A staple since COSSA’s 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.
September Headlines to Feature Deep Dive Discussion with Dr. Annette Anderson of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools
COSSA members are encouraged to sign up for the monthly Headlines webchat on Thursday, September 10 at 2:00 pm Eastern Time. The COSSA team will break down the most important social and behavioral science news from the past month, followed by a deep dive discussion with Dr. Annette Anderson, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools. Individuals employed by or affiliated with a COSSA member organization or university can register for the webchat here. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
Fate of FY 2021 Funding and Coronavirus Relief in Limbo as Congress Returns
Lawmakers return from summer recess next week, leaving only 16 working days to act on funding legislation before fiscal year (FY) 2021 begins on October 1. As previously reported, the House passed its version of the FY 2021 appropriations bills in July, while the Senate has yet to release details of its bills. It is a near certainty that FY 2021 will begin under a continuing resolution (CR). Since it is an election year—one with major potential funding consequences—history suggests that a shorter CR will be enacted to keep the government running through the November elections. The next steps after…
White House Outlines FY 2022 R&D Budget Priorities
On August 14, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum laying out the Trump Administration’s research and development budget (R&D) priorities for fiscal year (FY) 2022. The memo cites five key White House priorities and four “high-priority crosscutting actions” for U.S. federal agencies to consider as they develop their FY 2022 budget submissions. While the FY 2022 memo shares similar priorities to R&D memos from previous fiscal years, a notable difference is the inclusion of public health security and innovation as a priority in light of the…
Stakeholders Rally to Salvage 2020 Census
With less than a month remaining before the Census Bureau plans to end all of its counting efforts for the 2020 Census, advocates are actively working to force the Bureau to take more time to ensure an accurate count. As previously reported, the Census Bureau announced in August that it would shorten its counting efforts by a full month, moving up its deadline from October 31 to September 30. According to the Bureau, the shortened timeframe is needed to in order to produce statutorily mandated apportionment counts by the end of the year. The House’s most recent coronavirus relief bill…
NIMH Requesting Comments on Improving Mental Health Disparities
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is requesting stakeholder comments to inform potential research seeking to improve mental health outcomes among minority and health disparity populations. The request specifically seeks input on how certain social determinants can affect mental health outcomes, how racial discrimination may affect mental health outcomes, potentially understudied social or behavioral determinants of mental health, ideas or innovations to reduce mental health disparities, promising interventions to treat mental health disparities, tools to properly measure mental health outcomes, and ideas on preventing racial discrimination at the individual, family, or community…
Applications Open for FY 2020 Title VI International Research and Studies Program
The International and Foreign Language Education Office (IFLE) within the U.S. Department of Education is accepting applications for the International Research and Studies (IRS) program for fiscal year (FY) 2020. The IRS program provides competitive grants to institutions and individuals to conduct research on improving education in foreign language and other international fields. Each year, the IRS program awards up to five additional points to applications that meet one of several competitive preference priorities. The priorities for FY 2020 are: Research on more effective methods of providing instruction and achieving competency in modern foreign languages, area studies, or other international…
SEAN Releases Guidance on Contact Tracing
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN) (see COSSA’s previous coverage) has released a new rapid expert consultation, Encouraging Participation and Cooperation in Contact Tracing. The guidance draws on survey research to provide federal, state, and local decision-makers, with evidence-based strategies to enhance contact tracing efforts, such as partnering with trusted sources, offering incentives, giving advance notice, tailoring messaging, and accepting partial information. The guidance is available on the National Academies website. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
Nominations Open for 2021 Moynihan Prize
The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) is now accepting nominations for the annual Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize in Social Science and Public Policy. The Moynihan Prize was created to recognize social scientists, public officials, and civic leaders who champion the use of informed judgment to advance the public good. The winner is recognized at a formal event to be (tentatively) held in 2021 and receives a $20,000 prize. The nomination form can be found here and nominations will be accepted until October 16, 2020. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
APSA Launches Campaign to Increase Student Voting, Civic Engagement
The American Political Science Association (APSA), a COSSA governing member, has launched a campaign to encourage participation in the political process on college campuses. The RAISE (Resources to Amplify and Increase Student Engagement) the Vote initiative aims to provide the tools needed to effectively encourage student registration, voting, and democratic engagement. It provides concrete steps and best practices that faculty can use in the classroom and on campus to encourage student engagement and highlights the research, teaching, and service of APSA members related to civic engagement and voting, encouraging faculty to use these resources in their classrooms. More information about…
Congress Struggling to Reach Agreement on COVID-19 Relief, Potentially Delaying August Recess
