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July 12, 2010 Volume 29- Issue 13 |
Appropriations Season Off to a Late Start; How it Will Finish is a Big Question Mark
After months of unsuccessfully trying to produce a Budget Resolution that would guide the appropriations committees in considering spending for FY 2011 and that would also make future five-year funding projections, the House of Representatives gave up and "deemed" an overall spending cap for FY 2011 of $1.121 trillion about $7 billion less than the President's request. This allowed the appropriations subcommittees to move forward with its recommendations.
By the time Congress left for the July 4th recess, six of the twelve House subcommittees had marked up their FY 2011 spending bills. At this point it is unclear where this will lead. The Senate Budget Committee had adopted a resolution in April, but the full Senate never considered it. None of the Senate Subcommittees has marked up yet.
The disagreements over what to do about an economy still in distress between those who want more short-term spending for stimulus purposes and those whose priority is reducing the large federal deficit, have created significant difficulties in moving forward.
Panel Recommends 7.2 Percent Increase for NSF
On June 29, the Commerce, Science, Justice Appropriations Subcommittee (CJS), chaired by Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), held its markup. It recommended $7.424 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), a 7.2 percent increase over the FY 2010 appropriation, and the same as the President's request. The Subcommittee reduced the President's requested increase for the Research and Related Activities account, which includes funding for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences directorate, by $58.2 million. The recommended $5.961million still represents a 6.1 percent increase over the FY 2010 appropriation. The Subcommittee increased funding by $66.4 million over the President's request for the Education and Human Resources (EHR) directorate. Providing EHR with $958.4 million for FY 2011 gives it a 7.4 percent boost over FY 2010.
The CJS Subcommittee also provided $1.237 billion for the U.S. Census Bureau. This is a reduction of $29.8 million from the President's FY 2011 request and a huge reduction from the FY 2010 funding level, which was $7.325 billion. This large amount helped pay to conduct the decennial count. The Economic and Statistics Administration, which includes the Bureau of Economic Analysis, received $112 million, a reduction of $1.2 million from the request, but a $14.7 million hike over FY 2010.
The Subcommittee provided the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) $2.767 billion, an increase of $484 million over the FY 2010 level and $697.6 million over the request. The Subcommittee provided many earmarks for the Byrne Program within OJP. The Subcommittee did not offer any details with regard to the requested increases for the National Institute of Justice or the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
On June 23, the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. David Price (D-NC), became the first spending panel to make its recommendations. It allocated $1.072 billion for the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology directorate, an increase of $65 million over FY 2010 and $53.2 million over the President's request. How the funds are divided among S&T's programs awaits the full Appropriations Committee's consideration of the bill.
The Agriculture and Rural Development Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) marked up its bill on June 30. For the National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the panel provided $1.357 billion for FY 2011, a $13.8 million boost over FY 2010 and a $14.2 million hike over the President's request. Within this funding there are over 100 congressionally-directed or earmarked projects.
On July 1, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. John Olver (D-MA), made its recommendations. The Subcommittee provided $50 million for HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research, $2 million above FY 2010, but $37 million below the President's request.
The Subcommittees that consider the budget for the Legislative Branch and the spending for the Department of State and foreign aid also completed their work before the recess.
