The Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) wants to make you aware of the new requirement when submitting grants for research to the Department of Energy (DoE). See details below. 

Everyone has a Role to Play in Making Science More Equitable and Inclusive 

• Beginning in FY 2023, the Office of Science is adding a new requirement to our solicitation processes: applicants must now submit a plan for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research, or PIER Plan, along with their research proposals.
• Beginning in FY 2023, proposals requesting funding to support a conference will require that the host organization of the conference have an established code of conduct or policy in place that addresses discrimination, harassment, bullying, and other exclusionary practices. It must also include processes for reporting and addressing complaints. Applicants will also be required to submit a recruitment and accessibility plan for speakers and attendees. This plan will need to include discussion of the recruitment of individuals from groups historically minoritized in the research community.

The Office of Science will be holding a community webinar on October 17th at 2pm ET to review the new PIER requirements. Register to join: https://science-doe.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_1Z2feF1jSgKdL9d4Y7ZKFA

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science is pleased to announce that the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is now accepting applications for the 2022 Solicitation 2 cycle. Applications are due 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.

SCGSR application assistance workshops will be held on September 19, 2022 and October 20, 2022. The first workshop will provide a general overview of the program; register here.

Engineering discoveries and advances have the power to make transformational positive impacts on society. For decades, the U.S. National Science Foundation has been a steadfast supporter of research centers that integrate engineering with other disciplines, foster partnerships and champion innovation to create value and address national needs.

NSF announces the launch of four new Engineering Research Centers with an investment of $104 million over five years. The centers will transform technology for sustainable solutions that will impact agriculture, manufacturing, health and urban planning.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has selected James L. Moore III to head the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, or EHR, which supports research that enhances learning and teaching, and broad efforts to achieve excellence in STEM education at all levels and in all settings.

Since 2018, Moore has been vice provost for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at The Ohio State University. In this role, he has managed a robust diversity and inclusion portfolio, serving more than 6,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and a myriad of faculty, postdocs, and staff throughout the university. Simultaneously, he served as the first executive director of the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male and is a Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the College of Education and Human Ecology.

DOE's Office of Science Expands Program for Faculty Historically Underrepresented in STEM Research

Applications are currently being accepted for the Spring 2023 term of the DOE Office of Science’s Visiting Faculty Program (VFP)

• As part of Office of Science’s RENEW initiative, the program is expanding to offer extended opportunities for faculty to engage in research and build collaborations at the National Laboratories
• This opportunity will strengthen partnerships between DOE national laboratories and two-year colleges, minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and other colleges and universities nationwide
• VFP seeks to increase the research competitiveness of faculty members and their students at institutions historically underrepresented in STEM to expand the workforce vital to DOE mission areas
• As such, VFP especially attracts faculty members from MSIs, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
• Typically, about 50% of the participants are from MSIs, one-third of which are HBCUs. Selected college and university faculty members collaborate with DOE laboratory scientific research staff on research projects of mutual interest.  Each participating faculty member may invite one or two students (one of whom may be a graduate student) to join the research team during a summer term
• The program will focus on faculty only in non-summer terms
• The application deadline is October 5, 2022

Read more at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Since its inception, the Day One Talent Hub has been working to create pathways for scientists, technologists, and talented policy entrepreneurs to enter the federal government to work on the Administration’s most pressing policy priorities. Today, we’re thrilled to announce two new Impact Fellowships for S&T experts seeking to advance smart policy: the Energy Innovation Fellowship at the Department of Energy and the Education Data Science Fellowship at the Department of Education.

Impact Fellows in these two cohorts will join the Day One Project for a three-month-long fellowship before a year-long assignment at their respective federal agencies. The fellowship will prepare Impact Fellows for success in the federal government, offering tools to become better policymakers and providing opportunities to expand professional networks.

