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What’s Ahead
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| Copies of the president’s budget request for fiscal year 2021. (Image credit – Government Publishing Office) |
Trump’s Next Budget Request Rolls Out
President Trump’s fiscal year 2021 budget request is set for release Monday afternoon and agencies will post more detailed documentation over the following hours and days. Administration sources have already previewed some research-related proposals to reporters. According to Reuters, the budget will propose to ramp up non-defense spending on artificial intelligence programs across agencies from a current level of $973 million to nearly $2 billion by 2022 and to double quantum information science funding to $860 million over the same period. This plan accords with proposals in the Senate’s pending Industries of the Future Act. According to Axios, the request is expected to propose a 19% increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which will include investments in “new scientific tools” related to the modernization of the U.S. nuclear stockpile as well as maintenance and upgrades to the agency’s infrastructure. However, Politico reports the budget will propose an 8% cut to the Department of Energy topline and around a 5% cut to overall non-defense spending across the government. NASA is expected to be one of the few non-defense agencies favored in the budget. The Wall Street Journal reports the agency plans to request a 12% increase, with most of the funds going to development of crewed lunar landing systems. Detailed figures for science agencies will be aggregated in FYI’s Federal Science Budget Tracker as they become available.
Scientists Converge in Seattle for AAAS Annual Meeting
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual meeting Thursday through Sunday in Seattle, Washington. Microsoft founder Bill Gates will deliver a plenary lecture as will the company’s general manager of quantum systems Krysta Svore. In addition, Wired journalist Maryn McKenna will speak on challenges in the use of antibiotics and Social Sciences Research Council President Alondra Nelson will discuss the need for a “new bioethics.” Among the town hall sessions is a panel on the tensions between national security and open scientific research that will feature White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier. The Engaging Scientists and Engineers in Policy Coalition has assembled a schedule of other science policy events taking place at the meeting, which include an evening networking mixer and “shindig.” AIP has also organized a session to discuss the final report of its National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Physics in Astronomy.
Lawmakers Taking Broad Look at Space Hazards
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday focused on the dangers posed by near-Earth objects, space weather, spacecraft collisions, and orbital debris. The panel will hear testimony from Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate; William Murtagh, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, who testified to Congress on the topic late last year; Kevin O’Connell, director of the Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commerce; and Moriba Jah, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Texas who has spoken about crowdsourcing space traffic monitoring. Also this week, the House Science Committee is holding a hearing specifically on “space situational awareness.” Both committees have advanced NASA policy bills this Congress that contain provisions focused on such hazards. For instance, the Senate bill would direct the White House to assess ways NASA and other agencies could better support “missions of national need.” It explains, “while certain space missions, such as asteroid detection or space debris mitigation missions, may not provide the highest-value science, as determined by the National Academies decadal surveys, such missions provide tremendous value to the United States and the world.”
Bundle of Energy R&D Bills Up for Review in House
Study of US Leadership in Science and Technology Continues
A National Academies committee charged with examining challenges to U.S. global leadership in science and innovation will hold its third meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. The meeting will feature expert panels on the U.S. manufacturing and industrial base as well as the nation’s standing in four “key S&T fields”: artificial intelligence and machine learning, computing devices, clean energy, and synthetic and engineering biology. In addition, President Obama’s science adviser John Holdren will present on international science and technology agreements, while weapons of mass destruction expert Gerald Epstein will discuss export, investment, and classification controls for technologies. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has become a frequent adviser to the U.S. government on innovation issues, will also address the committee.
NIST Lab Leaders to Sketch Out Priorities
On Wednesday, the primary advisory committee for the National Institute of Standards and Technology will hear a series of presentations on current priorities of the agency’s laboratory and manufacturing programs. James Kushmerick, who recently became director of NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory, will update the committee on the nascent Quantum Economic Development Consortium and the agency’s quantum standards work. Other presentations will cover programs in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, the “bioeconomy,” and advanced manufacturing.
