As we have been reporting over the last several weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives has been busy considering legislation to reauthorize the America COMPETES Act, landmark legislation first enacted in 2007 to reignite U.S. investment in scientific research.  It serves as authorizing legislation for the National Science Foundation (NSF), among other agencies.  The House version of COMPETES reauthorization is a major departure from earlier versions, garnering deep opposition from the broader scientific community, including from COSSA. Among the many problematic provisions in the bill is language to cut NSF's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) directorate by half.  Despite widespread opposition, the House passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2015 (H.R. 1806) on May 20 by a narrow margin (217-205).  The COMPETES bill now heads to the Senate, where we don't expect to see any action until later in the summer or fall.

The Census Bureau issued a Federal Register Notice on May 29 outlining its proposal for updating the content and methodologies of the American Community Survey (ACS). As previously reported the Census Bureau proposes to retain the field of degree and marriage questions originally slated for elimination from the ACS beginning in 2016.  In addition, the proposal plans to remove a couple of other questions that have been deemed of no or low benefit.  The Notice states these changes are an "initial step in a multi-faceted approach to reducing respondent burden."

Public comment on the proposal is due by June 28; the proposal will be submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for clearance. 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking feedback (NOT-OD-15-107) to help it in creating a national research cohort of one million or more Americans as part of the President's proposed Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) (see Update, May 19, 2015).  The agency is specifically interested in feedback relating to the development and implementation of effective community engagement strategies for the cohort, and the ability to conduct transformative research to address health disparities.  The aim is to assemble a "cohort reflective of the rich diversity of the U.S. population."

Read on for more details.

The first of the 2015 Golden Goose Awards, which recognize federally funded research that has had unanticipated societal and economic benefits, will go to three psychologists, Walter Mischel, Philip Peake, Yuichi Shoda, for their work related to self-control in children. In the late 1960s, Mischel developed the "marshmallow test" as a simple way to measure children's ability to delay gratification. However, follow-up studies revealed an unexpected correlation between ability to exert self-control at a young age and success later in life. The work has had an enormous impact on our understanding of human behavior and changed the way we approach a whole host of topics from early childhood education to retirement planning. More information on the research is available on the Golden Goose website.

The researchers, along with the other still-unnamed Golden Goose Award recipients, will be honored at a ceremony in September. COSSA is a sponsor of the awards.

The Census Project held an informational briefing, The Census Bureau's American Community Survey: Ten Years of Delivering Data for Smart Decision-Making, on May 27 that focused on the wide use of data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) and the reasons to support keeping the survey mandatory. COSSA was one of the cosponsors of this event.  Read on for details. 

The Board on Children, Youth, and Families (BCYF) at the National Research Council is inviting applications for a new Board Director. The Director is responsible for overseeing activities of the Board, which "brings a multidisciplinary and evidence-based perspective to bear on the development of policies and programs for children, youth, and families, drawing upon the collective knowledge and analytic tools of the behavioral, health and social sciences." More information and application instructions are available here.