SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Record Endowment Awarded
The National Academy of Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and surely its most prestigious research organization, has been awarded the largest single endowment gift in its 125-year history.
Under terms of an agreement with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the academy and one of its affiliate organizations, the Institute of Medicine, will receive $20 million over the next four years. In addition, academy officials said they hope to use leverage of the Kellogg gift to try to get matching funds from other private sources, thus raising its total endowment by $36 million to $100 million in 1993.
Established by an act of Congress and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the National Academy is a private, nonprofit organization designated as an official adviser to the federal government on science and technology matters.
The academy and its affiliates, including the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council, have advised Americans on what they should eat, how fast they should drive and who should have access to birth control. Among the studies now under way are health care for the homeless, the future of U.S. space policy and the ongoing battle between laboratory researchers and animal rights activists.
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