Office Of Science & Technology Policy Research Articles

Scientific community rethinks how to advocate for its priorities in the Trump era

The first year of the Donald J. Trump administration wasn’t a smooth one for science supporters. It started with surprise limits on immigration to the U.S. from some countries, a move that many scientists saw as dangerous to scientific openness. The year continued with significant proposed budget cuts for most of the major science research agencies, as well as attacks on peer review and support for universities’ administrative costs. The White House’s appointments to major science positions haven’t helped the situation (see chart, page 29). Many new leaders of key research agencies have neither a science background nor science connections. And the administration still hasn’t made any major appointments to the U.S. Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP)—including the director, who would normally serve as the president’s science adviser. This situation has forced many organizations to change tack in their science advocacy efforts. “It has really rallied the scientific

Committed to science

By some accounts, as of the end of June, the lights went out at the White House office of the science division, one of the four subdivisions of the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). The White House has given no information as to how the tasks that this group was responsible for—including policy issues such as science education, biotechnology, and crisis response—will be handled. To date, the current Administration has not demonstrated the same level of commitment to science—the closure of the office above is one example—as previous Administrations have. Six months into President Donald J. Trump’s presidency, 85% of the top science jobs in the White House remain unfilled. The Trump Administration has been sluggish to appoint individuals across the board, not just the science-related jobs. But given the budget cuts that Trump has proposed for some science agencies, it is now crucial that people with the

White House updates biotech oversight plans

The Obama Administration’s update of a decades-old policy for reviewing U.S. biotechnology products is perhaps most notable for what it leaves out: a call for new regulations on or a mention of new gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR. Released on Jan. 4, the revision for the first time sets down in a single document the roles of U.S. agencies involved in regulating products of biotechnology, says Robbie Barbero of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). The Reagan Administration first addressed the stream of new genetically manipulated products through the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology in 1986. Rather than calling for new statutes, the framework simply specifies which existing laws authorize the Agriculture Department, FDA, and EPA to review such products. It was last updated in 1992. Barbero says the update to the framework “was really meant to be ground truth for how the system

Global Positioning System Energetic Particle Data: The Next Space Weather Data Revolution

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has revolutionized the process of getting from point A to point Band so much more. A large fraction of the worlds population relies on GPS (and its counterparts from other nations) for precision timing, location, and navigation. Most GPS users are unaware that the spacecraft providing the signals they rely on are operating in a very harsh space environment the radiation belts where energetic particles trapped in Earths magnetic field dash about at nearly the speed of light. These subatomic particles relentlessly pummel GPS satellites. So by design, every GPS satellite and its sensors are radiation hardened. Each spacecraft carries particle detectors that provide health and status data to system operators. Although these data reveal much about the state of the space radiation environment, heretofore they have been available only to system operators and supporting scientists. Research scientists have long sought a policy shift to allow more general access. With the release of the National Space Weather Strategy and Action Plan organized by the White House Office of Science Technology Policy (OSTP) a sample of these data have been made available to space weather researchers. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the National Center for Environmental Information released a months worth of GPS energetic particle data from an interval of heightened space weather activity in early 2014 with the hope of stimulating integration of these data sets into the research arena. Even before the public data release GPS support scientists from LANL showed the extraordinary promise of these data.

ASCP's Partners for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment in Africa

Abstract 38 A primary goal of any health care system should be to attain universal access for all patients within a catchment area. The cancer care model requires that physicians encountering patients who they suspect of having a malignancy have access to a system that ensures rapid, accurate, and reliable pathology for primary diagnosis of cancer. Sub-Saharan Africa faces immense challenges in providing adequate coverage. Each region, country, and district has unique obstacles to overcome when meeting the health needs of the population. The American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP), in partnership with the White House Office of Science Technology Policy and the Clinton Global Initiative, recently launched a $26.5 million multi-year initiative. The initiative begins with assessment of potential countries with the greatest need--including collaboration and capacity program building with local officials and staff--to deploy full service pathology infrastructure for eligible countries to strategically meet their population needs. Working in parallel and together, steering committees for Diagnostics and Technology, Care and Treatment, In-Country Medical Education, Bioethics, and Monitoring & Evaluation have focused on each potential country to optimize success. The maximal intervention includes deployment of automated histopathology systems and integrated whole slide imaging systems. Imaging systems are linked through a customized laboratory information system to a dedicated team of pathologists from the United States. This long-term project will roll out to 10 or more countries in Africa as well as Haiti. An overview of the project will be presented as well as experiences data from countries launched to date. AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: No COIs from either author.

