Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

Today marks a global milestone—10 years of human presence aboard the International Space Station (ISS). In addition to the 10-year achievement, last week saw the ISS become the longest continuously inhabited spacecraft by exceeding the Mir space station’s record of 3,644 days.

OSTP Director John P. Holdren spends the day with an estimated half-a-million visitors at the USA Science and Engineering Festival on the National Mall.

President Obama is the first to recognize that not all good ideas come from adults, and that’s why for the second year in a row he offered his personal congratulations to the winners of a challenge organized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

An American chemist, and a Japanese chemist who has lived and worked in the United States for the past 50 years, were among those named today as winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Hillary Chen gives well-deserved congratulations and recognition to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for being the first in the world to share patents with the newly established Medicines Patent Pool.

Applications for the spring 2011 OSTP Student Volunteer Program will be accepted through Friday, October 8. Whether your interests are in energy and the environment, science and engineering education, national security, information technology, biotechnology, or any of the other policy domains that OSTP is active in—or even if you are just a generalist with enthusiasm for any topic—there may be a spot here at OSTP for you this spring. Apply today!

U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra writes about tomorrow's highly anticipated awards ceremony for the “Apps for Healthy Kids” challenge, where the winners of $60,000 in prizes will be announced for newly created digital games and apps that best empower and inspire kids to eat healthy and get moving.

The National Ocean Council looks to move forward on the recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.

Today at 10:30 a.m., OSTP Director John P. Holdren will participate in a session at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The panel, Clean Technology and Smart Energy: Deploying the Green Economy, will be live streamed on OSTP's blog, as well as the CGI website.

In an expansion of the groundbreaking science diplomacy program that grew out of President Obama’s “New Beginnings” speech in Cairo last year, the State Department has released the names of three new U.S. Science Envoys.

In a new video, members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reflect on the teachers who inspired them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

OSTP today delivered a key report to Congress outlining a strategic approach to enhancing our capacity to observe our home planet and its interconnected atmospheric, geologic, and environmental systems. The report, Achieving and Sustaining Earth Observations: A Preliminary Plan Based on a Strategic Assessment by the U.S. Group on Earth Observations, illustrates how the President’s FY 2011 budget enables a reversal of the decline of our Nation’s Earth observation infrastructure—an infrastructure that is critical to protecting life, property, natural resources and ecosystems, and national security.

Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship is one of President Obama’s top priorities. His national innovation strategy identifies three critical roles for government: investing in the building blocks of long-term economic growth, such as research and human capital; creating the right environment to encourage private sector investment; and harnessing innovation to address national priorities such as clean energy and a more efficient healthcare system.

Deputy Director for Policy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Tom Kalil introduces Challenge.gov, a new platform for citizens to share novel solutions, compete for prizes and prestige, and advance our national priorities.