Documentation to "My Case"

August 10, 2003

National Science Foundation
Division of Human Resource Management
Executive Personnel, Room 315
4201 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22230

Attn: S20030076-LTD


Dear Sir/Madam:

I am applying for the position of the Deputy Assistant Director for Geosciences. Enclosed please find my resume and the Applicant Survey form. I have over 20 years of experience in research and was a manager of a research laboratory for 16 years. I am closely familiar with the scientific community and scientific issues in the fields of geophysics, petrology, mineralogy and geochemistry, and gave over 100 presentations at national and international scientific meetings. I was the Principal Investigator on 5 NSF research grants from 1988 to 2002, and reviewed 80 proposals for the NSF since 1985. My SSN is XXX-XX-XXXX. My previous employment as a Research Associate Professor/Lab Manager started on April 1, 1985, and ended on January 31, 2002, with the final salary of $ 65,000. My employer was SUNY at Stony Brook, Department of Geosciences, Prof. Scott McLennen, Chair, phone: (631) 632-8194. For additional information, including the list of publications, please visit my Web site.

Because of my background, being a scientist rather than an administrator, I may not be viewed as the most suitable candidate for an executive position. To demonstrate otherwise, I am enclosing a portfolio of my most recent correspondence with various NSF officials (in chronological order), where I identified serious weaknesses in the policy making and policy implementation. At the core is the recently introduced policy of setting priorities in research “from above.” This policy all but eliminates the possibility of a fair evaluation of research proposals by the peer review process, which is still used by the NSF as the primary mechanism for funding proposals. The reason why the evaluations cannot be fair is that a fair peer review process does not include a mechanism that would allow the implementation of priorities. In the absence of such a mechanism, the outcome is biased in favor of the priorities either by the selection of the reviewers or the members of the panels, thus making the process unfair. I assume that this is done in geosciences by packing the panels with environmentalists, and by selecting reviewers that are known from the past record to deliver predictable reviews, thus producing desirable outcomes. For example, it is known that some reviewers use the review process for the sole purpose of either eliminating the competition or settling old scores. While, in the past, the NSF made sincere effort to correct for such distortions of the peer review process, these reviewers are now used, as in my case, to prevent the funding of the proposals that the NSF does not wish to fund, because they do not fit the current set of priorities. Because of this, many excellent scientists, including myself, who have had a distinguished career in research and a secure line of funding in the past, suddenly find themselves unable to continue conducting research and obtain funding regardless of the merit of their proposals or prior accomplishments. Despite the clear evidence that the policy of setting priorities in research funding is having a devastating impact on the U.S. science, the draft of the updated strategic plan, posted on your Web site on June 6, 2003, proposes to continue with this policy. Since I pointed out the problems in my letter to the NSF Director, I hope that this policy will be abandoned in the final draft.

While the independent scientists are facing incredible odds in securing even minimal funding for research, due to the corruption of the review process and tight funding environment, substantial funds are increasingly channeled to selected members of the scientific elite through various multidisciplinary or cooperative bureaucratic entities, called centers, initiatives, or institutes. Here, significant resources are wasted on smokescreens to hide the fact that these “virtual” entities are neither multidisciplinary nor cooperative, but simply block grants. The “multidisciplinary” label is mainly an excuse to drain resources from as many scientific disciplines as possible to satisfy the ever-increasing greed of the scientific elite for money and power. These bureaucratic entities are often monopolies controlling whole fields of study, whose main purpose is to promote the views of the “all-knowing” leaders, protect their legacy, and tie up the resources to prevent any potential competition from obtaining funds to challenge these views. Such leaders have the power to blacklist scientists who do not agree with them, or refuse to be controlled by them, and thus to destroy their scientific career. This is what has happened to me.

As the Deputy Assistant Director for Geosciences, I would work hard to protect the rights of the independent scientists, restore the integrity and credibility of the peer review process, stop unscrupulous scientists from using the peer review process to bully their fellow scientists, reverse the creeping centralization of the basic research, eliminate the backdoor funding to the scientific elite, promote the diversity of views and approaches, reward originality in research, and make sure that the funding goes to true scientists rather than bureaucrats/administrators. I firmly believe that, in the current tight funding environment, any NSF official fully committed to the advancement of science should do everything possible to maximize the resources supporting the true scientists and the best research, and limit as much as possible the spending for various non-research activities, such as social programs, liberal activism, and public relations.

I hope you will consider my application favorably. Please, let me know if you need additional information, and thank you for your kind consideration of this application.


Sincerely yours,



Tibor Gasparik
Research Associate Professor


Department of Geosciences
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794
Phone: (631) 447-2168
E-mail: gasparik@sbmp04.ess.sunysb.edu
Web site: http://www.mpi.stonybrook.edu/ResearchResults/PhaseRelationsGasparik/