More markups at the both the Subcommittee and full Appropriations Committee may occur during the next few weeks. However, the House and Senate are still trying to reach agreement on the FY 2010 Supplemental Appropriations bill that includes funding for the war in Afghanistan. This is also impeding progress on the FY 2011 bills. |
National Academies Release Report on NIJ; Calls for More Independence and Enhanced Focus on Research On July 2, the National Academies' released its report, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), reviewing the structure and operations of the agency. With John Laub arriving as the new NIJ Director, the report provides opportunities for new directions for the agency. It also asks Congress to make adjustments to NIJ's structure, funding, and operations. Charles Wellford, Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland chaired the committee that prepared the report. George Sensabaugh, School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley was the vice-chair. Committee members included former Attorney General Ed Meese and current Philadelphia Police Superintendent Charles Ramsey, as well as many researchers. Betty Chemers, who worked at both NIJ and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention before joining the National Academies, was the study director. The report argues that "a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice," because no other governmental or private organization can provide similar activities and service. The report recognizes that NIJ "has accomplished a great deal" in its forty-year history including developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spot policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. NIJ, the report continues, has also built a crime and justice research infrastructure and widely disseminated the results of the research it supported to help guide practice and policy. NIJ Hampered by Lack of Independence, Authority, and Resources Yet, the report also strongly notes that NIJ's efforts "have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission." The report's recommendations focus on these areas of deficiency and advocates "fundamental reforms." With regard to NIJ's independence the Committee rejects the idea of moving the agency out of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) or even the Department of Justice (DOJ) as some have promoted. The report calls for the NIJ director to be a highly-qualified, recognized authority, with demonstrated success in managing crime and justice research efforts. The director, the Committee advocates, should serve for a fixed, renewable six-year term. The Committee also called for an Advisory Board whose members are composed predominantly of experienced researchers to support the research mission and that reports directly to the NIJ director. Laurie Robinson, the current Assistant Attorney General for OJP, has announced the creation of an Advisory Board for her office (see Update, June 21, 2010.)To further insure independence, the report recommends that NIJ should have sign-off authority for its grants, and authority to recruit and hire its staff, whose scientific expertise needs strengthening. The agency should also have the right to present its own budget to the DOJ and its own budget line so that the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress can consider NIJ's funding separately from the overall OJP budget. The report's recommendation that NIJ focus on a strong science mission leads to the conclusion that "to improve NIJ's ability to support research...Congress should remove responsibility for forensic capacity-building programs and reinstate them in other DOJ or OJP agencies...that have a clearly defined technical assistance mission, are closely linked to state and local criminal justice agencies, and have larger financial reserves to draw on." An earlier National Academies' report recommended the establishment of a separate National Institute of Forensic Science outside the DOJ. More Long-Term Activities Appropriate for a Research Institute The report criticizes NIJ for its failure to engage in long-term strategic planning. This, the report suggests, has allowed Congress to step in and earmark funds and mandate programs that often are "at best minimally related to research." The Committee resisted recommending a research agenda for NIJ, believing this is something the agency and its advisory board need to accomplish. At the same time, NIJ requires "the authority and resources necessary to devote sustained attention to more long-term research and activities appropriate for a research institute." These would include, according to the report, improvement of scientific methods and more longitudinal studies that "have been neglected because of their duration, complexity, and expense." NIJ also needs to "build the research field and support the research endeavor" through increased fellowship opportunities, including post-docs, and enhancement of the criminal justice archive. However, if this is done, the Committee insists that NIJ must improve its administrative oversight of these programs and undertake formal assessments of their worthiness. The report also recommends that NIJ "revise its research operations to allow for greater transparency, consistency, timeliness, and appropriate involvement of the researcher and practitioner communities." In addition, the report suggests that researchers receive priority in determining the "development, implementation and assessment" of NIJ's activities, while practitioners serve to provide "broad policy direction to address research concerns." The Committee argues strongly for giving NIJ the "complete authority" to handle its peer review process, now currently centralized in OJP. Finally, the report notes that "the potential of NIJ has been undermined by the lack of a robust scientific culture." To improve this, the agency needs to measure better the influence of its programs on research and practice, take greater responsibility for creating record systems (the Committee was stymied in many areas by the lack of information about NIJ's past activities because of poor recordkeeping), and the establishment of a "culture of self-assessment." The full report is available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12929. |
NSF Holds Workshop on Genes, Cognition and Behavior
On June 28, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Political Science program brought together nine scientists from multiple disciplines to participate in a workshop on Genes, Cognition, and Behavior. Its purpose was to discuss how NSF, through its funding mechanisms, can foster scientific efforts that examine the interactions of these three phenomena.
It has been ten years since the Human Genome was sequenced. In those subsequent years a lot has been learned regarding genomics. In addition during this time, use of the tool Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has transformed cognitive science and what we have learned about the brain and its affect on behavior. We have also learned a lot more about political, economic, and social behavior, including decision-making, through the use of enhanced game theory applications and other techniques.
