NEA Policy Statements

Reports on higher education quality have stressed placing more emphasis on the critical importance of teaching at the postsecondary level. The emphasis on teaching in no way diminishes the importance of research at institutions of higher education nor the necessity to assure an adequate flow of research funding to postsecondary institutions through federal, state, and private sources.

A number of problems need to be addressed:

• The general decline in funding for higher education has been partially absorbed by deferring the maintenance or purchase of research equipment and failing to maintain first-rate research libraries and threatens quality research.
• Faculty assignments and support are not proportionate to administrative expectations and rewards. Teaching loads remain high even where research is the primary expectation. Many faculty receive relatively little support in research funding, library and computer usage, travel funds, assistants, and assigned (released) time.
• There is a practice by research institutions of asserting full or partial ownership of the products of research, including inventions, patents, royalties, and even copyrights without consultation with, and agreement of, the faculty member.
• Increasing pressure for accountability and control from government and industrial sponsors, restrictions on funding sources, and public pressures about controversial research have generated growing threats to the academic freedom of researchers.

To address these concerns NEA recommends the following:

• Academic research is of great and fundamental importance to our society. Research funding must be increased at all levels, but especially by the federal government and especially in such woefully underfunded areas as education, social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. Additional funding should be provided to assure adequate dissemination of research findings, particularly in distance education and diverse learning styles.
• Academic freedom for researchers must be maintained. The development of human knowledge is of too great an importance to make it subservient to the political interests of government or the economic interest of industry. Researchers have a responsibility to understand the political, ethical, and social implications of their research. Classified research and the restriction of publication are generally antithetical to the very idea of academic freedom, and should be tolerated only under guidelines developed by the faculty. Only the faculty collectively should impose appropriate guidelines and restrictions on military or morally sensitive research or on research in areas affecting public health and safety.
• Differential rewards for research are permissible only where the degree and procedures of such rewards are developed by the faculty collectively and where resources are allocated and teaching loads reduced in proportion to the research expected. Evaluation, tenure, promotion, and compensation should be consistent with the teaching, research, and service responsibilities assumed by the individual faculty members.
• The products of research are the intellectual property of the researcher. Where an institution contributes significantly to the cost of developing a commercially valuable product, guidelines should be developed by the faculty for compensating the institution for its costs.

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