42 U.S.C. § 1862 — Functions

(a) Foundation duties. The Foundation must: (1) start and support basic research and science education in the listed sciences, engineering research and education, and programs that strengthen research capacity, using contracts and other arrangements such as grants and loans, while assessing effects on industry and general welfare; (2) award science and engineering scholarships and graduate fellowships under section 1869; (3) promote exchange of science and engineering information among United States and foreign scientists and engineers; (4) support computers and other scientific and engineering methods and technology, mainly for science and engineering research and education; (5) evaluate the condition and needs of sciences and engineering fields shown by Federal, individual, and public or private research programs and studies, hire consultants when needed, and use the results to coordinate its programs with those efforts; (6) serve as a central place for collecting, interpreting, and analyzing data about science and engineering resources and inform Federal policy; (7) maintain a program determining the total Federal money received by each United States educational institution and appropriate nonprofit organization for science and engineering research, including facility construction money, and report yearly to the President and Congress; and (8) lead support for research and education that improves networked-information-system security. (b) Requested activities. The Foundation may support particular science and engineering activities involving international cooperation, national security, and society’s effects through contracts and other assistance. When another Federal department or agency, including the Office of Technology Assessment, requests the activity, it should, when feasible, be paid from money transferred by that requester under section 1873(f). Such activities must be unclassified and identified as undertaken at the appropriate official’s request. (c) Institutions and applied research. Besides subsections (a) and (b), the Foundation may support science and engineering research, including applied research, at academic and other nonprofit institutions. When the President directs it, the Foundation may support, through other appropriate organizations, applied science and engineering research relevant to public-interest national problems. It may hire needed consultants and must coordinate with Federal agencies conducting similar work. (d) The Board and Director must recommend and encourage national policies promoting science and engineering research and education. (e) The Foundation’s objective is to strengthen science and engineering research and education, including independent individual research, throughout the United States and avoid undue concentration. (f) The Foundation must give the President an annual report for submission to Congress by April 15. The report must summarize Foundation activities and appropriate recommendations and include patents and patent rights acquired or disposed of by the Foundation. (g) In carrying out subsection (a)(4), the Foundation may support research and education communities’ access to computer networks that are also substantially used for other purposes, if those uses tend to improve the networks’ overall ability to support science and engineering research and education.