Skip Lupia of the University of Michigan shepherded the workshop. Participants included: Daniel Benjamin, Economics at Cornell; Turhan Canli, Psychology at Stony Brook; Susan Courtney, Psychology and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins; Russell Fernald, Biology at Stanford; Jeremy Freese, Sociology at Northwestern; Elizabeth Hammock, Pediatrics at Vanderbilt Medical Center; Peter Hatemi, Political Science at Iowa; Rose McDermott, Political Science at Brown; and Aldo Rustichini, Economics at Minnesota.
The ideas emerging from the workshop focused on three areas: data, training, and collaboration. The participants appeared to agree that NSF should increase its investments in data collection, analysis and dissemination. Questions were raised as to whether it was better to add social science items to health questionnaires or add genotyping through blood or DNA samples to the existing social science surveys. It was noted that the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and the Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were already doing the latter. There was also a call for standardization of fMRI practices and sharing of data from brain scans.
Along with the need for more and larger data sets was an acknowledgement that better and more powerful measures are necessary in trying to study the connections among genes, cognition, and behavior. There have been, the participants suggested, significant correlation results in existing research, but very few causal interpretations. This sometimes results because small sample sizes, particularly in fMRI studies, make it difficult to utilize "powerful" statistics to determine causation.
Regarding training, NSF already has its Integrated Graduate Education Research and Training (IGERT) program and NSF's Acting Social and Economic Sciences Division Director Frank Scioli urged the participants to spread the word and encourage proposals from scientists training grad students working at the boundaries of the workshop's three topics. Another proposal was for NSF to fund summer institutes for mid-career and junior faculty seeking knowledge and retooling in other disciplines; a two-week intense course in Molecular Biology at Smith College was cited as an example. In addition, participants suggested providing post-doctoral opportunities for obtaining experience in another discipline.
The workshop attendees also called for NSF to provide more opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. They cited the problem of learning the culture and language of your collaborator's field that sometimes makes interdisciplinary cooperation difficult. Other suggestions for NSF funding included: core facilities for researchers; time sharing of equipment; seed grants for a collaborative principal investigators (PIs) network; a clearinghouse for PIs with common substantive interests; and collaborative groups focused on specific topic areas.
The participants will draft a report that will become available in the fall of 2010. There was also a hint from the NSF staff that additional workshops on the topic may also occur. |
CNSTAT Workshop Discusses Innovation in the Federal Statistical System
Following up on last year'ssymposium "The Federal Statistical System - Recognizing Its Contributions, Moving It Forward" (see Update, May 18, 2009), the National Academies' Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) held a workshop on June 29 on "Facilitating Innovation in the Federal Statistical System."
Leaders of the federal statistical agencies and representatives from academia, think tanks, and foundations participated in the day long discussion precipitated by the remarks of Hermann Habermann, former Deputy Director of the Census Bureau and now a CNSTAT Consultant, at last year's session.
Habermann proclaimed that the "history of innovation in the federal statistical system is replete with examples of outstanding innovation, and the research accomplishments are formidable." These include, according to Habermann: work on time series models, models for small area estimates of poverty, complete mobile medical testing for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and the development of a generalized and integrated data warehouse to provide easy access to historical survey and census data from farmers and researchers.
Yet, as Katherine Wallman, head of the Office of Statistical Policy at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), pointed out, all is not well. The Interagency Committee on Federal Statistics, led by Wallman's office, allows leaders of the statistical agencies to come together and discuss many of the issues raised in the workshop.
She noted the increasing demands of users for more timely and relevant information at smaller and smaller geographical levels. This leads to the need to determine tradeoffs between access and privacy and confidentiality. It also creates tradeoffs between fast output and quality controls, with business and policy makers more interested in the former.
Another current difficulty, mentioned by Wallman and many others, is the growing lack of cooperation among survey respondents and their complaints about being "overburdened." Non-response rates are rising and the costs of surveys are soaring. The workshop discussed the use of administrative records as an alternative to the sample survey for some data. However, participants acknowledged the quality issues that affect using these sources of information. Yet, the success of the American Community Survey (ACS) has led to discussions about redesigning the many household surveys conducted by the government, such as the Current Population Survey.
