, and advanced ship designs to step up ocean trade and aid national defense.

Although it may complement the recent report of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Re­sources that urges the creation of a new government coordinating agency (C&EN, Jan. 20, page 30) , the coun­cil account does not deal with the commission's recommendations.

INSTRUMENTS:

No Big Technology Gap No general gap exists in the technol­ogy of scientific instruments among OECD countries—particularly among major European countries, Japan, and the U.S. U.S. instrument makers do lead the others, however, in product innovation and in sales performance. U.S. scientific instrument firms have expanded their sales faster in recent years than have European firms—not only in the U.S. market but in Eu­ropean and Japanese markets as well.

Underlying these disparities in growth and performance are a com­plexity of factors. One important ele­ment is the sharp difference in man­agement policies between U.S. and European instrument makers, as man­

ifested in the emphasis by big U.S. instrument firms on following a world­wide business strategy.

These, in essence, are the conclu­sions of a recently published report by the Organization for Economic Co­operation and Development (OECD) on the problem of gaps in technology in the scientific instrument field. First in a series of industrial sector studies, the report is part of the detailed find­ings of the OECD gaps survey dis­cussed last March at a meeting of member country science ministers (C&EN, March 25, 1968, page 34) .

Countries taking part in the instru­ment study were Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S. Six instru­ment groups were considered: ana­lytical, electronic test and measuring, nuclear, biomedical, electronic and optical, and industrial process control. OECD scrutinized existing literature and interviewed both producers and users in making the study.

OECD finds that, on the whole, there are no sharp technological gaps among the U.S., the major European countries, and Japan. Where a U.S. lead is apparent, it's mostly in instru­ments related to electronics. Still, the fact remains that European instru­ment firms, despite healthy sales in­creases in the past few years, haven't performed as well as have their U.S. counterparts. In the past decade, the leading U.S. instrument companies have not only developed sales net­works but also set up plants in many countries. In contrast, European firms continue to depend on home-based plants and the traditional method of exporting their instruments.

One factor in this difference in per­formance is size. In contrast to the U.S., Europe, with few exceptions, has no large companies specializing solely in making instruments.

Another consideration is demand. The U.S. domestic market and its as­sociated industry make up almost half of the total world market and world production capacities in scientific in­struments, says OECD. This has cer­tainly favored U.S. instrument firms both in company growth and in the rate of technical innovation.

Finally there are management dif­ferences. For instance, U.S. firms seem to maintain closer personal con­tacts with customers, using subsidi­aries and sales offices, than do Euro­pean firms. Also, most U.S. firms pay more attention to customer complaints.

U.S. firms put more emphasis on detailed medium- and long-range sales planning coupled with technological forecasting, OECD finds. Some Euro­pean firms have failed to spot new developments because they didn't use such planning, adds OECD.

JAN. 27, 1969 C&EN 15