DOE Recovery Act Funds status, 9/30/11. Credit: recovery.gov

Two things out of the box: First, remember, permissum lector caveo (translation: What the hell does Peter know, anyway?). Second, the opinions expressed below are totally my own and should be blamed on no one else.

Thus forewarned … Nature has what strikes me as a very disturbing article out regarding the interesting ways funds from the American Recovery Reinvestment Act—you know, the ones earmarked to provide a sharp stimulus to direct and indirect hiring and spending in the science–technology sector—are being used for obviously non-stimulus purposes.

The story, “Stimulus-Response,” carries this summary one-liner: ”The United States’ 2009 financial stimulus bill has provided research with breathing space, rather than the sharp shot in the arm that many anticipated.”

(FYI, just so readers know where I am coming from, my personal point of view is that these types of stimulus programs can be excellent tools to quickly strengthen aggregate demand in the economy, especially during periods when borrowing rates are nearly zero, as long as the funding 1) is substantial in total size; 2) gets into the private economy; and 3) gets into economy quickly.)

Story author Colin Macilwain, seems like he is playing it overly safe or is unable to be able to make up his mind about what’s going on. On one hand, he correctly acknowledges that “the stimulus package as a whole was designed to create jobs and ease the pain of the recession, and at first the administration pledged to get this money distributed and spent as quickly as possible.” [emphasis added]

But from there onwards, the piece is a series of vignettes – focused on ARRA monies available at NIH, NSF and DOE’s Office of Science (collectively $15.1 billion) – about how interesting it is that researchers and institutions have unexpectedly used much of the money to buy “breathing space” for what already exists. For example, there’s this,

From the beginning, however, the funding pulse didn’t have quite the anticipated effects. Duke University in Durham, N.C., for example, expected a hiring rush after it attracted $210 million in ARRA funds, making it one of the ten most successful universities in the country in this regard, says Jim Siedow, Duke’s vice-provost for research. But staffing barely budged. “We gave a party that nobody came to,” he says. “A lot of people used the money to keep the people they already had.”

In the next paragraph, Macilwain reports

[D]espite the early political pressure to get the money out of the door quickly, agencies have allowed funds to be released gradually, to avoid waste.

Macilwain does suggest that whatever claims of job creation reported under ARRA funding are suspect because they rely on self-reported data and may reflect the continuation of previously existing jobs.

Finally, a chart accompanying the story says that NIH, NSF and the Office of Science have only spent 55 percent of their ARRA allocations. (In fact, DOE, alone, has left unspent $15 billion of ARRA money.)

Macilwain is overly generous when he describes what’s going on as a “stretching out and morphing.” He and Nature may not want to say it, but this pretty clearly indicates some enormous failures in the ARRA.

Let me be clear here: The criticism isn’t that the monies won’t eventually be helpful to R&D — they will be. My criticism is that the monies, now, can’t be helpful in the ways that would have been the most helpful and with the greatest impact for science and the nation.

The most glaring failure is that the administration and these agencies have not spent the ARRA money fast enough. As I have written before, I think that DOE Secretary Steven Chu was exactly right when in February 2009, just two days after the ARRA legislation was signed, he announced “a sweeping reorganization of the DOE’s dispersal of direct loans, loan guarantees and funding contained in the new recovery legislation. The goal of the restructuring is to expedite disbursement of money to begin investments in a new energy economy that will put Americans back to work and create millions of new jobs.” Chu also went on to promise to disperse 70 percent of the investment by the end of 2010.

But, the DOE didn’t come close to that dispersement goal in 2010 and it looks like it won’t make it by the end of 2011 either. As the chart above indicates, the agency reports this week that it has only spent 56 percent of its ARRA funds. With unemployment around 10 percent, leaving $15 billion on the table is an administrative shame and embarrassment.

