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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • Meet a PIF: Henry Wei

    Posted by John Paul Farmer on February 26, 2013 at 7:00 PM EDT

    “My initial impression of the other PIFs was ‘holy cow, these folks can get things done like you wouldn't believe.’”

    The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate during focused “tours of duty” on solutions that can deliver game-changing results within just six months. This "Meet a PIF" series features members of the first class of PIFs.

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  • Taking Action for a Stronger, Smarter, Cleaner Electric Grid

    Posted by Nick Sinai and Rick Duke on February 26, 2013 at 9:25 AM EDT

    Today, the Obama Administration’s National Science and Technology Council released A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid: A Progress Report—an update highlighting the Administration’s most recent achievements to make the Nation’s electric grid stronger, smarter, and cleaner than ever before.

    In his State of the Union address this month, President Obama recognized that “no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy.” As part of his plan to grow the economy and create middle class jobs, the President called for continued investment in infrastructure, including “self-healing power grids.” In the same address, he also warned against ignoring the “overwhelming judgment of science” that the threat of climate change is real and demands attention. These two calls to action—each independently important to our country’s future—intersect at the Nation’s electric system.

    To date, the Obama Administration has taken a number of important steps to help the Nation prevent and recover quickly from power outages, including by working closely with industry partners to upgrade the electric system with “smart grid” technologies that can detect and prevent outages, improve system efficiency, and better integrate clean energy sources. While we’ve come a long way, recent extreme weather events have reinforced the reality that our work is not done. Many Americans suffered power loss during the spate of strong storms, droughts, and record high temperatures of the past year—all of which, to varying degrees, threatened the operation of the Nation’s electric grid. We can do better.

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  • Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research

    Posted by Michael Stebbins on February 22, 2013 at 1:04 PM EDT

    The Obama Administration is committed to the proposition that citizens deserve easy access to the results of scientific research their tax dollars have paid for. That’s why, in a policy memorandum released today, OSTP Director John Holdren has directed Federal agencies with more than $100M in R&D expenditures to develop plans to make the published results of federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication and requiring researchers to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research. OSTP has been looking into this issue for some time, soliciting broad public input on multiple occasions and convening an interagency working group to develop a policy. The final policy reflects substantial inputs from scientists and scientific organizations, publishers, members of Congress, and other members of the public—over 65 thousand of whom recently signed a We the People petition asking for expanded public access to the results of taxpayer-funded research.

    To see the new policy memorandum, please visit: http://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pdf

    To see Dr. Holdren’s response to the We the People petition, please visit: https://petitions.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/response/increasing-public-access-results-scientific-research

    Michael Stebbins is Assistant Director for Biotechnology at OSTP

  • Proposed Policy Targets Dual Use Research of Concern

    Posted by Franca Jones on February 21, 2013 at 10:25 AM EDT

    OSTP today released for public review and comment a proposed policy aimed at maximizing the benefits of life sciences research while minimizing the odds that the results of such research will be misused.  The proposed policy, posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Science Safety Security (S3) Website, was crafted collaboratively by several Federal agencies and is now open for public comment for 60 days.

    The proposed policy responds to concerns that some important and otherwise beneficial avenues of life science research have the potential to generate information or capacities that, in the wrong hands, could be misused for harmful purposes.   

    Specifically, the newly proposed policy focuses on the very small fraction of studies with the highest risk of potential misuse, known as dual use research of concern (DURC).  For oversight purposes, DURC is defined as “Life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products or technology that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel or national security.”

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  • Working Together to Understand and Predict Arctic Change

    Posted by Brendan P. Kelly and Simon N. Stephenson on February 19, 2013 at 2:04 PM EDT

    Today, the Administration’s National Science and Technology Council released a five-year Arctic Research Plan that outlines key areas of study the Federal government will undertake to better understand and predict environmental changes in the Arctic.  The Plan was developed by a team of experts representing 14 Federal agencies, based on input from collaborators including the Alaska Governor’s Office, indigenous Arctic communities, local organizations, and universities. Seven research areas are highlighted in the Plan as both important to the development of national policies and well-poised to benefit from interagency collaboration, including among them: regional climate models, human health studies, and adaptation tools for communities.

    Environmental changes in the Arctic—such as rapidly-melting ice on land and at sea—are not only having profound impacts on local Arctic populations but are also affecting more distant communities and businesses that depend on Arctic resources to thrive. Among an array of effects, melting land-ice contributes to rising sea levels, and will have costly implications for communities, businesses, and infrastructure located on coasts. Diminishing sea-ice changes the composition and distribution of species found in regional ocean waters and, as a result, forces communities that depend on those resources for food to alter their harvest practices and/or their diets. Waning sea ice accelerates global warming and alters circulation in the atmosphere and oceans in ways that change storm patterns in other parts of the world.  

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  • Open Call to Innovators: Apply to present at G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture

    Posted by Catherine Woteki and Nick Sinai on February 15, 2013 at 4:38 PM EDT

    This article is cross-posted on the USDA and Feed the Future blogs

    In an exciting opportunity, the G-8 is inviting innovators to apply to present ideas that demonstrate how open data can be unleashed to increase food security at the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture on April 29-30, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

    Open data is being used by innovators and entrepreneurs around the world to accelerate development, whether it be tracking election transparency in Kenya or providing essential information to rural farmers in Uganda.  The G-8 conference will convene policy makers, thought leaders, food security stakeholders, and data experts to discuss the role of public, agriculturally-relevant data in increasing food security and to build a strategy to spur innovation by making agriculture data more accessible.  As part of the conference, selected applicants will be invited to showcase  innovative uses of open data for food security in either a Lightning Presentation (a 3-5 minute, image-rich presentation on the first day of the conference) or in the Exhibit Hall (an image-rich exhibit on display throughout the two-day conference).   

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