A staple since COSSAâs earliest days, the biweekly COSSA Washington Update newsletter provides members and the public with comprehensive coverage of policy developments impacting social and behavioral science research.Â
National Academies Seeking Applications for 2021 Cohort of New Voices Initiative
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has announced the opening of the 2021 application cycle for the New Voices initiative, a two-year program giving leadership opportunities to a diverse group of mid-career experts to collaborate and develop interdisciplinary solutions to complex problems being addressed by the National Academies. The New Voices initiative is open to U.S-based scientists, engineers, health professionals, and other experts from all professional sectors including industry, academia, non-profits, and the public sector. Applications are due March 31, 2021 and are available on the NASEM website. More information about the New Voices initiative is also…
Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Ed Launches Partner Network
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education has launched a new Partner Network to include a range of higher education-focused organizations in sharing their work to prevent and address sexual harassment in higher education. The Collaborative was created in 2019 to facilitate the work of higher education institutions in developing and implementing efforts that move beyond basic legal compliance to evidence-based policies and practices for preventing sexual harassment. Sixty colleges, universities, and research institutions are currently members. The Partner Network was created to engage other types of organizations in…
New Guidance Advises Communities on Planning for Natural Disasters During COVID-19
The Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN), a project of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), has released a new set of guidance on Emergency Evacuation and Sheltering During the COVID-19 Pandemic, which details how findings from existing research on evacuation behavior, social responses to disaster, and risk communication can be applied to emergency management in the era of COVID-19. The guidance identifies strategies for updating evacuation plans, sheltering operations, and risk communication practices in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full guidance is available on the National Academies website.
SEAN Releases New Expert Consultation on COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicineâs Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN) (see COSSAâs previous coverage) has published a new rapid expert consultation, Building COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence. The guidance compiles research-backed strategies for effectively reaching vulnerable communities and skeptical populations to provide trustworthy information about the COVID-19 vaccine. The consultation is available as an interactive web tool, with highlights on Strategies for Public Engagement to Combat Mistrust and Build COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence and Communication Strategies for Promoting COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance. The report is also available as a full report on the National Academies website.
COSSA Releases 2021 Rankings of Federal Support for Social Science Research at U.S. Colleges and Universities
On February 16, COSSA released its 2021 College and University Rankings for Federal Social and Behavioral R&D, which highlight the top university recipients of federal research dollars in the social and behavioral sciences. This yearâs rankings feature a dashboard with an interactive map of recipients of social and behavioral science R&D funding so you can see how your university stacks up among more than 500 U.S. institutions. Based on the most recent available federal data, the COSSA rankings use an inclusive selection of fields representing the breadth of the social and behavioral sciences to calculate the total federal R&D funding received by…
FROM THE ARCHIVES: 106th Congress Opens for Business: Impeachment Dominates Early Agenda (January 11, 1999)
In celebration of COSSA’s 40th anniversary, we are diving into the decades of Washington Update archives to share articles from years past that resonate with today’s news. On January 6th, the 106th Congress commenced. The following day the Senate opened the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. The House, which ended the 105th Congress by impeaching the President in a bitter partisan debate and votes, chose a new Speaker who promised cooperation and a Democratic leader who talked of “burying the hatchet.” Bill Clinton is the first United States President impeached since Andrew Johnson in 1868. Yet, he retains the…
Congress Confronts Packed Post-Impeachment To-Do List
For the first time since taking office, the Biden Administration and 117th Congress can work without being consumed by the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill can now forge ahead on a COVID-19 relief package currently being negotiated and with confirmation hearings for Biden appointees. The House is looking to vote on a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package next week, which is expected to pass largely along party lines. The goal is for the House and Senate to send a completed package to the President by March 14 when current unemployment insurance relief expires. On…
Lawmakers Reintroduce RISE Act
On February 5, a bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act. As previously reported, the RISE Act seeks to provide funding relief to federal science agencies impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill would authorize $25 billion in emergency relief, including $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health and $3 billion for the National Science Foundation. Funding would be used to support non-COVID-related research that has been impacted or shuttered by the closure of labs resulting from the pandemic. This legislation is different from the $1.9 trillion COVID package discussed elsewhere in…
NSF Releases New âUnderstanding the Rules of Lifeâ Solicitation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is accepting applications for a new program within the Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Big Idea. The new program, Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks, seeks to support convergent research to understand the âârules of emergenceâ for networks of living systems and their environments,â described as the âinteractions among organismal, environmental, social, and human-engineered systems that are complex and often unexpected given the behaviors of these systems when observed in isolation.â More information is available in the full solicitation. The deadline for proposals is May 20, 2021.