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In Case You Missed It
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| FBI Director Christopher Wray. (Image credit – FBI) |
Justice Department Details Scientist Prosecution Strategy
At a conference last week, top Justice Department officials discussed the increasing pace of prosecutions under the department’s “China Initiative,” which aims to blunt efforts by the Chinese government to influence and exploit the U.S. research system. U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, who indicted Harvard University Chemistry Department Chair Charles Lieber last month, predicted there would be a “spike” in cases this year as the department seeks to “sensitize” researchers in academia and industry to the problem. Lelling acknowledged the prosecutions would likely have a “chilling effect” on scientific collaborations, but he argued the approach is warranted given that the Chinese government has “launched a massive nationwide effort to pilfer U.S. technology and know-how.” Speaking about the government’s broader approach, FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined efforts to raise awareness about risks posed by the Chinese government, such as a summit the FBI held with university leaders last fall. Meanwhile, critics of the department’s initiative have said the prosecutions are heavy-handed. Peter Zeidenberg, a lawyer representing more than a dozen scientists under investigation, told the New York Times that few cases have alleged inappropriate technology transfers and are focused instead on nondisclosure of foreign research support. “Until very recently, nobody paid any attention [to the disclosure forms]. Now they’re cracking the whip and they’re treating these people like felons,” he said.
White House Outlines Vision for ‘Quantum Internet’
Last week, the White House National Quantum Coordination Office published a “strategic vision” for U.S. R&D efforts in quantum networking, which entails methods for transporting quantum information through optical communication infrastructure. The document outlines two overarching goals and six priority R&D areas, anticipating that the U.S. will ultimately construct a “quantum internet.” The first goal, to be pursued over five years, is to “demonstrate the foundational science and key technologies to enable quantum networks, from quantum interconnects, quantum repeaters, and quantum memories to high-throughput quantum channels and exploration of space-based entanglement distribution across intercontinental distances.” The second, which has a 20 year horizon, is to “leverage networked quantum devices to enable new capabilities not possible with classical technology, while advancing our understanding of the role entanglement plays.”
Science Committee Delves Into DOE Renewables Office Management
Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Director Daniel Simmons appeared at a House Science Committee hearing on Feb. 5 to explain the office’s understaffing and carryover of $820 million in unspent fiscal year 2019 funds. Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chair Bill Foster (D-IL) also specifically suggested political officials had circumvented career staff by cancelling, rewriting, and reissuing a solar energy research grant, as described in a committee staff report. Republican committee members disagreed that there is evidence of political interference, with Subcommittee Ranking Member Ralph Norman (R-SC) saying the carryover of funds is common and that political appointees are entitled to review grants. Simmons attributed the spending delays to the length of the grantmaking process. He also expressed frustration with federal hiring processes and testified that his staff size has remained at 550 full time equivalents despite recruitment efforts over the past year. In its fiscal year 2020 appropriation, Congress has directed EERE to increase its staff size to 675 to 700 full time equivalents by the end of September.
Lawmakers Look to Improve Small Business R&D Programs
The House Science Committee held a hearing last week to discuss potential modifications to the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. In her opening statement, Research and Technology Subcommittee Chair Haley Stevens (D-MI) discussed pending legislation she is sponsoring that would direct the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and NASA to adopt a “phase zero” pilot program currently in place at the National Institutes of Health that funds entrepreneurial training and the identification of research concepts with commercial potential. The bill would also direct agencies to prioritize projects related to manufacturing and cybersecurity. Separately, the House Small Business Committee has shown interest in updating the programs in recent years and is holding a hearing Tuesday on the “innovation pipeline from universities to small businesses.”
State of the Union Speech Pushes Technical Education, Artemis
President Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 4 briefly touched on issues in education, medical research, and space exploration. He mentioned a plan to offer vocational and technical education in “every single high school in America” and alluded to recently enacted legislation that made permanent a $255 million funding stream for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He praised funding for “new cures for childhood cancer” and efforts to eradicate AIDS in America. Trump also asked Congress to fully fund NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration program, which will require escalated funding in the coming budget cycle. He cast Artemis and follow-on Mars exploration as part of what he called America’s “manifest destiny in the stars,” invoking a term that was historically used to justify the violence of frontier settlement. Trump did not mention his administration’s focus on the “industries of the future,” a subject he briefly mentioned in last year’s State of the Union that later became a central plank of the administration’s science and technology policy.
Idea Machine Winners Chart Future NSF Directions
Last week, the National Science Foundation announced seven winners of its 2026 Idea Machine prize competition, which “encouraged individuals from all walks of life, age 14 or older, to submit pressing ‘grand challenges’ requiring fundamental research in science, engineering, or STEM education in order to inform NSF’s long-term planning.” Four of the entries won grand prizes, each worth $26,000:
- Engineered Living Materials, which “envisions a new class of materials that combine the properties of living organisms with the applications of built materials.”
