Let me speak of the future a moment.

I think that the optimism that is so essentialfor success in science is as indelible as

ever.

The future will require more of us than inthe past, it always does.

It means we'll have to have sufficient flexibility,while sustaining the best traditions to adapt

to level funding--level funding at best, perhapsfor a few years, perhaps modest compression--as

increases in the budget, which will come,may fail to meet the demands of inflation.

I've already made references to adjustmentsof balances in the Intramural Program.

The next decade is going to test the Institutesas never before in terms of their corporate

responsibilities.

It must begin with aggregate budget distributions,and not end with them, as merely the sum of

competitive independent programs, categoryby category.

It's going to be a time of tough selectionof priorities for funding by the different

mechanisms that we have and possibly the creationof new ones for the future.

Especially, we're going to have to all showcontinued creativity and adaptation in continuous

adjustment of the balance between categoricalobjectives "part of that genius of NIH" and

the necessary communal provision of resourcesto maintain the strength of the institutions

in which the majority of scientists in thiscountry still work and teach.

We're going to have to have continued attentionto the style, if that be morality, and to

the substance of activities other than experimentalwork; activities by which NIH also merits

high rating as a social institution.

These include: continued provision of technicalconsensus and objective evaluation of technologies;

education for both the providers and the recipientsof health care so the changes in scientific

knowledge can beneficially affect the livesof as many people as possible and the practices

of the professionals.

We're going to have to keep up that faithfulcuratorship of invaluable collections of data

and the tangible collections of objects (cells,mutants, and what have you) which join us

to proceeding generations and will join usto the future.

We're also going to have to maintain a rigorousdefense of scientific ethic, and of scientific

freedom, for they are inseparable.