Federal Open-Access Mandate

All federal agencies that fund $100 million or more in scientific research must develop plans to make the results of that research freely available, according to a new directive from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). The agencies have flexibility in how they develop their plans and can work with publishers on criteria that differ from discipline to discipline, using a 12-month post-publication embargo as a guideline. Open-access advocates are applauding the move, which came just days after Congress introduced legislation that also aims to broaden access to taxpayer-funded research. Publishers, which have long opposed open-access efforts, also support the measure because it is not a one-size-fits-all policy. The directive applies to agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy Office of Science. Currently the National Institutes of Health is the only federal agency with an open-access policy, but that applies only ...

SCIENCE COMPETES FOR SUPPORT

IN AUGUST 2007, President George W. Bush signed landmark legislation supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research and education. Called the America Competes Act (ACA), this legislation promised a huge boost in support for the scientific community, with the goal of keeping the U.S. competitive in the global marketplace. A year after reaching this milestone, however, the support remains mostly talk. The failure of the legislation to translate into increased financial support for STEM research and education programs took center stage in Tennessee at the 2008 National Science & Technology Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory last month. Convened by the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) on behalf of the President, the meeting was mandated by ACA as a venue for the scientific community to assess the health and direction of the U.S.’s STEM enterprises. According to language in ACA, the summit’s goal was to provide Congress feedback in the form of ...

ENCOURAGING TEAM SCIENCE

THE RESEARCH PARADIGM IS shifting. Once dominated by single investigators leading small groups of subordinate researchers on independent research projects, the research landscape is now dotted with interdisciplinary research teams made up of members who are often peers working together on an independent research project. Attributing proper recognition—which is key for tenure and promotion decisions—to team scientists on grant applications and awards, however, does not come easily under the traditional single principal investigator (PI) model. Federal research agencies are recognizing this limitation. The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) are developing plans to put in place a mechanism that allows for multiple PIs to be recognized on a single grant. Plans for a multiple-PI model were announced in a memorandum released last January by OSTP (C&EN, Jan. 24, page 24). Since that time, OSTP, in collaboration with OMB, has continued to seek inpu...

ROLE OF RESEARCH IN HOMELAND SECURITY

OFFICIALS FROM THE WHITE House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), the Department of and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention described their research-funding priorities relating to national security at a symposium at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Boston last month. But what seemed to interest attendees most was the remarks of Penrose Albright, assistant director for homeland and national security in OSTP, who spoke about the blueprint for research and development in President George W. Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Key to securing the homeland is our nation's advantage in science and technology, Albright told a standing-room-only crowd at the presidential symposium Chemistry and Biology of Terrorism and Homeland Defense, sponsored by the Division of Chemical Toxicology. The symposium was organized to give meeting attendees a feel for what kinds of research opportunities related to homeland security exist, as well as to engage the...

COUNTERTERROR STRATEGY ISSUED

THE WHITE HOUSE'S JUST-REleased National Strategy for Homeland Security outlines three major objectives: prevent terrorist attacks in the U.S., reduce U.S. vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur. It includes a chapter authored by the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). exact role of science and technology in countering terrorism has been a subject of disagreement, and that disagreement has not disappeared with the release of the strategy document. document available on the White House website, http://www.whitehouse.gov. The most serious problem with the strategy, says Lewis M. Branscomb, an emeritus professor of government at Harvard University, is that it totally in-adequate in how to mobilize the private sector. They don't have an incentive for hardening critical infrastructures, such as those provided by the airlines, telecommunications, and postal industries. Branscomb was cochair of a National Research Council study on R&...

