Issue 1 (January 1)

Curious about 2025 Social Science Advocacy Day? Do you have questions or want to know more about what to expect from the event? Join us for an informational webinar! We will be hosting a session to provide an overview of Advocacy Day, how to register, answer any questions, and more. Find the Zoom link below and come with your questions!

The webinar will be taking place on January 16 at 1pm EST. Register here.

At the end of last year, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees finalized a continuing resolution (CR) to push the deadline for fiscal year (FY) 2025 funding to March 14, kicking responsibility to the new Congress. The CR continues funding at FY 2024 levels and includes supplemental funding for federal disaster programs and a year-long extension to the Farm Bill. While Congress successfully averted a government shutdown, the impact of the new CR will likely be seen in delays to the FY 2026 appropriations process, which traditionally begins in February.

On January 3, the 119th Congress was sworn in at the Capitol. As expected, House Representative and current House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was reelected as Speaker, although his first vote was short of the majority required. While Speaker Johnson ultimately prevailed, the division within the Republican party is likely to continue throughout the session, making it difficult for legislation to pass despite the Republican trifecta. As previously indicated, completing FY 2025 funding will be an immediate priority for the new Congress, alongside confirming the presidential nominations of the incoming Trump Administration.

Stay tuned to COSSA’s coverage for all the details as the new Administration and Congress takes shape over the coming weeks.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released the final version of its public access policy in response to the August 2022 memorandum issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The memorandum announced new requirements for federal agencies to make peer-reviewed publications resulting from federal funding freely available to the public immediately following publication (see previous COSSA coverage). The new policy, finalized from the draft released in June 2024 (see previous COSSA coverage), is set to take effect on December 31, 2025, and provides clarification on the definitions of Article, Manuscript, Final Published Article, Official Date of Publication, and other terms in response to comments received from the stakeholder community. A detailed list of changes made to the public access policy, including summaries of the comments that led to the changes, can be found here.

Further, the NIH issued a request for information (RFI) seeking comments on a new plan to promote research findability and transparency, in response to the section “Mechanisms to Increase Findability and Transparency of Research” within the 2022 memorandum. The plan includes a commitment to “deliver on the promise of the Nation’s investment in research” through requiring NIH researchers to publicly identify research methods, basic information, (i.e. the location and timing of the research conducted), and how the research was funded. The plan also promotes the use of metadata, indicating intent to standardize the process across the NIH to allow researchers, clinicians, students, and other members of the community to more easily access research. The NIH is expected to adopt this plan with a new policy by December 31, 2026.

Comments are requested by February 21 and should be submitted here.

On December 22, President-elect Trump announced on Truth Social his picks for top White House science positions. Michael Kratsios, an alum of the first Trump Administration, will be nominated as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Kratsios previously served as Trump’s Chief Technology Officer and later as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in DOD. Kratsios will also serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, known commonly as the President’s Science Advisor. The OSTP position requires Senate confirmation, but the Science Advisor does not. Kratsios holds a BA in politics from Princeton University. If confirmed, he would replace Arati Prabhakar as OSTP Director.

Trump also named Lynne Parker as Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST), and Counselor to the OSTP Director. As previously reported, PCAST will be chaired by tech venture capitalist David Sacks. Parker, a computer scientist, previously served as Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Founding Director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office in the first Trump Administration. 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is seeking experts for a new consensus study on the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Homeland Security Statistics. These experts will work with the Office for Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS), housed within the Department of Homeland Security, to ensure statistics within the agency align with federal standards, enhancing “the relevance, credibility, objectivity, and public trust of their statistics to support evidence-based decision making”.

Experts are requested in the following areas:

• DHS programmatic and policy context
• Users and stakeholders of DHS statistics
• U.S. federal statistical system
• Statistical laws and regulatory frameworks
• Data governance
• Data access and confidentiality
• Data integration and linkage
• Statistical methodologies

Nominations can be submitted here by January 8.