by Michael M. Crow, William B. Dabars, and David V. Rosowsky
Issues in Science and Technology, July 2025
Seventy-five years ago this summer, President Truman signed the bill creating the National Science Foundation (NSF), setting in motion an innovation ecosystem that has delivered unrivaled military protection, remarkable economic growth, and countless lifesaving advances. The creation of NSF inaugurated the proposition that universities are responsible for producing a “flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in government, in industry, or elsewhere,” as Vannevar Bush wrote in Science, the Endless Frontier…