A serious problem, according to many workshop participants, is the growing difficulty of recruiting and retaining personnel in the federal statistical agencies, exacerbated by the inability to hire foreign nationals who populate many U.S. graduate programs in statistics. Another problem, noted by OMB Director Peter Orszag in a recent speech, is the information technology capabilities of federal government agencies. Just one example, noted by Habermann, is "the gap between the emerging data visualization and communications technologies and the ability of statistical agencies to understand and capitalize on these developments."
Better Opportunities for Research on Statistics Needed
He also expressed concern about the lack of a central point or agency "with statistical research as its mission." He proposed a far reaching change - the creation of a single private not-for-profit research center resembling the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) such as the Department of Energy's National Laboratories. Workshop participants appeared unenthusiastic about centralizing the research mission or the establishment of a FFRDC.
One of the agreements among participants was the importance of leadership at the federal statistical agencies to foster innovation. One suggestion is that all federal statistical agency heads receive presidential appointments and Senate confirmation and serve for a specific term beyond the four-year presidential term. Some of the agencies already have that, others still seek it.
Another obstacle to innovation is the lack of resources. Although one of the results of last year's CNSTAT symposium was improved budgets in the President's FY 2011 proposals (OMB Director Orszag was a featured speaker and a strong supporter), convincing Congress in these difficult budget times to add funds to statistical agencies is a difficult mission. Congress can also become quite wary of what one participant called "major tectonic shifts" in any agency's plans.
In addition, any attempt to change or end data collections raises protests among users who express concerns about the interruptions to time-series. This happened when the Census Bureau made noises about eliminating the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) a few years ago.
One simple innovation, not easily implemented under the current system, is the sharing of data among the statistical agencies. Support for this appears strong, but certain privacy and confidentiality protections make this problematic. Enhancing federal-state partnerships for data collection and dissemination would also enhance the statistical system. However, this has proven difficult for some agencies.
Ivan Fellegi, former head of Statistics Canada, urged the development of "incubators for innovation" that would determine best practices, examine management and culture issues, and figure out how to interact better with the external world of business and policy. He suggested experimenting with multiple projects, some of which he indicated would surely fail, but others might succeed.
Nancy Gordon, Associate Director of the Census Bureau, told the gathering that the system faced a simple choice: "Innovate or die!" CNSTAT will produce a report on the workshop that will hopefully preclude a burial!
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UNESCO Issues New World Social Science Report
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), working in conjunction with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), has issued a new World Social Sciences Report. Subtitled "Knowledge Divides," the report updates an earlier one published in 1999.
The new Report pronounces that the "social sciences are now truly global in the sense that they are taught almost everywhere and their research results are widely disseminated, increasingly by new information technologies." It goes on to declare that "social science expertise is in high demand by policy makers, media, and the public." As further evidence of its success, "social science concepts and theories influence public opinion and public debates more than ever before," the report proclaims.
At the same time, according to the report, the "social sciences have become so diffuse and widespread that nobody notices their role in understanding and shaping our world and daily lives anymore." Yet, it continues, "without them, most public policies would simply not exist and many individual and collective decisions would be difficult." This is sometimes referred to as the 'taken for granted problem,' such as the refusal of policy makers to acknowledge that these are sciences whose contributions stem from research that deserves public funding just like the natural and physical sciences.
Recognizing the importance of the natural sciences to address challenges such as AIDS, children's health, hunger and climate change, the report also argues that the social sciences are necessary to understand and influence how humans act in coping with these problems. For example, the report notes that the challenge of climate change is "as much social as natural."
To effectively address global and local problems, the report argues that "more and better social science is vital...capacity must be built, particularly in the regions where social problems are most acute and social science is most anemic." The report focuses on the huge disparities in research capacities across countries, discussing regional and geographical divides, capacity divides, and the fragmentation of research, often exemplified by the divide between disciplines. Other divides noted in the report occur between academics and policy makers and academics and society.
Craig Calhoun, President of the U.S. Social Science Research Council, was one of the hundreds of social and behavioral scientists from around the world who contributed to the report. He wrote a section describing the social sciences in North America and another looking at trends in and beyond disciplines in that region.
