Environmental Research

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the Science to Achieve Results grant program in 1995 to ensure that the best scientists outside the agency were involved in its research efforts, to provide useful research support to the agency's program offices, and to train a cadre of environmental scientists for the future. GAO found that although program grants were generally aligned with EPA's strategic priorities, the agency's program officials varied in their views on the usefulness of the grants to them. The usefulness of the grants to the program offices differed largely because the program's goals--meeting program office needs specifically and advancing environmental science generally--may be in conflict. EPA could strengthen its program management in several areas.

GAO noted that: (1) STAR grant funding has generally been aligned with EPA's ORD's, and the program offices' broadly defined priorities; (2) since the STAR program began in 1995 through March 2000, about two-thirds of the approximately $415 million in funding for STAR grants has addressed EPA's multipurpose strategic goal of ensuring that EPA uses sound science in addressing environmental hazards and improving environmental protection; (3) although STAR grants were generally aligned with the agency's strategic priorities and those of ORD and the program offices, EPA's program officials varied in the extent to which they believe the grants' results are useful to them; (4) according to the officials, the grants varied in their usefulness to the program offices largely because the STAR program's goals--meeting program office needs specifically and advancing environmental science generally--may be in conflict; (5) ORD has not consistently tracked the STAR grants to ensure that they are completed on time and that the results are available for use by EPA's program office; (6) according to several program officials, ORD could improve its communication with the program offices during the grant process; (7) ORD has not consistently obtained information from cognizant program officials when designing the requests for grant applications or reviewing grant proposals for relevancy during the grant selection process, nor has ORD adequately communicated the results of the completed grants; (8) ORD recognizes these concerns and has several initiatives under way; (9) these include establishing a Web site to improve communication and involving more program officials in grant application design and review; (10) because the STAR program is relatively new, ORD's primary focus has been on establishing a framework and processes for the program and not on setting program criteria to measure its overall effectiveness; and (11) recent reports by two independent scientific organizations agree that while the program is well structured to achieve its goals, communications between ORD and EPA's program offices should be improved.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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