WASHINGTON STRUGGLES IN WAKE OF DISASTER

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH S Administration and Congress have many tough decisions to make over the next months as the U.S. responds to the horrifying terrorist attacks on its soil. The coordination of people and programs, military and civilian, is a daunting task. And there is still this large and diverse nation to manage. In the wake of the crisis, a number of policies have already been altered or moved aside, and some important legislative issues are only now beginning to struggle back into consideration. A significant concern remains the lack of science and technology advice at the highest level. A presidential science adviser would be a key player in the U.S. government's response to the hijackings. And a fully operating Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) would seem to be a requirement for managing the kind of assault President Bush has said this nation will begin. But the nomination of John H. Marburger ...

White House Claims Congress Is Shortchanging R&D

Competing visions of how the government should spend the budget surpluses being generated by the powerful U.S. economy are beginning to emerge from the White House and Congress. The Administration would like to see reinvestments— including more money for government R&D programs—whereas House and Senate leaders want to return at least some of the money to taxpayers via tax cuts. Those viewpoints, while not entirely new, were put in stark relief in a midsummer status report on R&D appropriations issued by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). In a clear swipe at the Republican leadership in both houses, OSTP Director Neal F. Lane said, Congress has currently stalled our progress toward our shared national goals and toward balance in a healthy R&D portfolio precisely at the moment in history when we can best afford to invest in America's future. Lane's comments were made in a letter sent to a number of ...

Universities Have Toed The Line On Cost Sharing

Increasing pressure on universities to pay more of the indirect costs of doing research—costs that have held steady for the past decade—would be detrimental to the research enterprise, according to an analysis of university cost sharing on federal grants released last week by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). The analysis of facilities and administrative (F&A) costs—also known as indirect costs—further indicates that increasing the share of costs borne by universities could force administrators to reduce spending for research and education or to raise tuition. The analysis was conducted by OSTP and RAND, a nonprofit research institution based in Santa Monica, Calif. By wording and implication, the report is clearly meant to stave off possible congressionally mandated reductions in indirect cost funds that accompany research grants to academic investigators. In the past, the cost-sharing issue has brought controversy and scandal to the university research community. A lack of ...

Unending debate over definition of research misconduct

The federal government's attempt to define research misconduct is a long saga with no near-term resolution in sight. Last fall, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) circulated among the agencies that fund scientific research a draft statement defining misconduct in science and a process for addressing it. However, the agencies' views of this definition still differ sharply, preventing a consensus from being reached. The OSTP statement circumscribes misconduct narrowly, defining it as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reporting research. The regulatory definitions used by the former Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation include the category other from accepted research practices. The OSTP definition leaves out the serious deviations clause. Most academic scientists and federal agencies that fund scientific research favor the narrow definition proposed by OSTP. For instance, Marye Anne Fox, vice presid...

WORKING TO CALM RESEARCH JITTERS

An ambitious effort has finally begun at the National Science & Technoli ogy Council (NSTC) to find ways of reducing the increasing tensions between the country's research universities and the federal government. The stress is, by all accounts, extreme, and the fear is that the government and the universities are rapidly moving away from commonly shared values. A lot of bureaucratic ammunition is being assembled for the undertaking. Growing government scrutiny, falling R&D budgets, and a loss of national direction since the end of the Cold War are seen to be the main roots of current strain. The NSTC review examine what components of the university system may be under stress and will determine what the U.S. government role should be in addressing these issues, declares White House science adviser and Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) Director John H. Gibbons. Staffed by OSTP and composed of Cabinet-level department secretaries, NSTC will ...