The report is available at: www.unesco.org/shs/wssr. |
Long-Term Care for an Aging Population: The PRB's 4th Annual Symposium on Policy and Health
On June 23, the Population Reference Bureau and the Johns Hopkins Population Center sponsored its 4th Annual Symposium on Policy and Health, "Family Care for an Aging Population: Demographic Contexts and Policy Challenges."
The panel included: Andrew Cherlin, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University; Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts: Madonna Harrington Meyer, Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University; and John Haaga, Deputy Director, Division of Behavioral and Social Research of the National Institute on Aging.
Emily Agree, Director, Hopkins Center for Population Aging and Health, noted that the dominance of family care has persisted even as we experience a changing demographic in our policy environment. "We stand at a pivotal point where health care policy needs to consider the demographic revolution that has taken place over the last 40 plus years and those changes that are transforming the nature of the families that new cohorts will age with and the elders of tomorrow."
Cherlin discussed that changing American family. He noted the research that indicates that Americans are more likely to marry and to divorce than in almost any other Western nation; and that serial marriages, rising levels of cohabitation along with delayed childbearing and nonmarital parenthood have added to the complexity of American families. Cherlin reported that roughly 40 percent of all births occur outside of marriage with half of all unmarried women cohabiting at the time of birth. "These complex kin ties," said Cherlin "have created substantial consequences for long-term care in the United States resulting in an increase in the demand for formally provided services and reductions in the availability of family support."
Folbre questioned whether family care is an obligation or a choice. Folbre pointed to a recent National Alliance Survey for Caregiving which showed that about 45 percent of all women caregivers reported that they felt that they had no choice. "They stepped forward for a variety of reasons," said Folbre, "because no other family member or friend was willing or able to provide adequate care or because paid services were economically out of reach."
The recent National Alliance for Caregiving survey also showed that about 19 percent of U.S. residents provide some care to adults age 50 or higher, averaging about 19 hours per week. "The burden of day-to-day care falls most often to family members and friends who provide unpaid assistance," continued Folbre "If we paid money for these services the total price tag would exceed total Medicaid expenditures-or if you prefer a private-sector comparison-total sales of Wal-Mart," he declared.
While the number of Americans without medical insurance is high, the number without any insurance against the costs of long-term care is far greater. Haaga emphasized that although long-term care has diversified and disability rates are declining, the absolute numbers will continue to grow creating a number of policy problems.
"In the future we stand to face generic problems of insurance, fear of 'crowd-out' by more generous public provisions of financing, and perverse incentives set up by current reimbursement mechanisms." For solutions, Haaga suggested we take a closer look at the Community Living and Supportive Services Act of 2010, which aims to help adults with severe functional impairments obtain the services and supports they need to stay functional and independent, while providing them with choices about community participation, education and employment. For further information on the symposium go to: http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/healthcareandaging.aspx. |
American Academy Study: Scientists Need to Understand the Public More In 2008, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences began a study, Improving the Scientific Community's Understanding of Public Concerns about Science and Technology, to determine what the science community knows or more importantly should know about the public.
The American Academy held four workshops that included members of the scientific community and the public, and focused on the role scientists and the public play in shaping conversations and policy. The workshops discussed four topics, The Next Generation of the Internet, Public Perceptions of Nuclear Waste Repositories, The Spread of Personal Genetic Information, and Risks and Benefits of Emerging Energy Technologies.
Four common themes emerged from these sessions that can help create better engagement between science and the public: heterogeneity, it is important to remember that members of the scientific community and the public are a heterogeneous group; trust, more must be done to gain and retain the public's trust; education, while the public needs more science education, scientists also need to be educated about the public's opinions, concerns and motivations; and communication, the scientific community needs to learn to communicate better with the public and do a better job of getting its message out.
Based on the findings from the workshops, the report makes four recommendations for the scientific community. First, they recommend that scientists and engineers should seek out public input at the start of their research and continue to engage the public throughout the process. Second, they recommend scientists should consider the "non-technical and value-based concerns of the public in addition to technical concerns." Third, the scientific community should engage more with social scientists and make better use of social science research and data to gain a greater understanding of the public and their views on science and technology. Lastly, scientists and engineers need to create opportunities to establish and maintain the public's trust and confidence.
