A staple since COSSAās 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.Ā
COSSA Releases 2017 Rankings of Social and Behavioral Science Funding at Colleges and Universities
COSSA recently released its 2017 College and University Rankings for Federal Social and Behavioral Science R&D, whichĀ highlights the top university recipients of research dollars in the social and behavioral sciences. Nine of this yearās top 10 recipients of federal funding in the social and behavioral sciences are COSSA members.Ā Based on federally collected data, the COSSA rankings use an inclusive selection of fields to calculate the total federal R&D funding received by universities in the social and behavioral sciences. The 2017 rankings reflect spending from fiscal year 2015, the most current available data. You can find more information on how COSSA…
COSSA Joins Scientific Community in Calling for President-Elect to Name a Science Advisor
In a letter to the presidential transition team, COSSA Executive Director Wendy Naus joined the leadership of 28 other leading science organization in calling for President-Elect Trump to quickly appoint a qualified Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. They urge the President-Elect to name a candidate who is āa nationally respected leader with appropriate engineering, scientific, management and policy skills.ā The letter notes, āIf we are to maintain Americaās global leadership, and respond to the economic and security challenges currently facing the nation, we must build on our strong history of federal support for innovation, entrepreneurship and science…
New Issue of āSetting the Record Straight on āWasteful Researchāā
COSSA has released the latest issue ofĀ Setting the Record Straight on “Wasteful Research”Ā (PDF available here), a series of interviews with researchers whose work has been called out in Congressional wastebooks or other attacks. This series aims to give these scientists the chance to set the record straight about the value and potential of their work– and confront misconceptions about social science research funded by the federal government. This editionĀ features Megan Tracy (James Madison University), whose National Science Foundation-funded study on regulations in China’s dairy industry was one of the targets of Lamar Smith’s inquiry into NSF grants in 2013 and…
Congress Passes Stopgap Funding Bill, Adjourns
Congress passed another continuing resolution (CR) late in the evening on December 9, just a few hours before government funding would have run out. This stop-gap funding measure will keep the government funded until April 28, 2017. The bill, passed with the support of the incoming Trump Administration, will leave the fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations process unfinished and delay major spending decisions to the next Congress and next Administration. The text of the Continuing Resolution is available here. For full details of the FY 2017 spending debate as it pertains to social science research, check out COSSAās coverage. Back…
21st Century Cures Act Becomes Law
In a display of bipartisanship, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act. The House overwhelmingly passed an updated version of the bill (H.R. 34) on November 30 by a vote of 392 to 26. On December 7, the Senate followed suit with its consideration of the bill and passed it by a recorded vote of 94 to 5. President Obama signed the bill onĀ December 13. The comprehensive bill provides an infusion of funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), directs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve drugs and devices with greater urgency, provides resources…
Last-Ditch Effort to Pass āCOMPETESā Legislation Falls Short
In a last-minute show of bipartisanship, the Senate passed the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (S. 3084) before adjourning for the year. However, given that the House had already effectively adjourned for the remainder of the 114th Congress, the bill will not become law this year. It may resurface early in the next Congress; however, given all of the questions surrounding the incoming Trump Administration, future consideration is not guaranteed. Before the House adjourned, House and Senate Committees had been quietly conferencing S. 3084 with the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act (H.R. 1806) over the last several weeks. As previously reported,…
GOP Chairmen Send Letter of Support for NIH Director; Maryland Lawmaker Expresses Interest in Leading Agency
On December 2, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and House and Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairmen Tom Cole (R-OK) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) sent a letter to President-elect Trumpās transition team, urging the new administration to retain National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins. The chairmen state that Collins is the āright person, at the right timeā to lead the NIH. They further emphasized that āunder his leadership with Congressā commitment to biomedical research as a national priority, the National Institutes of Health…
Healthier Lives Through Behavioral and Social Sciences Research: NIH OBSSR Releases Strategic Plan for 2017-2021
On November 23, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) officially released its Strategic Plan 2017-2021. The plan focuses on the scientific priorities and fundamental research challenges that āOBSSR is uniquely positioned to address,ā according to OBSSR Director William Riley. The overarching theme of the three āequally important scientific priorities identified in the plan ā¦ is to encourage a more cumulative and integrated behavioral and social science research enterprise that extends from basic science through the adoption of approaches to improve the nation’s health.ā Specifically, the three priorities are: Improve the synergy of…
U.S. Surgeon General Releases Landmark Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health
On November 17, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy released the first-ever Surgeon Generalās report on the substance abuse health afflicting communities. The comprehensive report,Ā Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon Generalās Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health, reviews the science of substance use, misuse, and disorders, providing an in-depth look with chapters covering neurobiology, prevention, treatment, recovery, health systems integration, as well as recommendations for the future.Ā It also calls for a ācultural shift in the way Americans talk about the issue,ā and recommends actions that can be taken to prevent and treat these conditions, as well as promote recovery….
