Leading scientists, educators and policy experts will gather at Columbia University Sept. 20 and 21 to offer policy proposals on how the nation's research enterprise should be reorganized.

   "Science, the Endless Frontier: A Policy Evaluation and Formulation Conference" is the third and last in Columbia's series of meetings on the 50th anniversary of "Science, the Endless Frontier," the 1945 policy paper by Vannevar Bush, FDR's science advisor, that paved the way for government funding of science. Participants in the conference will evaluate the government's priorities and examine technology as an engine for economic growth.

   Scientists and policymakers agree that the way government now funds science needs to be updated, partly because the system has changed and expanded and partly because politicians and the public fail to understand how the system works. Following are some of the major questions the conference will address, along with answers offered by leading participants in preconference summaries.

Now that the Cold War is over, how much science is enough? Where should we put the money? Ralph Gomory, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, believes the United States needs to be among the world leaders in all areas of science and should maintain clear leadership in selected areas, such as health and the environment, where social returns could be the greatest.

   It is possible to predict that a particular field of science will be useful, Dr. Gomory maintains, but not that some field won't be useful. No one in the 1920s, for example, could see that the arcane theory of quantum mechanics would allow the development of transistors.

   Should the Clinton Administration and Congress devote more funds to basic or applied research? The question neglects the fact that all research has a purpose, says Michael Crow, vice provost of Columbia. Researchers and government science officials need to specify every project's reason for existence, evaluate it with respect to the mission of the funding agency and measure its contribution to the public good, Dr. Crow says.

   Does technology investment create widespread economic returns? Yes, but nationalist approaches to technology investment, such as the SEMATECH initiative to promote the American semiconductor industry, are likely to fail, says David C. Mowery, professor of business and public policy at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. International collaboration is more likely to bring economic benefits to the U.S. and its trading partners, says Eugene Skolnikoff, professor of political science at MIT.

   Should the way funds are distributed be revamped? Panelists have proposed that scientists set a national research agenda that would give politicians and the public a concrete set of goals to discuss. They also suggest more stringent evaluation of projects, with more funding concentrated on vital proposals.

   Much debate on government funding of science involves "Allocating Federal Funds for Science and Technology," a National Research Council report by Frank Press, former president of the National Academy of Sciences. The report calls for a comprehensive national science budget, but David Z. Robinson, among others, believes that the current decentralized approach results in more money for researchers. He is executive director of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government.

   Among other panelists are Richard Celeste, former Ohio governor; Jonathan Cole, Provost and Dean of Faculties at Columbia; James Duderstadt, president, University of Michigan; Craig Fields, former director, Advanced Projects Research Agency; Donald Kennedy, president emeritus, Stanford University; Martha Krebs, Director, Office of Energy Research, U.S. Department of Energy; Herbert Pardes, Vice President for Health Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Columbia; Nick Samios, Director, Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Lowell Weicker, former Connecticut governor.