A couple of important distinctions and economic points must be made here in regard to the concept of “spending” in this context. ARRA money that is held by a principle investigator or an institution but unspent is far different than DOE, NSF or NIH unspent monies. Dispersed money is in the economy and is arguably stimulating, well, something. Undispersed money is not in the economy and stimulates nothing because it is “funny money” that doesn’t really exist until the checks are sent and cashed. It’s not like DOE has the undispersed $15 billion in a bank account somewhere.

Put even another way, by definition, as soon as either funder or fundee starts to play the game of “stretching out and morphing” nondispersed stimulus funds, the funds cease to be able to stimulate anything.

In its defense, the DOE would probably point to the approximate 45,000 jobs it claims to have created via the ARRA, but as noted above, that number would hold more weight if it was verified and actually represented all new jobs.

What went wrong? My guess is a couple of factors have created failures at the policy level. The first factor is that it appears that the agencies have been overly preoccupied with accountability. Regardless of the Solyndra situation (which still looks to me to be about malfeasance and not accountability), DOE and the others should have figured out a way to issue all ARRA funding shortly after it was allocated. (All of the DOE funding has been allocated for over a year.) Unemployment has been and still is a much bigger problem in theory and in fact than the possible misuse of ARRA money.

The second factor is that long-standing agency habits are really, really hard to break. I spent much of two decades trying to change and redesign/reengineer government operations. Getting a large bureaucracy to implement something like a large novel stimulus funding effort is very difficult, but it can be done.

Along these lines, one mystery is what happened to Matt Rogers? Chu selected Rogers, who had been working on energy issues at the well known McKinsey & Co. consultancy, to be the DOE ramrod for whatever changes were needed in the agency to expedite the grants, loans and loan guarantees, and he was given the title Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy for Recovery Act Implementation.

Rogers, however, was never very visible to those of us on the outside. On occasion, he would be tasked with making some public appearances. But, while other federal agencies were quick to spend their ARRA money, as I have reported on many times, DOE was slow to spend from the start.

I suspect that Rogers was the right man for in the wrong job. I don’t doubt he had expertise in energy market strategic planning, but I don’t think he had any systems management expertise or track record in this field. It didn’t help that Rogers engaged in the allocation-versus-spending word games or criticism of us writers who nagged about the DOE’s sluggish dispersements. Cocky, premature and inaccurate videos about job creation were also a mistake.

Rogers claimed in September 2010 that DOE jobs would peak during that quarter at 45,000 and hold that level for the next six quarters. In fact, as is apparent in the above graph, (self-reported) jobs numbers didn’t reach or surpass 45,000 until the first quarter of 2011 and appear to be heading downwards already. I, for one, am not surprised that Rogers has quietly returned to his post at McKinsey & Co.

For researchers, keeping a steady flow of funds is never easy. Likewise postdocs and post-postdocs are looking for new opportunities, and lab suppliers are struggling to crawl out of the recession. So, I get that people have to resort to “stretching and morphing” when times are particularly tough. But there is still more than $15 billion unspent. Let’s focus on acknowledging and fixing the ARRA funding bottle necks instead of making up terms that paper-over how dysfunctional things are.

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Credit: American Society for Engineering Education/SMART.

This should be welcome news (via the DOE): This afternoon, the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness along with the Business Council, Business Roundtable, US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council announced that 45 businesses (including many big names) have committed doubling the number of internships they offer in 2012. Another five businesses agreed to lesser but substantial boosts in their internship numbers.

What’s the net affect? According the news release, around 6,300 new offerings should result.

Here’s a list of the companies that stepped forward

Alcoa Incorporated
American Express Company
AT&T
Bayer AG
*Bechtel Corporation
BNSF Railway
Boeing
Broadcom Corporation
Cardinal Health
Carus Corporation
Caterpillar
*Chevron Corporation
Conductix-Wampfler
ConAgraFoods Inc.
Dell Inc.
Duke Energy Corporation
DuPont
Eaton
Facebook
Fluor Corporation
FMC Technologies
General Electric
Intel Corporation
*Johnson and Johnson Inc.
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Kawasaki Motors Corporation US.
Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging Inc.
Lubrizol Corporation
Mastercard
McKesson Corporation
MeadWestvaco Corporation
Nalco Company
NextEra Energy Resources
Nordson Corporation
*PCC Structurals Inc.
Power Cubers Inc.
Simon Property Group Inc.
Spectra Energy Corporation
Special Products and Manufacturing Inc.
Sprint Nextel
Suffolk Construction
Sungard
Sunoco Inc.
Symantec
TE Connectivity
Tektronix
*Texas Instruments IncTextron Inc.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.
Xerox Corporation