Interagency Working Group on Language and Communication Seeks Input on R&D Report
The Interagency Working Group on Language and Communication (IWGLC) is seeking public input on its recently released report, which establishes a taxonomy to classify current federal research and development activities related to language and communication. Housed within the National Science and Technology Council, the IWGLC (charter) is made up of representatives from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Science Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, Department of Justice, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of Commerce, National Endowment for the Humanities,…
Federal Interagency Policy Group Targets Bias to Increase Diversity in STEM
On November 30, the Interagency Policy Group (IPG) established by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a report, Reducing the Impact of Bias in the STEM Workforce: Strengthening Excellence and Innovation and a companion digest. The report includes recommendations of actions and strategies the federal government can take to increase diversity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce āby mitigating the impact of implicit, institutional, or explicit bias that may exist in both the Federal Government and in federally funded institutions of higher education.ā Created in…
NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Holds Inaugural Research Festival
On December 2, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) held its inaugural NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival. The new annual event is designed to highlight the contributions of recently funded behavioral and social science projects to health research via presentations by extramural and NIH scientists from across the spectrum of disciplines. Panel discussions highlighted new directions for health-related behavioral and social science āaddressing the synergy of basic and applied research, innovations in methodology and measurement, and the adoption of research findings into practice.ā Welcoming festival participants, OBSSR Director William Riley…
HHS Office of Minority Health Releases Compendium of Publicly Available Datasets
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) recently announced the release of a new resource, the Compendium of Publicly Available Datasets and Other Data-Related Resources, to aid researchers, public health practitioners, and policymakers with data on health and health care disparities and social determinants of health. A free resource, the Compendium provides ādescriptions of and links to 132 public datasets and resources that include information about health conditions and other factors that impact the health of minority populations.ā The new resource was created by the Federal Interagency Health Equity Team of the National…
Call for White Papers: Social and Behavioral Sciences for National Security
The Board on Behavioral, Cognitive and Sensory Sciences at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is leading a decadal survey to identify opportunities for the social and behavioral sciences to contribute to the analytic responsibilities of the intelligence community. This survey, sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, includes two separate calls for white papers. The Board is currently calling for input from academics and researchers in the social and behavioral sciences with experience in intelligence and/or insight into the needs and challenges of the intelligence community with respect to the use of social and…
AERA Holds Six-City Centennial Lecture Series
As part of a year-long celebration of its centennial year, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), a COSSA governing member, is holding a Centennial Lecture Series, which reflects AERAās āfundamental commitment to connecting education research on significant issues to wide public and policy audiences across our country.ā The six-city series kicked off in Brooklyn in November 2016 and will continue through April 2017. Webcasts of the November 30 lecture featuring Patricia GĆ”ndara discussing Educating Immigrant Students and Emergent Bilinguals (In an Anti-Immigrant Era), and the December 6 lecture in Seattle with Bruce McCandliss on Early Education and the Brain: Making…
AAPSS Inducts 2017 Fellows
The American Academy of Political and Social Science, a COSSA member, has announced its 2017 class of Fellows. They include sociologist Lawrence Bobo (Harvard University); political scientist Margaret Levi (Stanford University); economist Timothy Smeeding (University of Wisconsin, Madison); psychologist Claude Steele (University of California, Berkley); and Martha Minow of Harvard Law School. COSSA congratulates these distinguished individuals on their achievement. Click here to read more about the 2017 class. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
Funding Opportunities
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research: Addressing Challenges in Food and Agriculture NIH Opportunities NCI: National Cancer Institute Youth Enjoy Science Research Education Program (R25) (PAR-17-059) NCI: NCI Transition Career Development Award to Promote Diversity (K22) (PAR-17-069) NCI: The NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00) (RFA-CA-17-014) NIA/NINR: Revision Awards to Institutional Training Programs to Advance Research on Alzheimers Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (T32) (PAR-17-072) NIAAA: Leveraging Electronic Health Records for Alcohol Services Research (R21/R33) (PAR-17-071) NIDA: Optimizing the HIV Care Continuum for Substance Abusing Populations at High-Risk and/or Living with HIV (R01) (RFA-DA-17-024) NIGMS: Innovative Programs…
Events Calendar
Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, January 4-7, 2017, San Francisco, CA American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 5-8, 2017, Denver, CO Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, January 5-8, 2017, Austin, TX American Economic Association Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2017, Chicago, IL AERA Centennial Lecture: Bridget Terry LongĀ – Supporting College Student Access and Success, January 11, 2017, Los Angeles, CA Society for Social Work and Research Annual Meeting, January 11-15, 2017, San Francisco, CA Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, January 12-14, 2017, New Orleans, LA Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention, January 19-21, 2017, San…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 35 Issue 22
Featured News Congress Returns for Lame Duck Session, Begins Organizing COSSA in Action COSSA Letter to Conferees Advocates Funding for NSF, NIJ, BJS, and Census Federal Agency & Administration News President-Elect Trump Begins Transition; Many Questions Remain for Science Cancer Moonshot Task Force Report Released EPA Seeks Research on āBehavioral Driversā of Significant Carbon Reduction IRS Statistical Agency Accepting Research Proposals National Library of Medicine Seeks Input into Strategic Plan NIGMS Analyzes RFI Response on Modernizing Biomedical Graduate Education NIH Seeks Input on Data Management, Sharing, and Citation Publications & Community Events Lawmakers and Advocates Urge Congress to Complete its…
Congress Returns for Lame Duck Session, Begins Organizing
Congress returns to Washington this week for the first time since last weekās historic elections. Lawmakers are returning to a new reality that many did not see coming, with the election of Donald Trump as the next President and the Republicans maintaining a stronghold in both chambers of Congress. Following the elections, Republicans maintain a narrowed majority in the House and Senate. The Senate margins sit at 51 Republicans to 48 Democrats, with a run-off race in Louisiana scheduled for December. In addition, and as expected, Republicans held onto control of the House, with 239 Republicans to 193 Democrats, though…