- From Thinking to Inventing, which “proposes a new era of AI research, where machines could learn to model human creativity and thought processes in order to evaluate, improvise, and ultimately solve new and complex challenges.”
- Public Carbon Capture and Sequestration, a project that aims to develop new technologies for carbon capture and storage that “borrow the technology of an industrial facility and bring it to our backyard.”
- Emergence: Complexity from the Bottom Up, which aims to harness emergence, “a phenomenon that describes how simple components interact to form elaborate things,” to improve the efficiency of complex systems by mirroring nature.
Three other entries received prizes of $10,000 each:
- Unlocking the Future of Infrastructure, which seeks insights into the “development of next-generation infrastructure materials and construction systems that could lead to better infrastructure on Earth and in distant planets in the future.”
- Reinventing Scientific Talent, which seeks to empower STEM professionals at all stages in their career to continue learning.
- Theory of Conscious Experience, which asks questions at the intersections of “research on cognition, philosophical concepts, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, computational modeling, and virtual and augmented reality to study the subjective experience of consciousness.”
NSF also announced that it will accept proposal submissions for conferences and exploratory research grants on the themes that emerged in the top group of Idea Machine entries.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Standard Time and all congressional hearings are webcast, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, February 10
Tuesday, February 11
NASA: Celebrating the Legacy of the Spitzer Space Telescope (continues through Thursday) Caltech (Pasadena, CA) Webcast available Exchange Monitor: Nuclear Deterrence Summit (continues through Thursday) Alexandria, VA National Academies: “Science and Innovation Leadership for the 21st Century: Challenges and Strategic Implications for the U.S.,” meeting three (continues Wednesday) National Academy of Sciences Building (2101 Constitution Ave. NW, DC) DOD: Defense Science Board meeting (continues Wednesday) Arlington, VA NOAA: U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Advisory Committee meeting (continues Wednesday) Consortium for Ocean Leadership (1201 New York Ave. NW, DC) Webcast available UN: International Day of Women and Girls in Science Commerce Department: Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee meeting 8:45 am - 3:30 pm, Commerce Department headquarters (1401 Constitution Ave. NW, DC) Space Foundation: “The State of Space 2020" 9:00 - 11:00 am, National Press Club (529 14th St. NW, DC) House: “More Hires, Fewer Hacks: Developing the U.S. Cybersecurity Workforce” 10:00 am, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) House: “The Innovation Pipeline: From Universities to Small Businesses” 10:00 am, Small Business Committee (2360 Rayburn Office Building) House: “Space Situational Awareness: Key Issues in an Evolving Landscape” 2:00 pm, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) House: “Reviewing DOD Strategy, Policy, and Programs for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction for FY2021” 2:00 pm, Armed Services Committee (2118 Rayburn Office Building)
Wednesday, February 12
NIST: Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology meeting (continues Thursday) Gaithersburg, MD House: “Emerging Technologies and National Security: Posturing the U.S. Intelligence Community for Success” 10:00 am, Intelligence Committee (2020 Rayburn Office Building) Senate: “Space Missions of Global Importance: Planetary Defense, Space Weather Protection, and Space Situational Awareness” 10:00 am, Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee (216 Hart Office Building) House: Markup of five energy R&D bills 10:00 am, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) House: “Saving Energy: Legislation to Improve Energy Efficiency and Storage” 10:30 am, Energy and Commerce Committee (2322 Rayburn Office Building) Battery Council International: “Applications for Electrification, Grid Resiliency and Climate Change Mitigation” 1:30 - 2:30 pm, SVC-208 Capitol Visitors Center
Thursday, February 13
Friday, February 14
Saturday, February 15
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Opportunities AGU Seeking CEO
The American Geophysical Union is accepting recommendations for candidates to serve as its next Chief Executive Officer. The search committee aims to begin interviewing candidates in the spring and make its selection by summer.
S&T Policy Memo Competition Seeking Submissions
The National Science Policy Network and the Journal of Science Policy and Governance have launched their second annual policy memo writing competition for teams of early career scientists. The top three teams will receive monetary awards to support science policy activities. Submissions are due April 1.
APLU Seeking Program Associate
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is accepting applications for a part-time associate for its Innovation and Economic Prosperity Program. Preference will be given to individuals with an interest in university-based economic development who submit applications before Feb. 14.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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