Greenberg on U.S. Science Policy

“The answer to the question of how the U.S. manages its great scientific resources and potential,” wrote Dan Greenberg this week at the Chronicle’s Brainstorm blog, “is that it doesn’t.” Some government agencies have a habit of carrying on established programs even when those programs, like the International Space Station, deliver few benefits in comparison to their enormous costs, he suggests. Government agencies have also lacked the foresight to invest in energy research during the period of time when oil prices have been low. But the temptation to maintain the status quo of the past and to be lazy in the presence of cheap energy are just two of the factors that contribute to the disorderedness of U.S. science and technology policy. Greenberg also explains how the drive to invest in glamorous genetic research—rather than psychological research with well-known benefits—undermines health outcomes, and how the power-hungry politics of competing Congressional committees undermines effective policymaking.

There’s also the fact that the voice of science has become little more than a whimper in the White House, as Greenberg describes:

The executive branch is well equipped with scientific advisory organizations. At the very top, there’s the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, whose director serves as the president’s science adviser. There’s also the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, whose members are mainly drawn from academe and industry. Neither of these organizations is remotely close to the White House inner circle. And the president’s science adviser, John Marburger, though one of the longest-serving Bush appointees, is a barely visible presence in Washington.

The Federal government has a responsibility to support scientific and technological research, and the President must lead the way. As Tom Kalil explained in a recent Science Progress column, the current lack of Administration and Congressional support is unacceptable. “It is critical,” he argues, “that the next president make science, technology, and innovation a top priority. America’s future economic prosperity depends upon it.”

Tags: funding, Innovation

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