* = committed to increase, but not doubling

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Seriously. We do. While doing some research, I was perusing the online ACerS Career Center’s listings (free to job hunters and employers!) and noticed there are something like 54 positions employers are trying to fill.

Here is the breakdown, by category (some overlaps):

Management (4)
Engineering (35)
Purchasing (1)
Sales (2)
Research (10)
Production (6)
Marketing (1)
Consultant (2)
Professor (3)
Scientist (10)
Other (1)

These vacancies tend to fill quickly. Don’t snooze and lose. And, even if you have a job, check out what the employment market is like.

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Relative job growth trends for engineers from Indeed.com. The Indeed.com search engine searches openings at thousands of job sites. Credit: Indeed.com

The Society for Automotive Engineers just released a survey-based study on anticipated employment trends for engineers in the 2011-2016 timeframe. The study focused on the so-called mobility industries: automotives, aerospace and commercial vehicles (e.g., construction equipment, trucks, tanks, armored personnel carriers, etc.). The report is free to SAE members.

According to the executive summary, the employment picture for SAE’s constituency is looking rosy for the next five years. The study compiles information collected through surveys, personal interviews with high-level HR managers and government statistics. All respondents indicated that they expect to hire engineers in the next five years and most of it in 2011. The automotive and aerospace sectors plan to add positions in the next 1-2 years; the commercial vehicle sector will lag a little bit, adding positions in the next 1-3 years. Most of the hiring activity will be with OEMs in the automotive industry, and they are expecting to hire an average of 500-1000 engineers each.

The SAE report identifies mechanical engineers as the most in-demand group, followed by industrial, electrical and manufacturing engineers. Materials engineers are expected to represent about 2% of the new hires in the automotive sector, and 1% and 4% respectively in the aerospace and commercial vehicle sectors.

The good news for materials engineers appears to be substantiated by information available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition. According to the OOH, the employment outlook for engineers overall is expected to be good and to grow at about 7-13 % in the next ten years. The expected job growth for materials engineers is projected to be right in the middle of that range at about 9%, increasing from about 24,400 jobs in 2008 to 26,600 projected in 2018. Within the motor vehicle manufacturing (NAICS 33610) category, BLS is forecasting an overall reduction in the engineering work force by 2018 compared to 2008, however, materials engineers are expected to be affected only slightly.

Salary-wise, OOH reports a median salary of about $82k for materials engineers. The OOH just happens to mention that among engineers employed by the federal government, our brethren ceramic engineers pull top honors with mean annual salaries of just under $127k.

Relative job growth trends for ceramic engineers from Indeed.com. The Indeed.com search engine searches openings at thousands of job sites. Credit: Indeed.com

However, it’s important to remain realistic. Joy about the outlook for engineering job growth should be tempered by other economic indicators that offer more gloomy scenarios. Recently, CNN reported that the recovery is losing momentum with hiring slower than expected in May and slightly worse unemployment.

There are glimmers of hope. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2011 Spring Update reports that employers expect to hire 19% more new graduates out of the just-graduated class of 2011 - and that is across all majors and industry sectors - than they did last year.

Anecdotally, the press releases in our inboxes are telling a story of confidence and investment. Here is a sampling.

Morgan Technical Ceramics - Expanding Latrobe, Pa., facility for manufacturing of alumina and steatite micro-size products.

Momentive Performance Materials - Expanding ceramic powders production manufacturing facility in Strongsville, Ohio with a $5.8 million, 6,000 square foot project.