The Academy hopes that the study will provide "a unique opportunity for scientists and representatives of the public to examine the scientist-public relationship from a new viewpoint."
To find out more about the study please go to the American Academy's website at: www.amacad.org/events/scientistsPublic/scientistsPublic.aspx. Also at the site is science writer Chris Mooney's essay, Do Scientists Understand the Public?, based on the study, and a video of a recent event Scientists' Understanding of the Public. |
NSF Seeks Proposals at the Interface Between Computer Science and the Social and Economic Sciences
The National Science Foundation (NSF), continuing with its emphasis on supporting research at interdisciplinary boundaries, has announced a competition for projects that use computational thinking for economic and social decision problems and/or idea from economic and other social sciences for computing and communication system and multi-agent systems. The due date for full proposals is October 5, 2010.
According to NSF, the histories and intellectual approaches of social and economic science and computer science have been strongly influenced by the crosscurrents among them. Worst-case computational complexity analysis, so prevalent in computer science, is a form of game-theoretic analysis - perhaps not surprising considering that one of the founders of game theory, John von Neumann, was also a pioneering figure in computer science. Game theory is widely used in social and economic science. Social and economic scientists use concepts that are linked to computer science. For example, decision scientists and economists consider the bounded rationality of individuals making economic decisions; one aspect of bounded rationality is that economic agents may be limited by their "computational" resources, for example in evaluating complicated strategic situations.
The ubiquity of socio-technical networks has led to new, more intimate ties between these two fields. New kinds of interactions and transactions have been enabled by such networks. Key features of these new transactions include: parties who do not know or trust each other; parties represented by software agents; and real-time adaptation, decision making, and chain reactions by agents.
Designing decision mechanisms that can govern these increasingly important types of transactions in ways that meet criteria such as fairness, revenue maximization, or efficient resource use is a challenge that requires the expertise of both social and economic scientists and computer scientists.
Internet traffic (as well as physical traffic on our road networks), email, the use of network bandwidth, the allocation of computing resources to competing processes, etc., may be managed using economic and social choice mechanisms to achieve better utilization and reduction of the nuisance and harm caused by intruders and spammers. Good incentive mechanisms are also needed to mediate the interactions among infrastructure providers, service providers, and clients for computing and communication infrastructure. Mechanisms are also important in driving multi-agent software systems towards socially desirable goals. These questions may require a new understanding of simultaneous collaboration and competition among economic agents.
Computational thinking has the potential to change the types of questions considered by social and economic scientists. Theories of strategic learning by computational agents, studied both in economics and computer science, can shed light on the dynamics of how agents arrive at equilibria. Theories of the spread of contagion or gossip in networks can help explain and contain the chain reactions that can arise. Social/behavioral/economic and computer scientists can jointly study the dynamic functioning and evolution of social and economic networks with mutual benefit to both fields of study. Some important examples of such systems are recommender systems, voting systems, and reputation management systems.
Illustrative examples of the kinds of research this program seeks to support can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/cise/ccf/ices_pgm.jsp. In this competition, NSF will not support computational economics research involving simulation and modeling of economic systems.
NSF expects to have $11.5 million available to make 20 to 30 awards.
For further information contact: Nancy A. Lutz, Economics Program Director, (703) 292-7280 or nlutz@nsf.gov. The full solicitation is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10583/nsf10583.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click. |
NSF Seeks Advice on How to Broaden Participation in the STEM Workforce
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is soliciting community input as part of program planning for how to catalyze next-generation capacity to produce a diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce with 21st century knowledge and skills.
The FY 2011 budget request includes a new program with the working title "Comprehensive Broadening Participation of Undergraduates in STEM" (CBP-US). The goal of CBP-US is to enrich the quality and innovation potential of tomorrow's STEM workforce through comprehensive broadening participation of undergraduates in STEM. NSF has produced a draft concept paper for which it seeks community comment. The concept paper is available at: http://nsf.gov/od/broadeningparticipation/nsf_ehr_cbp-usdraftconceptpaper_100518.pdf.