Science adviser Gibbons staying put for now

Rampant rumors that President Clinton's science adviser John H. Gibbons was set to leave soon and that others, including Deputy Commerce Secretary Mary L. Good, were waiting in the wings to take his place can be put to rest. At last week's meeting of the President's Committee of Advisers on Science & Technology, Gibbons told C&EN that he had no intention of staying the full four years of Clinton's second term, but Clinton's bridge to the 21st century agenda was so full and exciting that he virtually had no choice but to stay around, at least for a while. Initially, the betting was that Gibbons would depart soon after the fiscal 1998 federal budget was sent to Capitol Hill, an event scheduled for Feb. 6. Now, an Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) source close to Gibbons confirms, the best bets are being placed on Gibbons' staying for about a year. Rumors of Gibbons' ...

Dichlorvosand Mononuclear Cell Leukemia in Fischer 344 Rats: Lack of Effect of Chronic Administration on Progression of the Disease

The National Toxicology Program reported that the daily administration of dichlorvos, in the form of a corn oil gay age, was associated with an increased incidence of mononuclear cell leukemia (MCL) in male but not female Fischer 344 rats. Because of the high degree of variability with which this neoplasm appears in groups of control laboratory rats, supportive evidence is frequently sought to facilitate interpretation of increased incidences of the disease in chronic toxicity and carcinogenesis studies. In the National Toxicology Program study MCL was increased in only one sex of rats (m ales), did not occur earlier in DDVP-dosed than in control animals, and there was no evidence of a dose-response relationship. The U.S. Office of Science Technology Policy has recommended that the presence or absence of treatment-associated changes in tumor progression be employed as an adjunct in the interpretation of common tumors in rodents. The present study employed evaluative criteria described by the National Toxicology Program to determine the effects of DDVP on the progression of MCL in affected male rats. The results revealed that DDVP had no effect on either the severity or progression of MCL in male rats. Since there is no corroborative evidence supporting the interpretation of the increased incidence of MCL in male rats, this isolated DDVP-associated finding in a single sex of rats should not be considered to be evidence of a carcinogenic effect.

Critics Take Aim at NIH's Gene Patenting Strategy

The National Institutes of Health should give up its attempt to patent partial genetic sequences whose functions are unknown, asserted speaker after speaker at a public forum last month. To continue with the applications risks irrevocably harming the human genome project, they claimed. Furthermore, they said, the U.S. government should join other countries in an agreement to renounce such patents. These criticisms arose at a public meeting in Washington, D.C., convened by the Genome Patent Working Group, an interagency committee set up by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). The forum was billed as a broad discussion of technology transfer issues related to federally funded genome research—more specifically, the controversial patent applications filed by NIH in the past year. The patent applications seek protection for more than 2500 gene fragments identified by NIH researcher J. Craig Venter and coworkers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders. The scientists work ...

Stever reflects on four busy years

An era ends. President Ford's signing of legislation earlier this month setting up a new Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) in the White House marked the beginning of the end of a dual role in top-level federal science affairs for Dr. H. Guyford Stever. For the past four years, Stever has served both as science adviser to the President—after former President Nixon abolished the Office of Science & Technology in the White House—and as director of the National Science Foundation. Both are demanding full-time jobs. And Stever has been roundly praised for his performance of both. Soon he will be relinquishing one or the other of the two top science posts, a prospect that he doesn't find unappealing. If he stays at NSF, his present term as director will expire in a little less than two years. If he is reappointed Presidential science adviser and, hence, heads the new White House science office, ...

Science office legislation delayed by Senate

It shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, but getting legislation enacted to set up a new White House science office is turning out to be much more of a political hassle than might have been surmised from earlier pronouncements of cooperation and good will by Democrats, Republicans, and the White House alike. Indeed, the whole episode—at least on the Senate side—is taking on many of the trappings of old-fashioned politicking. By early last week, and subject to change before the end of the week when Congress was slated to adjourn for the year, here's where the situation stood. After voluminous studies and lengthy hearings by the House Science & Technology Committee, the House in early November approved by a vote of 362 to 28 legislation to set up a new Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) in the White House. In essence, the House bill, H.R. 10230, is an updated Administration bill. Indeed, House science ...