NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Setting priorities for space research: An experiment in methodologyIn 1989, the Space Studies Board created the Task Group on Priorities in Space Research to determine whether scientists should take a role in recommending priorities for long-term space research initiatives and, if so, to analyze the priority-setting problem in this context and develop a method by which such priorities could be established. After answering the first question in the affirmative in a previous report, the task group set out to accomplish the second task. The basic assumption in developing a priority-setting process is that a reasoned and structured approach for ordering competing initiatives will yield better results than other ways of proceeding. The task group proceeded from the principle that the central criterion for evaluating a research initiative must be its scientific merit -- the value of the initiative to the proposing discipline and to science generally. The group developed a two-stage methodology for priority setting and constructed a procedure and format to support the methodology. The first of two instruments developed was a standard format for structuring proposals for space research initiatives. The second instrument was a formal, semiquantitative appraisal procedure for evaluating competing proposals. This report makes available complete templates for the methodology, including the advocacy statement and evaluation forms, as well as an 11-step schema for a priority-setting process. From the beginning of its work, the task group was mindful that the issue of priority setting increasingly pervades all of federally supported science and that its work would have implications extending beyond space research. Thus, although the present report makes no recommendations for action by NASA or other government agencies, it provides the results of the task group's work for the use of others who may study priority-setting procedures or take up the challenge of implementing them in the future.
Document ID
19960013912
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Contractor Report (CR)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1995
Subject Category
Astronautics (General)
Report/Patent Number
NAS 1.26:200110
NASA-CR-200110
Accession Number
96N19071
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASw-4627
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
No Preview Available