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News Tip

 


July 25, 1997

For more information on these science news and feature story tips, contact public information officer George Chartier at (703) 292-8070, gchartie@nsf.gov.

IMMIGRANT SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS DECLINE

The number of immigrant scientists and engineers entering the United States each year was stable throughout the 1980s, rose in the early 1990s, and then declined dramatically in 1994 back toward 1980s levels. The latest data indicates that what observers thought was a major, long-term rise in skilled immigrants was only a temporary surge, prompted by the 1990 Immigration Act. The numbers are analyzed in a new NSF data brief, drawing on data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

According to the data brief, by 1993 the number of people with science and engineering degrees admitted to the U.S. on permanent visas with work certifications had almost doubled to 23,534. In 1994 the number of these immigrants admitted had dropped to 17,403, a decline of 26 percent. The one immigrant group that rose in 1994 was scientists entering the U.S. from the newly independent states of the former U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia; their ranks increased from 1,165 in 1993 to 1,244 in 1994.

The data brief highlights findings in a forthcoming SRS report on Immigrant Scientists, Engineers and Technicians, to be published in the fall.

See the new NSF data brief at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/stats.htm

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NSF & NASA LAUNCH SATELLITE ASSESSMENT

A panel of U.S. experts is assessing America's competitiveness in satellite communications research and development. The industry is experiencing an explosion of new technology and applications with the rapid deployment of new mobile, direct broadcast and high data rate and multimedia satellite services. Some analysts believe this field will grow from its current level of $18 billion a year to over $65 billion in the next five years, according to Joseph N. Pelton, director of the Graduate Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and co-chair of the satellite communications study team.

NSF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are sponsoring the year-long study of satellite R&D facilities worldwide, and preliminary findings will be presented at a workshop Dec. 3 at the Westpark Hotel in Arlington, Va. The global assessment will update a 1992 study that warned that U.S. industry was in danger of losing its lead in communications satellite technologies to companies in Japan and Western Europe. The World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC), based at Loyola College, is coordinating the efforts of the new study panel and will publish the final report.

For updates on the NSF/NASA study, panel members, the December workshop and the WTEC program, see http://itri.loyola.edu/satcom2/

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RESEARCHERS RECOMMEND CHANGES IN CENSUS' RACIAL IDENTIFICATIONS

National Science Foundation (NSF) research has contributed to a recommended change in the coming census. On July 8 a government interagency committee recommended to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that Americans be allowed to select more than one racial category in the Year 2000 Census.

The NSF-funded study investigates social and political issues raised by racial and ethnic classification. The set of racial classifications used by the Census Bureau and other federal agencies is under scrutiny as officials consider the merits of adding or changing questions designed to describe the nation's diverse population.

Judith Lichtenberg and a team of philosophers and social scientists based at the University of Maryland-College Park's Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy began looking at the implications of proposed changes in 1996. In May 1997 they submitted their analysis and recommendations to OMB. The researchers argued for a non-exclusive approach like the "mark one or more" option that the government task force ultimately recommended. The set of racial classifications currently used by federal agencies dates back to a 1977 OMB directive.

"This study may help us assess how categories like 'race' are used in public policy," says Rachelle Hollander, director of NSF's Ethics and Values Studies research program.

The findings of the NSF-funded study appear in the summer issue of the Report for the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. See http://www.puaf.umd.edu/ippp

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