National Science Foundation Message to the Congress Transmitting a Report.

To the Congress of the United States:

I have, on many occasions, stressed my belief that our Nation's future—in particular its economic health—is tied to the vitality and advances of science and technology. For that reason I am pleased to transmit this annual report for Fiscal Year 1979 of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation's primary responsibility—unique among Federal agencies—is to assure that we continue to generate broad scientific knowledge and to draw on the collective expertise of the scientific community to identify the most important problems and best opportunities for Federal support.

As this annual report shows, National Science Foundation-supported research continues to produce promising and farreaching results. If we look at a variety of developments important to today's world—such as advances in agriculture, medical science, communications, alternative energy supplies and conservation, computers, or industrial processes—we can trace threads back through the years to the basic research, often supported by the National Science Foundation, that made them possible. Likewise, we can be assured that many of the results being reported now will, eventually, similarly enhance our daily lives and well-being.

Our success in continuing this process of nurturing and speeding the generation of knowledge is not an intellectual luxury, but is critical to our future. At a time of increasing constraints on the availability of material resources throughout the world, our national research capability is a particularly valuable resource to enable us to devise innovative approaches to difficult problems. The National Science Foundation is important to the development and maintenance of that resource, and I hope you will take the opportunity to review its recent activities described in this report.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

July 3, 1980.