This issue becomes imperative because of the projections for the U.S. workforce in the near future. The Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational projections for 2018 show that 10 of the top 30 fastest-growing occupations will come in STEM fields and will require at least bachelors-level degrees.
Currently NSF has three programs - the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP), the Historically Black Colleges and University Undergraduate program (HBCU-UP) and the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) to facilitate learning and research by undergraduate students from underrepresented groups pursuing STEM careers. This has helped increase the number of these students planning to major in STEM fields, but studies indicate a continuing problem with completion rates.
NSF suggests that these existing programs "should serve as a foundation for a new approach" that:
· combines expertise developed previously in separate programs to promote sustainable partnerships and alliances among the historically black colleges and universities,
Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, and Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation institutions with strong track records in preparing underrepresented STEM graduates, thereby building capacity for the STEM field across a range of institutions;
· promotes strengthening of STEM curricular offerings, enhancements in STEM faculty development, and increases in competencies and competitiveness of students at minority-serving institutions and majority institutions with strong track records in recruiting and retaining underrepresented STEM graduates;
· supports transformation of the infrastructure, operations, and resources at minority-serving institutions to promote excellence in science and engineering education and research across the Nation's largest producers of underrepresented STEM graduates at the baccalaureate level;
· increases support for and engagement in frontier scientific research and access to advanced research instrumentation for STEM faculty and students at minority-serving institutions in preparation for global competitiveness, with particular scientific disciplinary focus in areas of high national priority;
· stimulates innovation and creativity from the Nation's education and research enterprise through support of effective collaborations between minority-serving and majority institutions, especially research-intensive universities with NSF Science and Technology Centers (STCs), Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECs), and Engineering Research Centers (ERCs);
· maximizes undergraduate research opportunities across the nation's minority-serving and majority institutions for students underrepresented in STEM fields; and
· facilitates expanded collaboration between scientists and educators at minority-serving institutions with those at majority institutions increasing the effectiveness of STEM education.
Comments about the concept paper and this nascent program should be sent to bpstem@nsf.gov. NSF would appreciate comments sent by August 1.
For further information concerning NSF's Broadening Participation programs, please contact: Dr. Fae Korsmo, 703-292-8003 or fkorsmo@nsf.gov. |
University of Missouri, St. Louis Joins COSSA
The University of Missouri, St. Louis is COSSA's newest member. COSSA's looks forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with the university.
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Consortium of Social Science Associations
Members |
GOVERNING MEMBERS
American Association for Public Opinion Research
American Economic Association
American Educational Research Association
American Historical Association
American Political Science Association
American Psychological Association
American Society of Criminology
American Sociological Association
American Statistical Association
Association of American Geographers
Association of American Law Schools
Law and Society Association
Linguistic Society of America
Midwest Political Science Association
National Communication Association
Population Association of America
Rural Sociological Society
Society for Research in Child Development
MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
American Association for Agricultural Education
Association for Asian Studies
Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management
Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations
Association of Research Libraries
American Psychosomatic Society
Council on Social Work Education
Eastern Sociological Society
International Communication Association
Justice Research and Statistics Association
Midwest Sociological Society
National Association of Social Workers
North American Regional Science Council
North Central Sociological Association
Social Science History Association
Society for Behavioral Medicine
Society for Research on Adolescence
Society for Social Work and Research
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
Southern Political Science Association
Southern Sociological Society
Southwestern Social Science Association
CENTERS AND INSTITUTES
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences
American Council of Learned Societies
American Institutes for Research
Brookings Institution
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
Institute for Women's Policy Research
National Bureau of Economic Research
National Opinion Research Center
Population Reference Bureau
Social Science Research Council |
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Arizona State University
Brown University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
Carnegie-Mellon University
University of Connecticut University of Chicago
Clark University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Georgetown University
George Mason University
George Washington University
Harvard University
Howard University
University of Illinois
Indiana University
University of Iowa
Iowa State University
Johns Hopkins University
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Kansas State University
University of Maryland
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse
University of Michigan
Michigan State University
University of Missouri, St. Louis University of Minnesota Mississippi State University
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
New York University
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
University of Oklahoma
University of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
University of South Carolina
Stanford University
State University of New York, Stony Brook
University of Texas, Austin
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