Applications for both Impact Fellowship Cohorts are now open and will close on September 28th at 11:59 PM ET. If you or anyone in your network is interested in joining an Impact Fellowship Cohort, please visit our website for more information or contact [email protected] with any questions.

Emily Hammond, a speaker at the May 2021 Leadership Workshop, has been named  Deputy General Counsel for Litigation and Enforcement, Office of General Counsel at  the U.S. Department of Energy.

Emily previously served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the George Washington University, specializing in administrative law, energy law, and environmental law

See Emily's profile at DOE.

NASA is best known for exploring other worlds, whether that’s sending astronauts to the Moon or flying helicopters on Mars. But under US President Joe Biden, the space agency intends to boost its reputation as a major player in studying Earth — especially with an eye towards fighting climate change.

Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and the agency’s new climate adviser, as well as the Keynote speaker at CSSP's recent Spring Leadership Workshop says, “If you’re going to make policy related to scientific questions, you need to have science at the table."

Read more at Nature.

The National Science Board (Board) requests your assistance in the nomination process for candidates for the eight Board positions that will become vacant on May 10, 2022.

The Board was established by Congress in 1950 and has two important roles. It provides oversight for, and establishes the policies of, the National Science Foundation. It also serves as an independent body of advisors to both the President and Congress on broad national policy issues related to science and engineering research and education. More information on the Board and its current membership can be found at https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/index.jsp.   

The 24 Board Members are appointed by the President for 6-year terms, with one-third of the membership renewed every 2 years. The Board is responsible for assembling and transmitting recommendations to the White House for appointments from various scientific, engineering, and educational organizations and societies. Candidates are submitted via the nominations portal. No log-in is required.

NSB’s Vision 2030 emphasizes the urgent need for greater participation of women and other underrepresented groups in the U.S. science and engineering enterprise and ensuring that research benefits reach all Americans. Last week, the National Science Board (NSB) passed two resolutions to advance both goals.  One resolution aims to address unconscious biases and improve the preparedness of proposal reviewers. The second seeks to increase the potential of proposals’ Broader Impacts (BI) to benefit society.

“The Board is committed to working with NSF to find new ways to advance our shared goals that are essential to building America’s workforce and ensuring its innovation leadership. These two resolutions are an important step,” said NSB Chair Ellen Ochoa. “We trust in Director Panchanathan and his creative staff to find the best way to implement the policies we outline in the resolutions and look forward to getting an update on their impact.”

Both resolutions require an evaluation and report back to the NSB within 12 months.

The Council of Scientific Society Presidents has been made aware of an opportunity from the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) that we are pleased to be able to share. Scientific societies are in a unique position to be able to lead change that will expand and enhance the structure and culture of science networks.

CSSP is pleased to share this important opportunity with our community.

A letter to U.S. political leaders calling for quadrupling training & research budgets of agencies that fund science, written by Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) Executive Board members Dr. Martin Apple, President Emeritus and Research & Development director and Dr. John A. Downing, Professor of Biology and Director of the Minnesota Sea Grant College Program at the University of Minnesota (Duluth & St. Paul), was published by The Hill.

By supporting the Double Down on Federal Science Spending the future of science and the strategic role the federal investment in science plays will increase scientific tools and talent in the U.S. Join CSSP in calling on your political leaders to put redoubling science investment on their 2021 wish list.

The Science and Technology Action Committee is seeking endorsements from organizations for the Science & Technology Action Plan that has been developed. The plan includes recommendations for ways to invest in ourselves, and our country to drive the innovation and change that can serve our nation and our planet.

The U.S. science and technology (S&T) enterprise is highly innovative and productive and federally centralized efforts will allow for better and quicker response to challenges at the scope and scale to increase research, development and education.

Invitation to STAS 20: Celebrating 20 Years of the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary

The Science & Technology Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State

Dr. Mung Chiang

invites you to attend a virtual panel discussion on the past, present, and future of science and technology in U.S. foreign policy, in celebration of the 20^thanniversary of the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary.

