IV. Concluding Points

• The passage of GPRA offers scientists and science managers the opportunity to adapt the best planning and management methods to build world-class science programs and to share the significance and excitement of the discoveries made by these programs with policy makers and with the public.

• The cornerstone of the effort to build world-class science will continue to be merit review with peer evaluation. This will assure the excellence of agency programs and their contribution to the leadership status of the United States.

• The science community is actively working to develop the measurement tools and other methods needed to assess and communicate the many contributions of fundamental science to national well being--when the necessary enabling conditions are present.

• Currently, existing data and methods capture only a subset of the spectrum of research outputs and outcomes. The creative and dynamic nature of the science enterprise means that existing methods developed in more conventional contexts will understate the total productivity of any fundamental science program because the total long-term pay-off from eventual applications of new fundamental knowledge is never immediately known.

• The science agencies have launched an evolutionary process to develop better methods. As anticipated in GPRA, some period of experimentation and special studies will be required. The pilot projects now underway and other agency efforts, current and future, will yield new methods for assessing the results of agency programs.

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