MIT Asks National Science Board To Reconsider Magnet Lab Vote

'FAIR COMPARISON'

MIT Asks National Science Board 

To Reconsider Magnet Lab Vote

MIT has asked the  21 members of the National Science Board to review and 
reconsider the NSB decision to award a new National High Magnetic Field 
Laboratory to Florida State University, rather than to MIT, where the 
Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory has been operating for 27 years.

The NSB's vote, announced August 17, was based on National Science 
Foundation (NSF) staff memoranda which overturned the recommendations of 
three levels of merit review by scientists who chose the MIT proposal for 
its excellent scientific and technical quality.

"If the staff summaries had presented a fair and adequate comparison of the 
two proposals, we would not contest the NSB decision,"  wrote MIT President 
Paul E. Gray in a letter to the MSB. "Regrettably, this was not the case. 
Moreover, besides these concerns on the scientific and technical side, the 
NSF staff documents, which provided FSU data relating to staffing, budget, 
and cost-sharing, did not provide complete and comparable data for MIT."  

The cost to the NSF was the same in both final proposals, and MIT's cost-
sharing contributions were comparable.

The NSF/NSB decision authorized, for a new laboratory, an award of a $60 
million grant, ending September 30, 1994, to a consortium of Florida State 
University (FSU), the University of Florida, and the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. According to the NSF director's memorandum, 
approximately 20 percent of the award to FSU would be sub-contracted to 
LANL.

The MIT proposal includes faculty from six Boston area universities (MIT, 
Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, Northeastern and Tufts); relationships 
with national laboratories at Brookhaven (New York), Ames (Iowa) and Argonne 
(Illinois), and with the University of Wisconsin.

A three-page "MIT Summary" regarding the siting of the National High 
Magnetic Field Laboratory said:  

"The proposals to establish a new National High Magnetic Field Laboratory 
(NHMFL) and the issues they raised were examined in a balanced fashion by 
three stages of peer review by expert scientists and engineers. All three 
(peer review) stages recommended locating the NHMFL at MIT. The NSF staff 
documents recommending a contrary choice were not similarly balanced. In a 
case of unusual technical complexity, the staff documents provided 
essentially no technical analysis nor adequate analysis of the consequences 
of the possible choices.

The cost to the NSF is the same, $66 million, for building a new laboratory 
and continuing the existing operation for one year, whether the new 
laboratory is in the Boston area or at the site recommended by the NSF 
staff.

For the same $66 million from the NSF, at the end of the grant period 
(September 30, 1994), MIT, as compared with the staff's choice, would 
have:

	-	A state-of-the-art 45 tesla/40 tesla hybrid magnet in 1994, rather 
than a maximum field strength of 30 teslaÄwhich MIT surpassed in 1981. 
The 45T magnet would meet the Seitz-Richardson Report's primary 
specification for a five-year program. In two years, MIT would be able 
to have simultaneous operation of 36T and 32T hybrid magnets.

	-	30 general purpose magnets in two years and 31 in four yearsÄrather 
than 8 to 10 such magnets in four or five years.

	-	A facility with up to 200T-300T fast-pulsed fields of 2 to 10 
microseconds that preserves the sampleÄrather than 100T for 5 
microseconds that destroys the sample. MIT also would provide 
facilities with millisecond pulsed fields greater than 75TÄnot 
available with the NSF choice.

	-	A 750 MHz spectrometer and 17.5T NMR magnet by the end of 1992Ärather 
than duplicating existing NMR facilities of 600 MHz (14T) through the 
purchase of foreign technology. By 1994, MIT would have made 
significant progress toward the goal of high resolution 1,000 MHz 
proton NMR, an important tool for determining the structure of 
biological molecules. 

No apparent attempt was made to discover the views of users of high magnetic 
fields regarding their ability to do experiments in this field under the 
two proposals: 

-	At MIT, there would be available a much greater variety of magnets, 
higher fields, and (after two years, following only a three to four 
month interruption) the ability to provide twice as much user research 
capacity as the current laboratory.

	-	The NSF staff choice would significantly interrupt users' research by 
a) sending users to Europe beginning in 1992, b) providing only half 
the existing capacity to accommodate users in the U.S. beginning in 
1993, and c) providing only 80 percent of the existing capacity in the 
U.S. after five years.

