I agree completely with this new statement from the AAS. As a personal example, when I, not wanting to travel so much, stopped going to conferences for a few years it damaged my scientific productivity. In brief: You don't know what's going on, you don't make the contacts needed for new projects, and your work is less known than it should be.
The American Astronomical Society and its six divisions (Planetary
Science, High Energy Astrophysics, Solar Physics, Dynamical Astronomy,
Historical Astronomy, and Laboratory Astrophysics) are deeply
concerned about the impact of the Administration's new conference
travel restrictions on the scientific productivity and careers of
researchers who are Federal employees and contractors.
Scientific meetings and conferences are a principal mechanism for
researchers, students, and educators to facilitate and strengthen
their interaction and collaborations with peers in their field,
thereby advancing the state of knowledge in that field. Scientists who
are Federal employees or contractors play a critical role in all
fields of science and engineering, so the Federal agency mission
suffers when they, and any students collaborating with them, are
unable to travel to relevant conferences.
In response to guidance from the White House Office of Management and
Budget on implementation of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 sequestration,
many agencies have issued new travel restrictions for employees,
contractors, and grantees for the rest of FY 2013. For example, NASA
has effectively capped conference attendance at 50 employees and
contractors and prohibited all attendance at foreign conferences.
Given the mission need for NASA personnel to regularly meet with
international collaborators, we believe our international leadership
in space will be undermined by this prohibition.
While conferences occurring in the remaining six months of FY 2013
will be severely impacted by these new directives, our deeper concern
is the likelihood that the restrictions and reduced conference travel
spending will become standard policy going forward. We agree that all
government travel expenditures should be subject to vigorous review
and oversight, but we urge the Administration to consider carefully
the harm that these top-down restrictions could cause the U.S.
research enterprise and our international standing.
