Executive Branch News
The Reestablished NIH Scientific Management Review Board Schedules First Meeting
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reestablished the Scientific Management Review Board (SMRB) to review the agency’s structure and research portfolio and make recommendations to the NIH director. While SMRB was originally created by Congress in 2006, the review board hasn’t met or issued any reports since 2015 (see previous COSSA coverage). In response to growing Congressional criticism of the NIH, including Republican discontent about the handling of COVID-19 (see previous COSSA coverage), SMRB has scheduled their initial meeting for November 12 to review the NIH’s mission, structure, and budget as well as SMRB’s history and future directions. Notably,…
OBSSR Releases 2025-2029 Strategic Plan
On October 15, the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) released its Strategic Plan for 2025-2029. This is OBSSR’s fourth strategic plan in its 27-year history. The plan, which was developed over the last three years with input from the stakeholder community, also reflects recommendations made in recent years by two NIH Council of Councils working groups on Trans-NIH Research Opportunities in the Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences (2021) and Integration of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at NIH (2022). The new strategic plan emphasizes health equity as a crosscutting theme and identifies three research priorities: (1) Coordinating and promoting…
NSF Researchers Awarded Physics Nobel Prize
John Hopfield at Princeton University and Geoffrey Hinton at the University of Toronto, Canada were awarded the physics Nobel Prize for their research on artificial neural networks. The Nobel laureates received several funding grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), including Hinton’s award for the Search Methods for Massively Parallel Networks from the Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS) program, to support this work. Following the announcement, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan praised, “The laureates brought their understanding of the fundamental physical workings of nature into a new realm and created an entirely new foundation that has led to what we…
NIJ Seeks Input into Public Access Plan
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), is seeking stakeholder input into the development of its Public Access Plan. NIJ is interested in hearing from NIJ grantees, criminal justice practitioners, researchers, publishers, and other interested parties. Development of the plan aligns with the Biden Administration’s 2022 directive that federal agencies make peer-reviewed publications resulting from federal funding freely available to the public immediately following publication. However, it is important to note that given its size, NIJ is not required to comply with the 2022 memorandum, unlike larger federal science agencies (e.g., National Institute of…
NSF Launches New Directorate Profiles Resource
The National Science Foundation (NSF) launched a new resource within the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). This new resource provides profiles on the seven NSF directorates including the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) and includes visualizations on research doctorate recipients from US academic institutions for fields of science and engineering. With data sourced from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) and the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), this tool was designed to present data on the directorates in a more accessible and visually appealing way. A link to the full resource can be found here….
Dr. Adam Gamoran Nominated by Biden as Next IES Director
On September 9, President Biden nominated Dr. Adam Gamoran as the next Director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). If confirmed, Gamoran would replace the current Acting Director, Dr. Matthew Soldner, who has been serving since the departure of Dr. Mark Schneider in April 2024. Gamoran is a sociologist with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin who currently serves as the President of the William T. Grant Foundation, a charity organization dedicated to research that improves the lives of young people. Before his role at the William T. Grant Foundation, Gamoran held the John D. MacArthur Chair in Sociology and…
Friends of BLS Urge Congress to Provide Appropriations for Modernizing CPS
On September 24, the Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), of which COSSA is a member, urged the House and Senate Appropriations Committees through a sign-on letter to modernize the Current Population Survey (CPS) with additional funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Jointly sponsored by BLS and the Census Bureau, CPS collects labor force statistics data to help inform the status of the social and economic welfare of the country. Two years of flat funding have required CPS to decrease the sample size of the population survey, creating a detrimental impact on important federal data collection. With 120 signatures, the letter details…
NSB 2025 Honorary Awards Nominations are Open
The National Science Board (NSB) is now welcoming nominations for its 2025 Honorary Awards. There are two awards for which nominations can be submitted: Deadline for nominations is October 9. Details on the two awards can be found on the NSB website.