Vote Science Strong is a national, non-partisan campaign to provide those who care about science, research and innovation with the tools to engage candidates running for Congress and President. Research!America along with partners, AAAS, AGU and Sigma XI have put together resources to make it easy to get involved. You can link to information about candidate tele-town halls and sample questions, sample social media posts, voting information and more. Get involved today to send a science strong message to your candidates and help to ensure our nation's policies and investments align with a science strong future.

To learn more, check out: https://www.researchamerica.org/vote-science-strong

This webinar, co-organised by STM, CHORUS and the Center for Open Science, is part of a series organized in the context of STM’s Research Data Year presenting speakers from a variety of stakeholder groups sharing the same goal: making research data more Open and FAIR. For recordings of earlier webinars, click here.

In this webinar, Dr. Robert J. Hanisch will present NIST's initiative to create a Research Data Framework in the US with the aim of improving research integrity, cost and efficiency, risk management, and amplifying scientific discovery and innovation. The initiative is based on the demonstrated success of the “Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity” which NIST initially issued in February 2014.

Dr. Hanisch’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion on the merits of this effort in the context of making research data more Open and FAIR, consisting of:

Our August CSSP Chat on Ensuring Diversity and Equity in STEM, led by Dr. Beronda Montogmery, brought to light many valuable ideas and thought processes around these issues. Introducing the idea gatekeeping or groundskeeping prompted lively discussion on ways to expand diversity through the cultivation and enactment of leadership philosophies and progressive vision rather than just looking at "skills and tactics." More information about this philosophy can be found in Dr. Montgomery's paper on "Academic Leadership: Gatekeeping or Groundskeeping?" published in the Journal of Values Based Leadership.

This timely conversation also included thoughts for ways in which to communicate how each society presents their culture to both current and future members. Included in those thoughts were:

• Evaluating your society on its three “R’s” – Representation, Reputation, Resources
• Easy to embrace definitions - Diversity: being invited to the party. Inclusion: being asked to dance.
• When considering diversity within your society, it's important to look beyond just the "numbers" and look to the practices and experiences that are lived and espoused as well.
• Consideration for the language used when talking about these issues can also have a strong impact. An article on rethinking underrepresented language helps to see the influence that the language we use has on the way we see and are seen.
• How and what to include in surveys to aid in garnering greater and more honest participation from members.

The CSSP Chats create an opportunity to talk with other leaders of science societies about the challenges and goals being faced by all, and to hear and share experiences for how they have been and are being addressed - including successes and failures. Our next Chat will be on the topic of Managing Personal Transitions: Leadership Skills and your next job and will be presented on Thursday, September 17th at 12:30 pm ET.

Please submit your organization’s “signature” and contributions by COB on Tuesday, September 1. See below:

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) are leading a group of scientific societies in compiling a list of specific examples of how scientific societies advance the scientific enterprise and the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic to share with the NSF COVID-19 taskforce. They are asking for help with two items:

If your organization would like to sign the letter, please do so by filling out this form.

Chairwoman Johnson Requests National Academies Study on the Influence of Systemic Racism in Academia

The American Physiological Society (APS) is asking you to join them in signing onto a community letter to House Science Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson supporting her call for a National Academies study on the influence of systemic racism in academia.

The events of the last few months have brought renewed attention to the persistent problem of racism in our society. The sciences are not immune from this systemic problem, and indeed, demographic analysis of the scientific workforce confirms a lack of racial and ethnic diversity at all levels.

In late July, Chairwoman Johnson sent a letter to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) asking for a study on the influence of systemic racism in academia. Her letter specifically calls for the study to examine “the extent to and ways in which systemic racism in research learning environments influences the recruitment, retention, and advancement of historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups pursuing scientific, engineering, technical, and medical careers.” She further calls for “identification and analysis of promising policies, strategies, and practices that have been the most successful in preventing and addressing systemic racism in these settings.”