Nanocerox - Expanding it Ann Arbor, Mich. based manufacturing and R&D facilities by 20% to meet market demand for ceramic nanopowders and optical ceramics.

MesoCoat Inc. - Building a new manufacturing plant in Euclid, Ohio to produce ceramic wear-resistant coatings and clads for steel tube, pipe, and plate.

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Can you explain your research to a coworker? That’s probably fairly easy.

How about your spouse? Or your parents? Get’s a little trickier, doesn’t it? But, of course, they know your educational background and have probably heard you drop a few technical terms here and there, so it might not be too much of a stretch.

Let’s take it a step farther. Could you explain your work and its importance to a group of random college or high school students — and keep their attention? Maybe not so much.

I’ll crank it up one more notch. What if we switch the venue and audience to a bar or pub: Do you have the confidence and spiel to survive the ultimate “tough crowd?”

If Australia’s Fresh Science program gets hold of you and runs you through its four-day “bootcamp” the answer will be “yes” to all of the above.

To be honest, I hadn’t heard of Fresh Science before I received a news release from the group last week about the work of young researcher who went through the bootcamp, Louise van der Werff. Van der Werff has developed a ”smart bandage” textile system.

Back to my original point, what really caught my eye is that organizers of Fresh Science mention among other things that participants are expected to present their discovers — in verse — at a Melbourne pub.

Van der Werff is one of 16 early-career scientists who began presenting their research to the public for the first time last week thanks to Fresh Science, a national program sponsored by the Australian Government. The release doesn’t mention anything about doing an oral presentation at a pub, but it does say that she and the others will present their work:

• In verse at Tech on Tap, part of AMP’s Amplify Festival tonight in Sydney;
• Over dinner with Australia’s chief scientist, Ian Chubb, in Melbourne; and
• To school students in Melbourne and Bendigo.

Sounds like fun!

After doing a little digging, I discovered that Fresh Science has been around, in one form or another, for 14 years. The website describes it as a government-funded national event (that also receives support from New Scientist magazine) meant to bring together scientists, the media and the public. It is designed to “enhance reporting of Australian science; highlight and encourage debate on the role of science in Australian society; and provide role models for the next generation of Australian scientists.”

From what I gather, the basic idea is to identify annually in each Australian state (via nominations) a group of early-career researchers doing work in Australia from a cross-section of sciences. The group is then put through several preliminary communications “bootcamps” where they are coached in how to present ideas clearly to a general audience and the media. From among these “state finalists,” a group of judges comprised of scientists, journalists and science communicators select the “national finalists.”

The national finalists then receive several days of advanced media and communications training, help draft a media release about their discoveries, practice presenting their research during school talks, dinners and, let’s not forget, “pub events.”

It appears that the professional support for the bootcamp and other Fresh Science activities is provided by Science In Public. SIP describes itself as a “science communication company” that “helps scientists and science organizations present their ideas in the public space.” SIP also provides media training courses and strategy develop programs around Australia for scientists, so it is something of a cross between Futurity and a typical PR agency.

I think the basic ideas behind Fresh Science are pretty smart. Like it or not, researchers have to realize that they have an enormous stake in explaining what they are doing, not only to the public, but more importantly, to the various legislators, agency heads, aides, that provide the funding. In addition, we have a national problem with attracting students to careers in science and engineering. The best and most efficient way to tell stories about research is to engage the researchers themselves rather than relying on some intermediary PIO or university-level communications department staffer.

I do know that there are supporters of the researcher-as-communicator approach among many U.S.-based science groups, such as the National Science Foundation, and later this year ACerS will once again be helping the NSF ceramics in a special two-day principle investigators workshop that contains nearly a full day of communications training. Hopefully the Fresh Science examples will spur us to reach even higher.

And, while we are on the topic of materials science “Down Under,” don’t forget about the ACerS PACRIM9 meeting coming up in Cairns, Queensland in mid-July. Let us know if you hear of any materials-inspired pub poetry!

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