Request for Input: NSF Seeking Input on Research Ethics
Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a Dear Colleague Letter requesting public input into the agency’s efforts to “incorporate ethical, social, safety, and security considerations into the merit review process” as required by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. Section 10343 of the CHIPS Act states, “a number of emerging areas of research have potential ethical, social, safety, and security implications that might be apparent as early as the basic research stage…[T]he incorporation of ethical, social, safety, and security considerations into the research design and review process for Federal awards may help mitigate potential harms before they happen.” The…
NSF, NSB Want to Hear Your Thoughts on Merit Review Process
In recent weeks, the National Science Board (NSB), the governing and oversight body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), has issued a Dear Colleague letter requesting public input into the Board’s ongoing review of NSF’s merit review criteria and process. As previously reported, the NSB-NSF Commission on Merit Review (MRX) was formed following passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which required NSF to commission a review of how “broader impacts” criterion are being applied in the merit review process across the agency. The NSB chose to broaden the review to the entire merit review process, which has not had a holistic look…
NSF Establishes Research Security Center
Last month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the establishment of the Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE) center. According to an NSF press release, the new entity, led by the University of Washington in collaboration with several institutions, “will serve as a clearinghouse for information to empower the research community to identify and mitigate foreign interference that poses risks to the U.S. research enterprise. The SECURE Center will share information and reports on research security risks, provide training on research security to the science and engineering community and serve as a bridge between the research community and…
The Census Bureau Requests Public Input on Timeline for New Race and Ethnicity Standards
The Census Bureau, is requesting public input on the timeline of introducing the new race and ethnicity standards to the American Community Survey (ACS) outlined in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive No.15 (SPD 15) (see previous COSSA coverage). The request for information (RFI) is seeking to understand the impacts of implementing the new standards in 2026, for dissemination of the ACS in 2027, versus 2027, for dissemination of the ACS in 2028. Comments can be submitted here, or emailed to [email protected] with the subject line “ACS SPD 15,” prior to the August 12 deadline.
White House Issues Research Security Guidelines to Agencies and ‘Covered Institutions’
On July 9, the Biden Administration issued a memorandum on Guidelines for Research Security Programs at Covered Institutions. The document provides guidance to federal research agencies as they implement research security certification requirements set by National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM)-33, the hallmark research security policy that has been in development since early 2021, and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. Under these acts, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is responsible for “developing a ‘standardized requirement’ for ‘uniform implementation’ across federal research agencies.” This latest memo serves as that standardized requirement. Informed by input received from inside and outside the…
OSTP Provides Update on Estimated Open Access Publishing Costs
In June, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released an update to a November 2023 Report to Congress on Financing Mechanisms for Open Access Publishing of Federally Funded Research (see previous COSSA coverage). The report responds to a directive included in the final fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations bill requiring OSTP to provide additional information with respect to financing mechanisms for open access publishing of federally funded research, as well as potential impacts of federal public access policies on peer review and research integrity. OSTP provided initial cost estimates to Congress in 2022 and late 2023. This latest report provides: additional information on…
NIH Issues RFI on Draft Public Access Policy
On June 18, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a request for information (RFI) to obtain public comments on the NIH Draft Public Access Policy. The RFI is also seeking feedback on two supplemental draft guidance documents pertaining to government use license and rights, and costs for publications. The draft NIH policy responds to the August 2022 memorandum issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announcing new requirements for federal agencies to make peer-reviewed publications resulting from federal funding freely available to the public immediately following publication. NIH previously sought input into the development of their policy in February 2023….
NCER Opens Applications for Two Competitions
The National Center for Education Research (NCER), a center within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the Department of Education, announced they are seeking applications for two competitions: “From Seedlings to Scale” and “Research Networks Focused on Critical Problems of Education Policy and Practice” (see previous COSSA coverage). Through the “From Seedlings to Scale” program, IES plans to invest in innovative products, policies, and processes within a particular focus area. Their three-phase plan will allow ideas to grow from seedlings to scalable solutions. Applications are now available for Phase One where teams will define a problem, refine a solution, and build…
OSTP Releases RFI on Disability Equity for Data Collection
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released a request for information (RFI) on the Federal Evidence Agenda of Disability Equity. The RFI is a part of the ongoing efforts outlined in the Presidential Executive Order Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (see previous COSSA coverage). The RFI is intended to influence the Federal Agenda of Disability Equity on topics such as disparities faced by individuals with disabilities as well as areas for improvement and the development of safeguards within federal data collection for individuals with disabilities. A list of the questions asked…
White House Issues Blueprint for Use of Social and Behavioral Science in Policymaking
Last month, the White House released a report promoting better use of social and behavioral science research in evidence-based policymaking across the federal government. This document places a long-overdue spotlight on the social and behavioral sciences and their utility in addressing some of the country’s most pressing challenges. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking in May. The blueprint is the product of nearly two years of work by social and behavioral science experts from across federal agencies and departments. The development of a framework for social…
NCSES To Include Questions about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity for Survey of Earned Doctorates
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its intention to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in their annual Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). The survey collects data on Ph.D. recipients, including gender, race, disability status, educational background, and career plans, and allows researchers and policymakers to track diversity in the U.S. STEM pipeline. NSF released a report, 2024 Survey of Earned Doctorates SOGI Data Collection Experiment Summary, which outlines the process the agency took to come to the conclusion to include questions on sexual orientation and gender identity to modernize the survey. The data collection for SED is expected to begin shortly with…
NIMH Seeks Feedback on Current Strategic Plan for Research
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is seeking feedback on its current Strategic Plan for Research to improve the potential usability, effectiveness, and impact of future strategic plans. The Strategic Plan for Research guides the NIMH and outlines the institute’s priorities, spanning fundamental science to public health impact. The deadline for feedback is July 24 and responses can be submitted here.