As noted, the NSF staff memoranda did not fairly and reasonably inform the 
NSB about the fact that the costs to the NSF would be the same for either 
choice, or of the full significance of the differing mix of magnet 
facilities available with each choice, or of the differing consequences 
between the choices for scientists in the field. Nor did the staff 
memoranda provide a fair and reasonable summary of the following key 
aspects of MIT's proposal:

	-	MIT is seriously committed to establishing the NHMFL. Contrary to the 
staff characterizations, MIT has the commitment for a first-rate 
laboratory. It has operated for 27 years a world-class laboratoryÄas 
was made clear in the peer reviewsÄthat now has 28 magnets and 
associated instrumentation equipment; a faculty from six Boston area 
universities (MIT, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, Northeastern 
and Tufts); relationships with national laboratories at Brookhaven 
(New York), Ames (Iowa) and Argonne (Illinois), and with the 
University of Wisconsin; and with more than 300 users. 

	-	MIT's cost-sharing contributions were seriously understated in the 
staff memoranda. In fact, MIT proposed the following cost-sharing over 
a period of four years: $37 million from its own resources and $23 
million from other sources, for a total of $60 millionÄnot the $18 
million stated in the director's memorandum. The FSU proposed 
contribution was $58 million, according to the NSF.

	-	MIT's plan for faculty, staff, and visitors was not presented in the 
memoranda. The Director's memorandum cited specific numbers with 
regard to the faculty and staff situation at FSU, but was totally and 
unfairly silent about what the situation would be at MIT. The staffing 
plan was spelled out in detail in the MIT proposal, which included 
curricula vitae of 32 key people who are among about 140 individuals 
already committed to participate in the laboratory at MIT.

	-	The recruitment issue was not fairly presented. While FSU as a start-
up operation will necessarily be faced with the need to recruit 
essentially an entirely new faculty and staff, MIT will not. In spite 
of Mr. Bloch's memorandum, which states incorrectly that "MIT faces a 
similar recruitment issue (to FSU). . . ",  the recruitment issues are 
not at all similar. FBNML is a presently operating laboratory with 81 
permanent employees with an average of 14 years of service and an 
average age of 47. 

	-	The FBNML is a research center of excellence. The assertion in one of 
the staff memoranda that the laboratory at MIT is "not a national 
research center of excellence" flies in the face of the record and the 
reviewers' assessments. The fact is the FBNML staff will receive next 
year over $5,500,000 in peer-reviewed research support. And as the 
Site Visit Committee reported, the FBNML has been "at the forefront of 
many areas of high magnetic field science and technology and . . . has 
built an enviable reputation for the quality of science performed by 
its user community. We anticipate that all the expectations of the 
SRPR (Seitz-Richardson Panel Report) would be met expeditiously by 
MIT."

	-	In regard to the development of magnet technology in the US, the NSF 
memoranda did not reasonably analyze the impact of the choices. The US 
leadership in developing water-cooled, hybrid, high field NMR magnets, 
and millisecond magnets, all resides in the MIT laboratory, which 
would be closed. With the NSF staff choice, magnets would be purchased 
abroad.

	-	In regard to the relative international position of the NHMFL after 
five years, the staff memorandum paid too little attention to the 
significant statement from the site visit team that the staff choice 
"would undoubtedly require a minimum of 5 to 8 years to catch up, even 
if it is successful."  This statement is not a criticism of the other 
proposal but simply a reflection that a quarter of a century of 
developing magnet facilities cannot be matched in a few years.  With 
MIT, the NHMFL would be measurably more capable than foreign 
laboratories after five years. With the NSF staff choice, after five 
years the NHMFL would be less capable than the existing one at MIT."

The 45-page package sent by overnight courier to each of the board members 
included letters from Dr. Gray; Professor J. David Litster, director of the 
Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory; and Professor Kenneth A. Smith, 
Vice President for Research. It also included a three-page summary, the Site 
Visit Committee Report, the Materials Research Advisory Committee Report, 
the memorandum on the proposals from the Director, Erich Bloch (who stepped 
down as of August 31), and the text of a presentation to the NSB by 
Assistant Director David A. Sanchez.