CNSTAT Seeks Nominations for Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation Study
The Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a call for nominations for individuals to serve on a committee on Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The ad hoc committee will develop clear guidelines âoutlining the guiding principles and best practices for collecting sexual orientation and gender identity information in research and non-research surveys, along with medical and other administrative records in order to improve the NIHâs ability to identify and address the specific needs of these populations.â CNSTAT is seeking experts on…
Early Days of Biden Administration Marked by Slew of Executive Actions
Since Inauguration Day, President Bidenâs spate of executive orders and presidential declarations have focused primarily on undoing many of the damaging actions of the last Administration. As expected, several actions were taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic, such as mandating mask-wearing in federal facilities, appointment of a COVID-19 Response Coordinator, and providing economic relief to individuals and families struggling with unemployment and underemployment, eviction, and other effects of the pandemic. In addition, numerous executive actions directly address the U.S. scientific enterprise and U.S. participation in global scientific efforts. Discussed in this issue are several recent actions taken by the Biden…
Biden Administration Executive Actions: Equity & Inclusion
Another early Biden Administration executive order rescinded various Trump Administration actions that attempted to push back against perceived âpolitical correctnessâ by actions prohibiting trainings and other activities that touch on white privilege, structural inequality, implicit bias, and other supposedly âdivisiveâ concepts based on decades of social science research. President Bidenâs Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government goes beyond simply revoking the Trump Administration policies and instead sets a policy of actively working to improve racial equity government-wide. The Executive Order outlines a systematic approach for accurately assessing âwhether agency policies and…
Biden Administration Executive Actions: COVID-19
On January 21, President Biden issued an Executive Order ensuring that the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic would be guided by the best available science and data, further protecting from potential future public health threats. The Executive Order lays out several directives for federal agencies including focusing energy on building public health infrastructure, directing agency heads to share and coordinate COVID-19 data with other agencies, improving federal capacity for data collection practices, and reviewing existing public health data systems for potential areas for improvement. The Department of Health and Human Services is directed to ensure public health data systems…
Biden Administration Executive Actions: Climate Change
In addition to his day-one promise to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden has also issued executive orders directing federal agencies to review and, where appropriate, take corrective action to address or reverse actions of the Trump Administration that are found to be âharmful to public health, damaging to the environment, unsupported by the best available science, or otherwise not in the national interest.â On January 27, a detailed order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad was issued. Among other things, the order ensures that âclimate considerationsâ will have a place in U.S. foreign policy and…
Biden Administration Executive Actions: Scientific Integrity
On January 27, President Biden issued a Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking that states the Administrationâs policy to âmake evidence-based decisions guided by the best available science and dataâ and affirms that âscientific findings should never be distorted or influenced by political considerations.â The memorandum builds on and updates an Obama Administration Executive Order requiring federal agencies develop scientific integrity policies. President Bidenâs memorandum establishes a Task Force on Scientific Integrity that will review existing scientific integrity policies and recommend improvements. It also sets more detailed requirements for what should be included in…
Biden Executive Actions: Federal Workforce
On January 22, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce, which repealed several Trump-era executive actions affecting the civil service. Notably, the executive order revokes the controversial Schedule F excepted service category (see previous COSSA coverage), which would have reclassified some federal employees to be more prone to hiring and firing as if they were political appointees. The executive order is available on the White House website.
Biden Executive Actions: Immigration and Research Security
On January 20, President Biden issued a presidential proclamation ending several orders from the Trump Administration banning certain individuals from traveling to the United States, primarily, individuals from African countries and countries with large Muslim populations. The proclamation also reverses many Trump-era practices used to aggressively tighten immigration such as restrictions on the visa process and the intrusive screening of individualsâ social media accounts. At the same time, the Biden Administration has signaled potential actions related to the security of the U.S. research enterprise (see COSSAâs January 2020 and October 2020 Hot Topics for more info). In particular, the Biden…
Biden Administration Executive Actions: Census
Among the executive orders President Biden signed on his first day in office was an affirmation that Census population counts would reflect the total number of residents in each stateâregardless of their immigration or citizenship status. It has been the governmentâs longstanding practice for Census figures to be based on the âwhole number of persons in each stateâ (as described in the 14th Amendment). However, former President Trump had attempted to change this policy via executive actions to use administrative records to produce citizenship data and to exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment counts produced by the 2020 Census. President Bidenâs…
FROM THE ARCHIVES: 100th Congress Convenes: Democrats Take Charge; Deficit Still Looms (January 23, 1987)
In celebration of COSSA’s 40th anniversary, we are diving into the decades of Washington Update archives to share articles from years past that resonate with today’s news. The 100th Congress was sworn in January 6, 1987. Since then the Senate has organized and begun a series of hearings that make clear the impact of the switch to Democratic control. The House has moved much more slowly to organize and to resume its work. Details of the FY 1988 budget not included in the brief version released on January 5 will be unveiled the week of January 26. The President, burdened…