Congressional leaders continue to negotiate with the White House on what many suspect could be the final COVID-19 relief bill, and the House, Senate and Trump Administration remain far apart on their preferred approaches. While the House passed a relief bill—the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act—in May, the Senate has only recently introduced its counterpart proposal, the Healthcare, Economic Assistance, Liability, And Schools (HEALS) Act. Though the Senate is scheduled to begin its August recess on Friday August 7, policymakers are reportedly pessimistic about reaching a deal before then. Senate leaders are expected to delay the…
COSSA Board Seeks Nominations for At-Large Seat
The COSSA Board of Directors is seeking nominations to fill one (1) at-large director seat on the COSSA Board of Directors for the 2021-2023 term. The Board of Directors is comprised of 19 members: 16 representing COSSA’s Governing Member Associations and 3 at-large directors. At-large seats are intended to bring to the table other influential voices with interests touching social and behavioral science research. They may include social science researchers and/or researchers whose work spans disciplinary boundaries, university administrators, professional association leaders, private sector or foundation representatives, or others who would offer a unique perspective to COSSA. At-large directors serve…
August Headlines Webinar to Feature Deep Dive Discussion on the “Psychology of COVID-19” with Dr. Stephen Reicher
COSSA members are encouraged to sign up for the monthly Headlines webchat on Thursday, August 13 at 2:00 pm Eastern Time. The COSSA team will break down the most important social and behavioral science news from the past month, followed by a deep dive discussion with Dr. Stephen Reicher, Wardlaw Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews and co-author of Together Apart: The Psychology of COVID-19, a free book from SAGE Publishing that “examines the psychology surrounding the current pandemic and makes recommendations for how to do that right thing and with a reasonable hope of deploying the right…
Controversial Research Security Legislation Could Move Forward in COVID-19 Relief Package
The Senate has incorporated the Safeguarding American Innovation Act (S. 3997) into the HEALS Act, the Republican-led Senate version of a new COVID-19 economic relief package (see related article). The Safeguarding American Innovation Act, sponsored by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Tom Carper (D-DE), is sweeping legislation that aims to tighten the security of the U.S. research enterprise against competing governments, most notably the Chinese government, by imposing restrictions on collaborating with foreign entities. However, the bill has been criticized by many in the research community for being too restrictive and for potentially discouraging foreign scientists from working in the…
Defense Authorization Bill Goes to Conference with Minerva Funding Intact
The House and Senate are set to begin negotiations on the annual authorizing legislation for the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House passed its bill on July 21, with the Senate following suit on July 23. As previously reported, the bills passed by both chambers included language to prevent the elimination of Defense-wide funding for DOD’s basic social science research program, the Minerva Research Initiative, as has been proposed in the Administration’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2021. The agreement on funding for Minerva in both bills is a positive sign that funding…
Census Announces Early End to 2020 Operations, Jeopardizing Accuracy of the Count
Census Bureau Director Stephen Dillingham announced that the Census Bureau will cut short its counting operations for the 2020 Census by a full month in order to produce apportionment counts by its legally mandated deadline of December 31, 2020. According to the announcement, the Census Bureau will end field data and self-response collection on September 30, rather than October 31 as previously planned. This change comes months after the Census Bureau itself asked Congress to delay the deadline for producing apportionment counts in order to allow more time to recover from the delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the…
NIDA Seeking Comments on 2021-2025 Strategic Plan
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking stakeholder feedback on the draft version of its upcoming 2021-2025 Strategic Plan. The strategic plan is intended to guide the agency’s research priorities for the next five years by outlining cross-cutting research topics and approaches. NIDA’s draft strategic plan highlights several research topics that are relevant to the social and behavioral science community, including: Identifying and developing approaches to reduce stigma, Identifying and developing approaches to reduce health disparities, Understanding differences based on sex and gender, and Understanding interactions between substance use, HIV, and…
Research Applications Increase in Wake of COVID-19 Shutdowns, NIH Finds
A recent blog post from Mike Lauer, Deputy Director for Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), highlights how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected extramural research applications at NIH and how application rates compare to previous years. According to data collected by NIH, the number of R01-equivalent applications received by NIH between May 1 and June 5 of 2020 was 10 percent higher than the same period in 2019. The data also reflects more than a 10 percent increase of applications across all research project grants between 2020 and 2019. In addition to the spike in applications…
SEAN Releases New Guidance on Protective Behaviors to Stem COVID-19
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Societal Experts Action Network (SEAN) (see COSSA’s previous coverage) has released a new rapid expert consultation, Encouraging Adoption of Protective Behaviors to Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19. The guidance, which draws on research from communication, social psychology, and behavioral economics as well as lessons learned from successful public health campaigns such as tobacco prevention and seatbelt use, offers a set of strategies to make adoption of preventive behaviors more likely as well as risk communication strategies. It is available both as a short infographic and as a more detailed report. Back to…