A repeat note to the House Committee on Science and Technology

Please let me know what the Committee is doing to get NSF to support individual investigators. Here is a note that I sent to the Committee some time ago. This is serious business.

MESSAGE TO HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Section 3(e) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Act of 1950, as amended, states that: "...it shall be an objective of the Foundation to strengthen research and education in the sciences and engineering, including independent research by individuals, throughout the United States, and to avoid undue concentration of such research and education."

I took my great technology to UCLA. Our proposal (my technology) was declined:
CBET 0438436
MICROSCALE HEAT TRANSFER IN FLUIDS AT SUPERCRITICAL PRESSURES: EXPERIMENTS AND MATHEMATICAL MODELING
U of Cal Los Angeles
Declined 08/19/2004

Without my knowledge, UCLA then submitted Proposal Number 0553571 which was a modification of the above declined proposal, but which still had my great technology as its keystone. UCLA won $399,740. I was surprised to find this out when I scanned active awards at NSF.

This certainly amazed me. I asked NSF's OIG to look into this and recently I was told, “We opened a file in response to your email received in this office on April 17, 2008. We have determined that there is insufficient substance to an allegation of misconduct to proceed in this case. The case has been closed and no further action will be taken.”

I want the Committee on Science and Technology to investigate this situation.

It appears that NSF avoids funding “independent research by individuals.” It appears that NSF resents such applications for funding. It appears that the cartel of university officials has succeeded in gaining a preferred and somewhat closed access to NSF funding.